As the presidential election approaches in just about six weeks, I have spoken with many of you about a rising sense of anxiety and despair. One of the things I have noticed about the last three presidential elections is that we have kind of gotten lost – so caught up in big personalities and dramatic events that we have lost sight of one core question in elections: what do we need in a president to create a just country that reflects the priority of love.
Since I always tell our community that I do not preach politics – just Jesus – I thought I would turn to scripture this week for guidance. I started with the daily office. On Wednesday, I came across Psalm 72. The psalm begins, “Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son. May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.” “Yes,” I thought, “This is the president we need. After all this debate and controversy, this is the kind of president I want.” Then I kept reading. The more I read about this noble king, the more the king sounded a lot like Jesus. Finally, a truth seeped through – this year, as I am considering my choice for President, I have not been looking for an actual person. I have been looking for a savior; and that is not fair to any human being. Any person running for president is going to be flawed. And we already have a Savior – we do not need another one.
Then I turned to our Old Testament lesson for today: the so-called “capable woman” from Proverbs. I spent some time with this text when I was writing my thesis in seminary, so I am always drawn to this familiar text. But the more I read about this woman this time, the more inadequate I felt. She makes clothes, rises before dawn to feed her family, manages a staff, purchases a field, and plants a vineyard by herself. She in an entrepreneur, selling her wares for good money. She cares for the poor, and is a wise teacher. She does all this and is happy. As a priest, mother of two, and a wife, I feel woefully inadequate next to the capable woman. In fact, in Hebrew, the word to describe her is not really “capable” per se. The word, hayil, is a word that means much more than capable. Hayil is primarily used in the Old Testament to describe men of great power, valor, and strength. Hayil is a term for powerful warriors. In fact, this Proverbs woman and Ruth are the only women in the Old Testament to earn the title normally reserved for men. The Proverbs woman is not just capable; she is a woman of strength and power. She is a superwoman.
The challenge with these two images – the righteous king and the powerful woman – is that neither of these labels feels attainable. For women, the Proverbs woman of power is especially loaded. Many of us long to be a woman of hayil. We want to be a woman who can do everything – work outside the home, manage our finances, care for a home and family, maintain a healthy relationship with God, have power and honor in our lives. This is the challenge of the modern woman – society is opening doors for us to do everything – to work, to raise a family, to be successful. But the reality is that we either kill ourselves trying to do everything, or we feel horribly guilty for our many failures. Unlike celebrities, who seem to manage family, fame, and face with ease, we feel overwhelmed and woefully inadequate. In fact, as I was pondering preaching this text this week, I stumbled across a quote from one seminary professor. She writes, “Many of you will conclude this text is too much a minefield and steer clear, with good reason.”[i]
Of course, today is not just a sermon for the women in our community. Men often feel the same sense of being overwhelmed by trying to do everything. Forget the kingly imagery from the Psalm. There is often pressure for men to be financially stable, and if you have a family, to provide for them. There is now an expectation that men play a role in the rearing of children and doing housework, being involved in the community, and caring for the upkeep of your home. As I have read parenting magazines over the years, I have seen story after story of men trying to navigate the modern family’s expectations of playing both traditional and nontraditional male roles. And for the man and woman running for President, expecting a “just king” or a “capable woman” places incredibly unfair expectations on either candidate.
So, what do we make of this woman of hayil in Proverbs today? Like the King in Psalm 72, I wonder if the woman in Proverbs is perhaps not a particular human, but an ideal. All the practices of the woman of strength are practices that we should strive to embody – we are to be industrious, using the talents that God has given us for the good of ourselves and others. We are to work hard and to care for the poor and needy. We are to use our words wisely, and shape the next generation to love kindness and walk humbly with God. And most of all, we are to fear the Lord. Fear in this sense is not the kind of fear that cowers from God, but that holds the Lord in awe, marveling at the majesty of God, rooting our lives in that sense of wonder, gratitude, and reverent humility before the Creator.[ii] But mostly, this text is a reminder that we do not put these expectations just on presidents – these are expectations, or ways of life, for each of us.
The good news is that we do not strive for the ideal of hayil alone. Perhaps a better image for us today is not a single woman of hayil, but a community of hayil. This text from Proverbs is not inviting us to be all things to all people, but instead is inviting all men and women to consider together what the tasks of a family, church, or community are, and to consider the ways we can share in those tasks together.[iii] When we focus on only one woman, we miss that this text encourages us to think about the partnerships between men and women in the work of the community. This text is not a beautiful hymn to one human woman, but is a lesson about interdependence, partnership, and the contours of community.[iv]
That’s what excites me about Hickory Neck. We are on a journey to become a woman, a community, of hayil. I see you using your time, talent, and treasure to help in the ways that you are most gifted. I see you praying for one another, especially when one of us looks particularly overwhelmed or stressed. I see you looking beyond our doors about the way we can individually and collectively care for our neighbors in need. I see you leaning into our creativity to make a path forward in a new reality. In this moment, Hickory Neck is living as the woman of hayil.
Of course, we still have work to do – we are still accomplishing the ideal as a community. A priest friend of mine had a set of triplets in her parish. She knew that the mother could not manage all three alone – one person only has two arms! So, the priest arranged for a rocking chair in the narthex to help ease the babies’ tempers. There were older women in the congregation who, within seconds of a cry, would swoop up one of the babies and rock the child in the side aisle, without the mother having to even ask for help. There were men who caught the crawling babies under pews and returned them to their mother. And mostly, there were patient parishioners, who would focus through the cries of the children to hear the sermon without complaint. We too can offer this grace to one another. Whether there is a parent with a child who could use some help, whether there is a parishioner who needs a hand to get to the communion rail, or whether we offer prayers for someone who we notice is struggling this week, we are a community who can exemplify the holy partnership we see in scripture today. We can acknowledge that our work is best accomplished together because our shared labor expresses faith, hope, and love in ways that build us up and bring us together. We can all be that woman of hayil, that superwoman for the wider community, but only if we do the work together. Amen.
[i] Amy Oden, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-25-2/commentary-on-proverbs-3110-3, September 23, 2012, as found on September 20, 2024.
[ii] Kathleen M. O’Connor, “Exegetical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 79.
[iii] H. James Hopkins, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. B, vol. 4 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 77.
[iv] Hopkins, 79.
Seeking and Serving 