1 Corinthians 1:18-31

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.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are

What is the nature of God? To consistently do what doesn’t seem possible or make sense to us. When I look in nature I can see this that Paul is speaking of. Ants and insects will decompose a mighty oak. A tiny microscopic virus can fell a nation. Tiny grains of sand can erode a mighty mountain. A river of water can gouge a canyon over 4,000 feet deep and 18 miles wide!
We cannot predict how God will move in our world. But we can be pretty sure that he will always choose the unlikely as His means of reaching us. And we will never be comfortable with that. We always prefer predictability over surprise. Consistency over change. The sun and moon and stars are predictable but we have to rely on God for the rain we need. We need the sun to grow our food but we need the rain as well.

None of us like weakness. We don’t like it in ourselves and we don’t like it in others but we prefer it in our enemies and yet it is through weakness that God emerges and saves us all. We have to live with this. We don’t like it. We prefer to work on our weaknesses or hide them. We attack others where they are weak. We laugh at fools and feel like we are superior to them. We take advantage of those less fortunate than ourselves. But that is where God prefers to show up.

Jesus didn’t choose the wise. Jesus didn’t strategize. Jesus chose fishermen and prostitutes to be His inner circle. The meek and the humble and those rejected by the world found their place with Christ. They found a place that they felt like they belonged. They still looked foolish in the eyes of those considered wise. They still seemed weak to the powerful. They were still scoffed at and despised by those with status but they had each other and the most powerful man on earth welcomed them and made them feel loved. They found a place that they didn’t feel out of place.

While that sounds great, I have a really hard time with it. On the one hand I don’t want christian worship leaders to be cool and trendy and all our churches to have hipster youth ministers. I used to be a part of a group that operated that way and I promise you we would have fired Jesus from his own ministry because he wasn’t cool enough. We can’t make Christianity look like the world and have it be effective. But I don’t believe that Jesus was anything like Ned Flanders either. Being seen as uncool and weak and foolish is so hard to just accept. We fight so hard to be understood because being misunderstood feels so bad. It is like we are letting go of control of our image and letting others create it. But I think at the heart of this is the essence of losing our lives so that we can find it. Losing our ego to find our soul. Losing our image in order that the image we were made in can emerge.

If ever I find myself as the one with the upper hand, its probably a good idea for me to check how I got there. Was it through trusting God or myself? The sermon on the mount is Jesus way of reassuring us that when we are loving our neighbor, and it is not going well for us, take heart, there is a good chance we are right where we are supposed to be.