A Wise Woman Speaks to the House of Representatives

A Wise Woman Speaks to the House of Representatives

As the Republicans in the House of Representatives struggle to elect a Speaker of the House, they are turning on one another with a lack of decorum and hurtful rhetoric usually reserved for Democrats. They are calling one another “crazy,” “clowns,” “delusional,” and “disgusting.” Given the many conservatives and evangelicals believe that a woman’s place is in the home taking care of the house, I venture to offer words of the Wise Woman of Proverbs to the House of Representatives.

The Eight Rebels

The eight Republicans that led the overthrow of House Speaker McCarthy remind me of a story of Jesus about a man with an unclean spirit. “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it returns, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So will it be also with this evil generation.”

While this may seem extreme, even Republicans are repulsed by the “Evil Eight.” Matt Gaetz, the leader of the “Eight Rebels” is the “man with an unclean spirit.” Here’s what members of his own party are saying about him: “Rep. Matt Gaetz is an anti-Republican who has become actively destructive to the conservative movement,” wrote Newt Gingrich. Rep. Garret Graves said Gaetz’s actions were “disgusting.”

“A diatribe of delusional thinking” describes Gaetz in the words of Rep. Mike Lawler.

Rep. Tim Burchett, one of the Republicans who voted to kick McCarthy out, even told the Post that his colleagues “cussed at and sneered at” him as a result. Gaetz and his seven supporters may perceive themselves as the “Magnificent Eight,” but their fellow Republicans think they should all be “primaried.” It’s the same as being cast out, excluded, sent into the wilderness.

Cleaning the House

Suspended in the air, waiting for the circus that now passes for the House of Representatives to end, is the question: “How can we clean up the House?” Again, the story of Jesus offers insight. If you are naïve enough to think that casting out one person will magically cleanse the house be prepared for what comes next: “Seven more evil spirits” and the state of the House is worse than before.

All of us participate in this degenerate age of politics. If this were not so, the legions of media pundits, prognosticators, predictors, doomsday prophets and forecasters would be out of a job. When it comes to what will happen, any old person’s guess is as good as the next one. Maybe this is why the economist J. K. Galbraith said, “The primary purpose of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.”

We are wasting intellectual energy trying to fool people in this country. Our power is being used for capricious, deceptive purposes. The book of Proverbs is filled with warnings about these kinds of people but we have made heroes of them. “Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” The only game in Washington is “win, baby, win, and to hell with the people.”

The Wise Woman Speaks

The Old Testament book of Proverbs serves as a political manual in how to be a wise and effective civil servant – how to serve the people. biblical scholar William McKane argues that “the instruction offered is not a religious authority but a rhetorical one. “The wisdom teacher distils the sagacity of generations for the benefits of his pupils, basing his authority on what has proved best in the past and on his own judgement.” The students were taught not only how to speak “right” but to speak the language of right policies and politics. The school included instruction in knowledge and wisdom, but also was an embodied rhetoric.

The purpose of Proverbs tells us exactly what is to be expected of those who serve the nation:

“For learning about wisdom and instruction,
for understanding words of insight,
for gaining instruction in wise dealing,
righteousness, justice, and equity;
to teach shrewdness to the simple,
knowledge and prudence to the young—
let the wise also hear and gain in learning,
and the discerning acquire skill,
to understand a proverb and a figure,
the words of the wise and their riddles” (Proverbs 1:2 – 6).

As if the wise woman looks into the inner chambers of the House, she explicates what ‘God hates: “A scoundrel and a villain goes around with crooked speech, winking the eyes, shuffling the feet, pointing the fingers, with perverted mind devising evil, continually sowing discord; on such a one calamity will descend suddenly; in a moment, damage beyond repair” (Proverbs 6:12 – 15).

I am concerned that we are creating damage beyond repair.

The writer of Proverbs, presented in the text as the “wise woman,” notes: “There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,  a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that hurry to run to evil, a lying witness who testifies falsely, and one who sows discord in a family” (Proverbs 6:16 – 19).

We should know that if we practice and celebrate what the Lord hates that we have a problem.

The wise woman from our past cries out to us to take the path of wisdom:

“Does not wisdom call,
and does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights, beside the way,
at the crossroads she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
‘To you, O people, I call,
and my cry is to all that live.
O simple ones, learn prudence;
acquire intelligence, you who lack it” (Proverbs 8:1 – 5).