Lent Letters: 1 Corinthians Richmond s First Baptist Church, March 4, 2018 The Third Sunday in Lent 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 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. During the Season of Epiphany I preached a series called, "O Come, Thou Wisdom from on High." I talked about wisdom, and I thought I had said everything that needed to be said, but in today s reading from 1 Corinthians Paul wants to add something to the conversation and I think we should let him. It is Paul, after all. God s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, he claims, which makes me wonder what kind of foolishness he s up to, and what he would consider wise. So, let s take a deep breath and plunge into the pool of wisdom once again, but this time, let s dive to the very bottom. Long, long ago there was a wisdom tradition that tried to make sense of human experience by talking about the two ways : one that led to death and another that led to life. None of us was there when that tradition was established, but I can imagine how it happened. One of our early ancestors was faced with a choice a literal fork in the road and wondered: Should I go this way or that way? Let s just say that the way he chose was the wrong way: that it was rough and rocky, that it went through a deep forest filled with countless dangers, and that it eventually came to a dead end. So, he retraced his steps, went back to that fork in the road, took the other way, and this time strolled easily along a gentle path and ended up safe and sound in his own little village. At supper that night he might have said to his son: My son, if you ever come to that fork in the road, don t take the way on the left. That s the wrong way. Instead, take the way on 1
the right and I promise you it will lead you home. So, wisdom was passed along from father to son. We could come up with many other examples: Eat this plant, not that one. Measure twice and cut once. Never buy your wife a major appliance for Valentine's Day. Do you see what I mean? Over the course of time wisdom accumulated. People made choices, had experiences, and learned from those experiences. They passed on to their children what they had learned. And if they had lived exceptionally good or prosperous lives others would want to know their secrets, because at some point wisdom began to shift from survival to success, because it wasn t only life that people wanted, It was the good life. I m thinking about King Solomon. Remember him? He was considered the wisest and wealthiest man in the ancient world. The Queen of Sheba once came to test his legendary wisdom and went home amazed. His net worth has been estimated at $2.2 trillion in today s dollars. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines (which has caused some people to question his wisdom). But you d better believe that when he shared his secrets everyone wanted in on them. The biblical books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon are attributed to him, but Proverbs may be the most familiar. It s full of pithy little wisdom sayings, and I m sure there was a time when children were forced to memorize them, so that when they came to that fork in the road they could choose the way that leads to prosperity instead of ruin. You know some of the more popular ones: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not unto your own understanding. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Or my 2
favorite from childhood, Like a fine gold ring in a pig s snout, so is a beautiful woman lacking discretion. In a book called How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth authors Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart put it as simply as it can be put: Wisdom literature had as its goal the making of the best choices, with the purpose of having the best life. It was already in existence when Solomon came along, but what Solomon added to it was the idea that the only good choices are godly choices. Somewhere along the way we seem to have lost sight of that idea. In today s reading Paul asks, Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Well, I ll tell you: they re in every bookstore, on every talk show, on every infomercial telling you how you, too, can have the good life, simply by putting their principles to work. Push the envelope, they say, manage risks, be a high flyer, get ahead of the curve. Even some of the television preachers are getting in on the action. Nobody plans to fail, they say, but some fail to plan. Tough times never last but tough people do. High achievers spot rich opportunities swiftly, make big decisions quickly and move into action immediately. Follow these principles and you can make your dreams come true. i That s the wisdom of the world, and it is in direct contrast to what Paul says 1 Corinthians 1:18-25. Listen: 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 3
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. The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Do you remember where Paul was before he came to Corinth? He was in Athens. And according to Acts 17 it was there, in Athens, that he went up on Mars Hill and tried to beat the wisdom teachers at their own game. He said, Men of Athens, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, To an unknown god. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you On and on he went, quoting their poets and scholars, trying to make a good impression on them. But then he started talking about the Resurrection and they began to scoff. At the end of that sermon only a few people responded, and the wisdom teachers said, in a very patronizing way, That s interesting, Paul. Maybe we ll have you back sometime. I think Paul was humbled by that experience. I think he left Athens saying, Never again. In 1 Corinthians 2, he writes: When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. But as he says in today s reading, Christ crucified is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. It s a stumbling block to the Jews because to this day they believe that in every generation, a person is born with the potential to be the Messiah. If the time is right for the messianic age within that person's lifetime, then that 4
person will be the Messiah. But if that person dies before he completes the mission of the Messiah, then that person is not the Messiah. ii And in Jesus time the mission of the Messiah was very clear. He was supposed to run the Romans out of Israel and restore the nation to its former glory, as it was in the time of King David. Jesus had not done that. He had died on a criminal s cross. And therefore, to the Jews, the idea that he could be the Messiah was scandalous. But to the Gentiles Paul s insistence that Jesus had risen from the dead was pure foolishness. Dead people don t rise! When you re dead, you re dead! That s the way a lot of people still talk. One of the hardest things for modern people to accept is the idea that there is life after death, and maybe that s why so many of today s wisdom teachers focus on getting everything you can here and now, because they don t believe there s anything after this. But what if they re wrong about that? Even before Paul met Jesus he believed in life after death on an intellectual level. But after meeting Jesus on the road to Damascus he believed in life after death on an experiential level. He had met the risen Christ! And it completely undid his old way of thinking. In his old way of thinking Jesus couldn t be the Messiah because he had died before completing the mission of the Messiah. But what if God had raised him up again? And what if God s mission for the Messiah was different from the mission Paul and so many others had imagined? What then? What would it be? And if God had raised him up again it would mean the Gentiles were wrong: there was life after death, and the life of Jesus was all the proof Paul needed. But in order to get to that life Jesus had to go through death. I can almost hear the gears turning in Paul s brain as he figures all this 5
out: that death is not the end of life but the door to eternal life, and that Jesus is the one who kicked down the door so that all of us who believe in him could follow him through. Now this, Paul thought: this is the kind of foolish wisdom God is so famous for! The one who promised a 100-year-old man that he would be the father of a multitude; the one who made his chosen people of a ragtag group of Hebrew slaves; the one who picked a shepherd boy the runt of the litter to be Israel's greatest king; the one who asked his prophet if a valley full of dry bones could live; the one whose son was born to a peasant couple from Nazareth in Galilee; the one whose Messiah was executed on a Roman cross as a common criminal. This is just the kind of God who might decide that death is the way to life, the kind of God whose son might say, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it (Mark 8:34-35). Did you hear that? Those who lose their life for my sake will save it. Isn t that the craziest thing? This message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, Paul says, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. And what he means is that those of us who have actually tried it, those of us who like Paul have actually denied ourselves, and taken up our crosses, and followed Jesus, can see the wisdom in it. We can tell that we are being saved. We know that life has a different meaning now, a different purpose, than it ever did before. And we know that we wouldn t go back to that old life for all the money, or power, or success in the world. 6
Maybe today you are standing at a fork in the road and wondering: Which way should I go? There is a way that leads to life and a way that leads to death. There may be a way that leads to the good life. But there is certainly a way that leads to eternal life, And Paul is pointing in that direction. Jim Somerville 2018 i With thanks to Scott Hoezee for these quotes (The Center for Excellence in Preaching, February 26, 2018). ii From the Judaism 101 website (http://www.jewfaq.org/mashiach.htm). 7