Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-september-16
I Corinthians 1:18-31
Christ Crucified Is God’s Power and Wisdom
18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
20Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
26Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29so that no one may boast before him. 30It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
Probably the right place to start in reflecting on this passage from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians is the context into which it was written. Corinth was a leading Greek city, so most of the population — and probably most of the membership of the church there — would be people born and raised in the Greek culture. But like many of the cities in the eastern Mediterranean, there would have been a substantial Hebrew population there. That population would have synagogues and other cultural structures supporting traditional Hebrew values.
Keeping that in mind will help us bring into focus the issue Paul is addressing in today’s reading. People from these two cultures seem to have been competing for influence and status in the early church, as they did in the Corinthian community at large. Both the Greek and Hebrew populations placed great value on wisdom as they understood it. Hebrew wisdom is the complex of ideas and attitudes communicated in the Old Testament. Greek wisdom was the wisdom of the philosophers – Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates.
Paul saw the rivalry between these two wisdom traditions being played out in the life of the church. And in this passage, he points out to his readers that the wisdom embodied in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus was wisdom completely different from either the Hebrew or the Greek variety. The wisdom embodied in Jesus was a wisdom that came from his death on the cross — a death that was so scandalous it didn’t fit with either the Greek or the Hebrew idea of true wisdom. Jews wanted their religious tradition to be verified by wondrous acts of God. Greeks upheld the wisdom tradition based on persuasive rhetoric and powerful logic. The way of Jesus fit with neither of these.
Paul also inserts another idea into the rivalry for influence and status among the members of the Corinthian church. He reminds its members that the new life they’re living in Jesus is not one that they’ve achieved by any form of wisdom, or by human effort of any kind. Instead, Paul says, they have been called to this new life by a call from God himself. As we often remind ourselves when reflecting on the nature of the grace by which we’ve been saved, it’s the unearned favor of God, not an achievement by our efforts.
The scholars and the historians of the early church tell us that while communities of faith in some cities included a number of wealthy and influential members, the vast majority of early believers came from the lowest classes. So the people who carried the banner of Jesus in their cities were most often from the poor and the needy — mostly illiterate and without worldly influence. But in spite of their lowly status, they were playing a part in establishing the most powerful movement in human history. In spite of their modest circumstances, God had chosen and called them to be witnesses to what he had done in Jesus. And it was through their humble faithfulness that God was establishing the church as a worldwide movement. Under those circumstances, they could boast in what God was doing through them, but not in their own efforts or wisdom.
We live in a world in which competition for status and influence takes place day by day — now just as much as in Paul’s day. Social media has become an arena in which people’s lives are compared to one another. Some are anointed as “influencers,” worthy of widespread admiration, and even of corporate sponsorship. Some people in our culture are widely known to be “famous for being famous,” and their fame confers upon them a status that includes exaggerated influence on the world around them.
But in our passage for today, Paul reminds us that the only wisdom that really matters is the wisdom that arises out of our devotion to the life and teachings of our master, a wisdom with the goal of supporting and encouraging the flourishing of our neighbors. And Paul reminds us as well that the only status worth claiming is the status of servant of the one who claimed he came not to be served but to serve.
The apostle Paul seems to have been a unique personality. He was modest about his achievements, but not about his beliefs or the relationship he had with Jesus. He was more than willing to do manual labor to support himself so that he could be in ministry without presenting a burden to those he was leading in the faith. He was willing to be imprisoned without complaint, because he understood his imprisonment to represent an opportunity to proclaim the love of Jesus from difficult circumstances. He was a person well trained in both Greek and Hebrew wisdom, but one who was forthright about telling others that neither of those wisdom traditions could compare to the power the wisdom of the cross.
And that wisdom of the cross was — and still is — freely available to the poor and the needy, the sinners and the outcasts, those without worldly influence of any kind. That’s the great truth Paul is expressing in today’s reading.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for the great sacrifice you have made for us at the cross. We know that to the world, that sacrifice looks foolish and scandalous. But we believe — and we rejoice to proclaim — that you made this sacrifice as an expression of your love for us. Give us the words to say to make this proclamation known in the hearts and minds of those around us. Amen.
Grace and peace,
Henry
Recent Comments