Foolish Wisdom
1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Click here to view the full sermon for March 7, 2021 entitled, "Foolish Wisdom."
If there was ever a place that knew and valued wisdom, it was Corinth. Strategically located on the narrow isthmus of land that connected the Peloponnese to the mainland of Greece, it overlooked two seaports and served as a commercial hub of that ancient world. Corinth had it all. Which was part of the problem. If steaming used to be called TV, and TV used to be called radio, and radio used to be called newspapers, or books even- Corinth had none of that. Before all the rest, if someone wanted to be in the know, if they wanted to be a person of the world with a deeper understanding of things, they listened to the great orators of the day. People whose voice could carry, who could hold a crowd and captivate them with their rhetorical skills. There would have been a good audience for that sort of thing in a cosmopolitan place like Corinth, at the nexus of land and sea. To such worldly and sophisticated people, a message that cast an obscure Palestinian Jew crucified by Imperial Rome as the savior of the world would have been laughable. Just not in a funny way. Laughable in the, “get out of here with such a ridiculous idea,” kind of way. These were a people steeped in the lore of their gods and heroes, figures that loomed larger than life with their feats of wit and bravery. To them, anyone who lacked the good sense to steer clear of conflict with the world’s mightiest army was probably asking for it, and likely got what they deserved. If he wasn’t doing anything wrong, then he shouldn’t have had anything to worry about. A person would have to be foolish to think otherwise. That was just good common sense.
The message of the cross, explains Paul, is foolishness to those who are perishing. The Corinthians might have needed some aloe after hearing that one, because they just got burned a little. Perishing? That’s a little harsh, don’t you think, Paul? After all, aren’t you the one chasing after somebody killed for being an enemy of the state? If anyone is perishing, it’s likely the ones who go around talking about taking up their own cross and following in the same way. Good luck with that.
It isn’t just the wisdom of the Greeks that thinks in this way, it’s the wisdom of the world. The wisdom of the world doesn’t go picking a fight with an occupying army known for stringing up dissidents as a public warning to others who would dare defy their particular brand of peace. The wisdom of the world knows that you have to go along to get along, that no one plans to fail but some fail to plan, and that sticking your neck out is the surest way to lose your head. The wisdom of the world would have us avoid death at all costs, which doesn’t sound unreasonable. Except that it is. Because death is unavoidable. That’s the simple truth. And yet, look around at all the strategies of self-preservation that the wisdom of the world employs for trying to keep death at bay; or rather, to deny the fact of death itself. We think we can outsmart it, outrun it, outspend it. We idolize youth and disparage the signs of aging. All the while we are perishing because we are fighting a losing battle, because in all our finite wisdom we have lost sight of God and what God has done in Jesus Christ.
The message about the cross is the message about where God is truly found, not in all of our attempts to keep the inevitable from happening, but in all the places where the world does its worst: where we think might makes right, and victims get what they deserve, and peace means keeping our mouth shut, and difference is a threat, and people are expendable, and love is a form of weakness. Once the wisdom of the world has had its say and done its worst, there on the cross where Jesus and everyone else is left for dead eventually, in that place God says, “not so fast.” When the world does its worst, God is at God’s best, assuring us that we are not alone in that darkness, that death is never the end and that the God who brought it all into being out of nothing is hardly done yet.
At the heart of the novel Station Eleven is a global pandemic far worse than the one we’re going through. A flu originating in the former Soviet republic of Georgia quickly sweeps the globe, claiming 99% of the population. As a result, the technological world as we know it disappears. Within years all refined fossil fuels are useless, and electricity is nowhere to be found. While the story of the novel shifts back and forth between events before and after civilization’s collapse, much of it centers around a caravan of performers and musicians known as the Traveling Symphony who traverse back and forth between the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Huron staging the plays of Shakespeare, complete with orchestral scoring. Painted on one of their horse-drawn wagons is a line taken not from the Bard, but from an episode of the TV show Star Trek: Voyager, “Because survival is insufficient.” It’s a statement of purpose. In the wake of society’s collapse, why travel along the 44th parallel of Michigan performing Shakespeare for the small pockets of people who are left to fend for themselves as best they can? Because survival is insufficient. Maybe that sounds foolish, but it also sounds a whole lot like the message of the cross.
This past year has been one in that many of us have simply been trying to survive. In some cases, literally trying to survive the virus itself that has claimed over half a million lives in this country alone. It’s a staggering number, but in some ways, it is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we have been surviving. We have been surviving loneliness and isolation. We have been surviving the loss of businesses and livelihoods. We have been surviving online school and work from home and challenges upon challenges. It has driven us to new strategies of self-preservation. In the ancient world, the cross was the threat that hung over the head of anyone living under the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome that was kept through violence and intimidation. Survival meant going along to get along. Survival meant following the imperial plan. But survival is simply a slow form of perishing, and it is ultimately insufficient. On the cross, all our strategies for survival are laid bare as futile attempts to forestall the inevitable, and Jesus shows us that there is more to life than avoiding death. There is more to life than avoiding failure. There is more to life than avoiding heartbreak.
Last year, the historic Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village of New York City (the oldest continuous Christian congregation in this country) was devastated by a fire that spread from a neighboring building. But because of the pandemic, they weren’t using their building. They had already discovered what we ourselves have discovered here in Albuquerque this past year. The worst that the world can do is no match for what God can do and is continuing to do through us. The wisdom of God shows us that death, disease, even social distance are hardly the end of the story. A fire can nearly destroy a church building, but the church lives on and may even thrive as a result, because God was never in the building to begin with. Just like God is not found in all our wisely considered calculations for survival. God is found on the cross, in lives that are a mess, in the pain of our world as it falls apart, because God is the one who puts it back together, puts things right- with beauty and music and truth that death can never destroy.
This is how we are being saved, each and every day, one day at a time. We are being saved by the power of God in the proclamation of the cross that announces we need not live as those enslaved by all that threatens to undo us, all that threatens our survival. We are being saved not by muscular displays of power, or eloquent words of wisdom, but by the presence of the one who has gone through what we are going through, the one who has not only seen and heard our cries, but who knows intimately the worst that the world can do and cries out with us. But also, the one whose love death can never destroy.
Maybe that sounds foolish. Some may think it weak. What it is, is the power of God’s own wisdom, God’s own strength that is saving us, both now and in the end.