Dramatic Reading of Creator Sophia/Logos

This is a liturgical reading that my colleague the Rev. Sharon Benton and I did for Christmas 2A, when the gospel was John 1 and the OT and Apocrypha readings were a variety of Wisdom/Sophia texts.  This was inspired by a dramatic reading at the Reverend Mommy blog, which blended John 1 and Genesis 1, but we reworked it significantly to include the Sophia material.  I've been favorably impressed with the potential of a Sophia Christology for many years, even wrote a paper on it while in seminary (1989).  This reading juxtaposes much of the scriptural raw material, and I invite you to enjoy it as a narrative window into a much larger theological discussion.

A dramatic reading of Creation honoring Logos/Sophia/Christ

(Sharon): In the beginning God (beat)

(Mark): In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

(Sharon):  Ages ago I, Sophia Wisdom, was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.

Unison : In the beginning

(Sharon): (no pause) God created

Unison : the heavens and the earth.

(Mark):  Christ is the Sophia and power of God.

(Sharon):  Sophia is a breath of the power of God, a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty.

(Mark): Through the Word all things were made; without whom nothing was made that has been made.

(Sharon)  I, Sophia, came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist.  Alone I compassed the vault of heaven, and traversed the depths of the abyss.

(Mark): Now the earth was formless and empty,

(Sharon): When God established the heavens, I was there. When God drew a circle on the face of the deep, when God marked out the foundations of the earth, I was there.

(Mark): For in Christ all things in heaven and on earth, things visible and invisible, all things have been created through him and for him.

(Sharon):  Then was I beside God, like a master worker, daily God’s delight, rejoicing together always.

(Mark): Darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was

(Unison): light.

(Mark): In him was life, and that life was the light (beat)

(Sharon): light

(Mark): of humanity.

(Sharon): God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the

(Unison): (staggered/irregular) darkness.

(Mark): The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

(Sharon):  Wisdom is radiant and unfading, she is easily discerned by those who love her, and is found by those who seek her.

(Mark): God called the light "day," and the darkness God called “night.”

(Sharon):  And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

(Unison):  And God saw that it was good.

(Mark): And a second day, making land and sea, was good.

(Sharon):  The third day, spreading forth vegetation, was good.

(Mark):  The fourth day, honoring the sun and moon as God’s creations, was good. 

(Sharon):  And the fifth day, teeming with fish, birds and animals, was good.

(Mark): Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our image, in our likeness.”

(Sharon):  Sophia is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God and an image of God’s goodness.

(Mark):  Christ is the image of the invisible God

(Sharon):  In every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, for God loves nothing so much as the person who lives with Wisdom, yes, great Sophia.

(Mark):  So God created humans in God’s own image, in the image of God they were created; male and female they were created.

 (Sharon):  I rejoiced with God always, rejoicing in the inhabited world, and delighting in the human race.

(Mark): God saw all that had been made, and it was very good.

(Unison): Very good!

(Sharon):  Then the Creator of all things gave me a command, and chose a tent for me:  “My Sophia,  make your dwelling in Jacob, and in Israel receive your inheritance.”  So I took root in an honored people, in the portion of the Lord, our heritage.

(Mark): The Word became flesh and made camp among us.

(Sharon):  And Mary brought forth her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

(Mark):  And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and it divine and human favor.

(Sharon):  I grew tall like a cedar in Lebanon, like a cypress on the heights of Hermon.  Like the vine I bud forth delight, and my blossoms become abundant and glorious fruit.

(Mark):  I am the true vine, and you are the branches. Those who abide in me bear much fruit.

(Sharon):  You, that are simple, turn in here!  Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine I have mixed!

(Mark): This is my body… this is my blood.

(Sharon):  Happy is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates.  For whoever finds me finds life, and obtains favor from the Lord!

(Mark):  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

(Sharon):  She is more beautiful than the sun, and excels every constellation of the stars.

(Mark):  No one has ever seen God.  It is God, the only begotten

(Sharon): Sophia, who is close to the Most High’s heart

(Mark):  The Word, who is close to the Father’s heart

(Sharon): Jesus Christ, who has made God known.

(Unison):  In the beginning.

(Texts from Gen. 1, Prov. 8, Wisdom of Solomon 7, Sirach 24, John 1, John 15 and I Cor. 1, Col. 1)

Grace to the weak kid, even at midnight

Over the past two days, we have had a veritible storm of kids born.  At one point yesterday, I was working with a couple of newborn kids, to get them up and onto their dams udder, and at the same time watching another doe going into labor a hundred feet away.  Most of them have done fine.

But one extra small doeling had gotten away from its mom at birth, wasn't under its heatlamp, and was chilled.  Not terribly, and a half hour with the blow dryer, and she was warm enough to wake up, and after a lot of prodding, even ate a bit.  I thought all was well, but then when I went out this morning, repeat performance:  the kid was in the middle of its stall, flat on the cold ground.  I grabbed it, and at first thought it was dead, it was stiff and cold. But I heard a faint flutter of life inside!  So hurried it into the house, put it in a sink of warm water, and massaged its tiny limbs and rubbed it all over.  Eventually, it came around, and after some time wrapped in a towel on a heat register, we took it back out to its dam.  She still claimed it, but the kid was pretty dumb... wouldn't latch onto the teat, and when it did, couldn't seem to figure out how to get the end of it flowing.  After a long time, we finally got some milk into her.

But late in the day, she was acting chilled again, sleepy and wouldn't stand to nurse.  So back into the house, on the heat register for a while to rewarm.  Then back to the barn, and another long struggle to get it to eat anything.  About this time, I milked the mom a bit, figuring we might have to bottle feed her.  Took her back into the house to the heat register and then Ivan took it into the bed with him because it still wasn't acting like it was warming up.  It did rewarm, and then another jaunt to the barn to its mom -- and she finally ate pretty well.  Now she's back inside, on a towel in the bathroom, on a heat register.

  Ivan with chilled doe

So much work for one little doeling!  A commercial operation would have lost her by now; we probably would have if the weather had been like last week's below zero slam.  And so much attention lavished on the one extra small kid out of the whole bunch born in the last couple of days.  Which seems to me to be the way God works:

26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are... (I Cor. 1:26-28)

If we can pour forth attention on the tiny, weak doeling that may well not survive the next day, how much more does God pour attention on us?  And if this is the way God works, then oughtn't we pay attention to those people around us who are weak, who are vulnerable, and who we might be able to help?