(In order to understand one reference in this sermon, you need to know that part of the Children’s Message earlier in the service included dancing and wearing foam rubber clown noses)
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 it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. – 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
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The character of The Fool is a time-honored tradition in plays and other theatrical presentations. It goes way back, to biblical times and earlier, and it continues even now into our own time. The Fool is always a person who doesn’t quite fit into the rest of the crowd, they’re a bit of an outsider, who can make discomforting observations that everyone else seems to have missed, or who can make criticisms or poke holes in the puffed-up egos of their superiors, that no one else could get away with. A prince or a bishop could criticize the king and lose his head for it; the Fool could make the exact same point, just in a more crafty way, and all he’d have to do is smile as he said it, and the king would let it slide. Today, the Fool might be the quirky sidekick to the main character in a movie or TV show, but whether you find them at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival or the Auburn Movie Plex, their role is basically the same – to bring laser-sharp wisdom in ways that everyone else considers foolish, and to wield power from what others would consider a position of weakness.
In today’s Epistle Lectionary text, Paul is writing to the small church in Corinth. It’s a very cosmopolitan, highly commercialized city in ancient Greece, and the Greek love of wisdom and learning, at least their version of it, was a very important thing there. And the Christian message that God shows love for all people, and saves all people, by way of an unschooled Jewish peasant, a nobody, who’s convicted and executed I the most humiliating way imaginable, and who then is supposed to have risen from the dead… well, it was just a ridiculous thought. It didn’t make any sense at all. It was monstrous, and insulting to a person’s intelligence to even think about. It was pure foolishness.
The members of the church in Corinth seem to have been wavering in their faith, starting to worry about whether it stood up to public scrutiny and conventional wisdom and the proper rules of Greek philosophy and rhetoric. They seem to have been worried that staking out a position for the church that the rest of the city considered one of weakness was the wrong path. Maybe they should adopt a strategy, a different mission plan, one that sounded more consistent with the way most of their neighbors understood the world.
But Paul’s point was that God is wise enough to not teach the great truths of the Kingdom of God by way of the supposedly wise, or rich, or powerful. Instead, God makes the point, reveals the truth, offers the real wisdom, in a way no one would expect. It was the greatest of wisdom originally seen as foolishness, the greatest of power originally seen as weakness.
We often face the same kind of concerns. I mean, we want to think of ourselves as rational, intelligent people, and let’s face it, our faith is focused on the life of Jesus, a story that’s quite unusual to say the least. And the whole emphasis that the Christian faith places on meekness, and peacefulness, praying for our enemies and turning the other cheek and not returning violence for violence, it really is a hard pill to swallow sometimes.
But Paul says to stay strong in the faith, because the wisdom and power in the message of Christ crucified is more wise and more powerful than the wisdom and power understood by the world. That strength put into action through love – which was often seen, in ancient Corinth and today as disgusting weakness – is actually the greatest wisdom and strength of all. It’s capable of moving mountains in the effort to make the world more like Christ, more like the kingdom of God.
That was how the church originally spread so rapidly, you know. The one thing that people in the first years of Christianity noted about Jesus-followers was their seemingly unbounded way of peacefulness, forgiveness, and love for others, even their most dangerous enemies and persecutors. Even their enemies said that about them. When the church keeps true to those characteristics, it always grows. When individual Christians are true to those characteristics – put another way, when they play the role of the Fool, as the world would see it – their faith always deepens and they always become powerful forces for the gospel and all good in the world.
This isn’t just how the church grew, either. The exact same principle can be seen in many different times and places throughout the history of the church and the world. The strength and wisdom of Christ crucified was exactly what empowered those people who, fifty years ago yesterday, walked unarmed, peacefully, two-by-two over the narrow sidewalk of the Edmund Pettus Bridge into the face of state and local police armed with guns, and billy clubs, and dogs, and horses, all literally hell-bent on preventing them from advancing any further. These were people who knew what was likely to happen to them. And yet, they still marched over that bridge and into the living rooms of people all over this country and into history. They had been trained to turn the other cheek, to remain peaceful in the face of violence, to not return evil for evil. Many of them paid a heavy price for doing so. But by remaining peaceful, and not returning violence for violence, the images of that horrible, brutal day made a far more indelible impression on millions of people who finally said “enough!” and who began to accept the idea of racial equality. It was utter madness in the eyes of the world. They were Fools. They were, indeed, and thanks be to God for it. The wisdom of their foolishness, grounded in the message of the gospel, changed our country, and the world, forever.
Fifty years later, in addition to the ongoing fight for equal rights for all, there are other battles, other issues, other missions that the church, collectively and as individuals, is being called to take up in the name of Christ, too. And time and again, history has shown us that the greatest strategy to achieving gains in those battles is the way of the cross – taking up, and focusing on, and implementing the wisdom of the cross as opposed to the wisdom of the world. As we continue through Lent, and as we continue to reflect on the full meaning of taking up our own cross as we follow Christ, let’s realize that God is calling each one of us, in some way, to advance God’s will by concretely implementing the wisdom of the cross – by being a Fool for God, as a witness to the world. Let’s take the time to pray, and ask, where it is that God is calling us to speak the wisdom of the Fool into the world around us. And once we know where that is, let’s not be afraid. Be bold. Stand up in whatever way God is calling you. For the sake of Christ and the Kingdom of God, don’t be afraid to dance when the world says not to. Don’t be afraid to be a Fool for God. Foam rubber nose is optional.
Thanks be to God.
en arche 