Sophia’s feast

She’s been around since the beginning of time. In the Kabbalah tradition, She is celebrated as the female expression of God. She appears in the Septuagint - the Greek translation of the Bible - as the name Sophia, which replaces the word chochma, the Hebrew word for wisdom.

In the book of Proverbs, Sophia sets a table and prepares a meal for us. But not just any meal. Not a meal like her counterpart, Folly (kesilut), who gives a meager offering of bread and water. Sophia doesn’t serve mere prison food. She doesn’t just throw a protein shake in a blender before throwing us back in the hamster wheel of life.

No…

The table that Sophia sets is carefully crafted to tempt us to take off our shoes, unbutton our pants, dig in, drink up, and stay awhile.

Like the meal that Babette prepares in the epic 80s film, Babette’s Feast¹, she pulls out all the stops and puts everything she’s got into it. Her meal doesn’t just provide sustenance, but communion. Old hatchets are buried beneath the meats, breads, herbs, and pastries she has harvested, gathered, and prepared. Hardened, frozen hearts are softened and thawed in the warmth of the wine that flows from her endless carafe of the finest vintage you can find.

It’s been said that Jesus carried a male body filled with the female Spirit of Sophia. It is this same Spirit that calls us to Christ’s table today.

Though the pull towards the bitter fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is strong, it provides empty calories of toxic rationality compared to the fleshy and earthy Wisdom we eat and drink from the body and blood of Life Herself. Her wisdom is one where heart and mind are integrated. It is beyond rational.

This is Sophia. This is Wisdom. You are invited to the feast.

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