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Corinthians 1:10-18
10 Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that
there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and
the same purpose. 11 For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that
there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. 12 What I mean is that
each of you says, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to
Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to
Christ." 13 Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were
you baptized in the name of Paul? 14 I thank God that I baptized none of you
except Crispus and Gaius, 15 so that no one can say that you were baptized in
my name. 16 (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do
not know whether I baptized anyone else.) 17 For Christ did not send me to
baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the
cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. 18 For the message about the
cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved
it is the power of God.
For the message about the cross is foolishness to
those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
·
I really don‘t know anyone who wants to be considered
a fool. I believe that everyone wants to be seen as wise and thoughtful and “on
top of everything.” Nobody wants to be seen as foolish, whether that is in
regard to a purchase, an opinion, or an action.
·
Still Paul reminds the Christians in Corinth and
through them, all of us, that the cross is seen as foolishness by everyone
around the Christian community, but for us who are being saved it is the
power of God.
·
There are plenty of stories about “Fools for
Christ” and a mumber of them come out of the tradition I was formed in – the
Franciscans. The choice of voluntary poverty and the craziness of how the early
friars lived would show that, as would some of the stories of situations I’ve
lived through and the people I’ve lived with. Lutherans don’t do the “Fool for
Christ” thing in the same way, but the tradition is there. After all, Luther’s
last words were “We are beggars; this is
true.”
·
Society in North America and probably the entire
Western world loves ‘winners’ and wisdom. It would appear to be the height of
foolishness to follow a god who allows himself to be killed, who takes the
mortality of human beings to himself even to the point of death. This death
comes about through the opposition of the forces of religious law and obedience
and through the forces of earthly law and order.
·
It’s not as if this were the only time this
happened in human history. Any of us could cite examples. We know the rule:
Tyranny does not permit any rivals, whether that tyranny is political or
religious.
·
For any number of people, reverence for a man
executed as a criminal is foolish. For many, reverence for the instrument of
torture and death that the man suffered is foolishness. To say that this man
underwent death and now lives again is beyond foolishness for many.
·
Paul is rather pointed in his letter to the
Corinthians: For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are
perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. In
Paul’s time, crucifixion was a particularly shameful method of execution and
there is evidence that Christians were mocked for worshiping a crucified God.
Paul would say that those who misunderstood what Jesus had done were “perishing”
while it made its own sort of sense to the Christians “who are being saved...”
·
Things are not much different now. Crucifixion is
for losers and fools. Taking up the cross as a disciple of Jesus would be its
own type of foolishness and not at all wise. Yet here we are, standing in
foolishness and in opposition to the wisdom of our times.
·
It is a strange thing. The cross lays out God’s wisdom for all the world to see; but only
those who understand the strange logic of God’s power know what it is they’re
seeing — particularly as it’s revealed in Christ’s crucified weakness.
·
Paul is reminding his readers that God’s self-giving power through the cross
for newness of life is known tangibly by the community in Corinth, as these Gentiles
are offered a path from death to life, from brokenness to wholeness, from
self-serving chaos to holiness and relationship. They are, in effect, new-born
through the cross. And so are we.
·
Is it unusual to talk about the cross before we
get to the season of Lent? Maybe, but there isn’t a bad time to talk about the
power of the cross for salvation and freedom. It may be shocking and it may
challenge what we might call ‘normal’, but that is only because God did (and
does) exactly the same thing. What God has done in Jesus Christ is shocking and
challenging and foolish to the conventionally wise.
·
But as Paul wrote:
For
the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to
us who are being saved it is the power of God.
·
So If this is foolishness, let us make the most
of it… for God already has!
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