The Woman Who Leads
by Pastor Suzy Todd
September 28, 2025
SCRIPTURE:
Proverbs 31:10-3131
Based on the series “Uncommon Wisdom” by UMC Discipleship Ministries
Welcome back to Worship at Dearborn First United Methodist Church!
I am Pastor Suzy Todd. Last week we left the building.
We went out into the community and lived the Gospel. We cleaned up the Rouge River Trail. We visted folks in the community who struggle to leave their homes due to disabilities. We wrote cards to deployed soldiers and notes for the lunches of unhoused people in Detroit’s NOAH project. Which, keep your eyes open because we’ll be making lunches for those same folks on October 22, a Wednesday night. We’ll need your help!
There were as many people in active ministry from this congregation last Sunday morning as there are in worship on a typical Sunday - 100% participation!
I love worshipping with you all and I enjoy teaching and learning about God through study. But Christianity is more than that. Jesus’ life shows us that faith is more than time in the temple. The Good News of Jesus is that the Kingdom of God is near. And being faithful to that means working with the Holy Spirit to co-create that Kingdom. It means getting our hands dirty and our hearts broken while offering God’s redemption to the world.
This requires we spend more time out among God’s people than in here learning about and celebrating it. So, I’m glad to have you here for this hour or so…but I hope you’re using tenfold this time and energy living your faith outside these doors.
Today we continue our Series Uncommon Wisdom with a closer look at the book of Proverbs.
Most scholars agree it is a book to instruct young men coming up in the court of royalty or nobility. It’s the combined wisdom of about 300 years of men who had learned how to operate wisely in that world from about 1000 years to 700 years BCE. The books introduction runs for the first 9 chapters and ends with this:
The foolish woman is loud; she is ignorant and knows nothing. She sits at the door of her house, on a seat at the high places of the town, calling to those who pass by, who are going straight on their way, “You who are simple, turn in here!” and to those without sense she says, Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.” But they do not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.
Doesn’t she sound like fun? This foolish woman sitting at her door calling out to people - Hey, if you’re not very smart, come here. The forbidden things are the most satisfying!
And the book ends with:
A woman of strenght who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not harm all the days of her life.
It then goes on for 20 more verses to list all the great things this woman will bring to a marriage: trustworthiness, prosperity, dignity, kindness. . .
A woman of strength
In other translations she’s a competent wife, a good woman, or a wife of noble character. Whichever you choose, she’s clearly a better choice than the foolish woman from chapter 9. Which is the point.
The authors of this book know the teenage boys using this textbook, preparing for noble life, are going to face a constant barrage of opportunities to choose between right and wrong. They want to make sure these boys know our choices become our life partners.
And what better way to drive home the point to a group of straight, privileged, teenage boys? Lady Folly calls with a sweet voice but leads to death. Lady Wisdom looks like less fun but leads to life abundant.
Choose Wisely
Brookended by Lady Folly who is ignorant and enticing, and Lady Wisdom who is trustworthy and industrious are 21 chapters of instruction and sayings to lead these young men toward Lady Wisdom.
But Proverbs is not a book of rules, In fact, if you try to read it as rules you will discover there are contradictions. The most obvious, because they’re right next to each other is:
Do not answer fools according to their folly, lest you be a fool yourself. Answer fools according to their folly, lest they be wise in their own eyes.
To be completely transpartent, this is one place Iwish there was more clarity! Fools abound - especially on the internet!
Sometimes I really want to jump into the comment section of a news article when someone is spouting off nonsense. Sometimes I really want to offer a counterpoint to some pompous Facebook post. But I’m never quite sure if I should. I wish Proverbs would just tell me: do it or don’t do it!
But Proverbs is not a rule book. It’s a book of wisdom.
Wisdom is not the ability to look up a rule in a book and follow it. That’s obedience or legalism or even resourcefulness. Wisdom guides our discernment so we can accurately assess what is needed in a particular circumstance.
Intellect is knowing the counterpoint to the Facebook post. Wisdom is knowing whether responding is going to open the other person’s eyes or merely make us look foolish too.
Unfortunately, it’s not usually as obvious as we’d like. There are very few situations where one option is as flagrantly obvious as a temptress in a doorway calling out, “turn in here” to warn us away.
So, we just make our best guess. We choose a direction; and we take a step.
Oftentimes it’s not clear in that first decision, whether we’re headed in the right direction.
On a trip to Israel, I remember being in the Old City of Jerusalem
In case you don’t know, I tend to be a wanderer. I am not afraid of getting lost and this is especially true in an old walled city like Jerusalem. I can always find my way to a gate, step outside the walls, walk the perimeter and get back to a place that I am familiar with. So, I tend to wander and see the things that are not included in the guidebooks.
This is a pretty typical street in the Old City. They were built for pedestrians only. Most are as narrow as a city sidewalk and include steps. Often houses and shops co-exist onboth sides. Sometimes the streets are even covered by apartments or offices above. They aren’t typically in a grid pattern like our “mile roads” nor like the spoke pattern that we see radiating out of Detroit’s city center. Wandering is fun because I never know what I’ll see or where I’ll end up.
One evening as I was wandering, I found myself on a street that had very little of interest. It was more like an alley where people and shops put out their garbage. It literally stunk. So, I made a left expecting it to take me through to another, hopefully more interesting street. As I got to the top of the dozen or so steps, I realized that the street flattened and veered left. I paused and wondered if I should go back but decided I might as well find out where this road led. So, I walked to the end of that road which was just as barren as the road I’d left. I saw another staircase on my right. At this point I assumed I was closer to the next street than the old street. I assumed that at the top of these stairs, there would be some steps down toward a new street. So, I decided to go ahead and ascend it.
At the top was a dead end… on someone’s front porch… at their front door… and the door was open. And the kids watching tv just stared at me.
Sometimes we don’t know where those little decisions are going to lead us – until we get there.
The small decisions we make in life add up. They lead us down a path, and the further down the path we travel the harder it becomes to change course. In economics it’s called the Sunk Cost Fallacy. I think it’s more about ego. We prefer to keep doing things that are clearly not beneficial, rather than admit we made a mistake.
We certainly see this in contemporary political discourse where it seems facts don’t matter.
The book of Proverbs was written in hopes it would help young men choose wisely from the beginning.
It says those who cross the threshold of Lady Folly’s home “are in the depths of Sheol.” Sheol is the land of the dead. Have you been there? Many of us make a decision or a series of decisions that lead us to some type of death: death of a career, death of a relationship, death of trust, death of hope. There are all kinds of deaths that we can wander into.
Perhaps you have chosen life with Lady Wisdom. Proverbs says that doing so leads to trust and prosperity, strength and dignity and kindness. What a great life! So much better than death.
But Proverbs 31 also says that this life is more precious than jewels. I think I should point out jewels are precious because they’re rare. It is rare that someone fully and completely chooses Lady Wisdom. So, forgive yourself. Forgive each other.
And let me give you some good news.
If you have been on a path of folly. If you have lied or misled folks away from trusting you; if you have made decisions that have led to financial ruin; if you struggle to conjure up any dignity or kindness within your own heart; know that your story is not finished. You are still writing it – and you don’t have to do it alone.
Lady Wisdom calls you to a new way to live. The Holy Spirit is alive and offers new life in God through Jesus Christ. The people of faith invite you to follow in their footsteps. Your story isn’t over yet.
We all split our decisions between folly and wisdom. We all have spaces of great beauty and spaces of deep death. We get to choose today whether we’ll take one more step in folly or one more step in wisdom.
intoxication or sobriety today?
honesty or deception today?
cruelty or kindness today?
dignity or shame today?
A step toward health and wholeness today, makes choosing it easier tomorrow. When you choose it for two days, it makes the third day easier. And before you know it, you’re on an entirely new path.
This is true. But it’s not easy.
Whether we need a complete reversal of course or just a slight adjustment of our compass point, we will have to admit we’ve made mistakes. We’ll have to admit we’ve hurt ourselves and others. And it will take work to repair the damage we’ve done. In the end, the people we’ve hurt may not forgive us. If they forgive us, they may not want to reconcile with us. We can’t follow Lady Wisdom without getting our hands dirty and risking getting our hearts broken.
But even there, even then, your story’s not over. It’s still being written.
God’s ability to redeem all our missteps and the messes knows no bounds.
It is likely the story we write with God will not be the story we’ve been trying to conjure. In God’s story we are neither the victim nor the hero. Instead, we are the recipient of God’s deep love and boundless grace.
Turn away from Lady Folly who entices us with sweet bread and water to be consumed in secret. Whenever and wherever we discern her, choose Lady Wisdom whom you are proud to be seen with in public. And lastly, know that through the redeeming grace of God, there is always a gate out of the dead end and back to the way of righteousness.
Amen
Intercession
Let us pray.
Fill us O God, with Your wisdom.
Grant the leaders of nations the wisdom to see the destruction in the wake of their policies.
Grant the economic titans of this world the wisdom to see folly in accumulating more while others suffer from lack
Grant employers and supervisors the wisdom to respect workers’ humanity alongside their productivity.
May it be: Signs of heaven, sighs of hope.
Fill us O God with your wisdom
Grant your healing grace to the victims of natural disasters, human violence, illness
Grant healing to: Kate, Doug M and Jim H
Let your love, steadfast and faithful, be a great sign from heaven for Rita and Larry, Kate and James, Denise and Phil
May it be: Signs of heaven, sighs of hope.
Fill us O God, with Your words and wisdom. Help us to do what is right.
Make us: Lovers of your people
Workers in your kin-dom
Bearers of your justice
Do not let us be led astray, help us to come praising Your goodness.
In the words Jesus taught us to pray:
Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever. Amen
Benediction
Go now and embrace the hope to which God has called us.
Recognize Christ in friend and stranger, and as Christ has been gracious to you, so be gracious to those in need.
