LENT 3B 2009

 

Text: 1 Corinthians 1:18 ( NRSV ) 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. 

 

1 Corinthians 1:25 ( NRSV ) For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

 

I have shared with you a few times that when I was in the Jesus people commune in the early 1970;s,  a friend and I used to go out on the streets of San Francisco and preach. We had a portable wooden pulpit and we dreamed of gathering great throngs of people. My friend was a better preacher than I, and he would get a few people,  but all I would get was a glance from the passing crowd.  But we wanted to be preachers,  and we would go to Teen Challenge and the rescue missions and try and preach to our little group. During those times I wrote a quote in the back of my bible,  It is from the great Baptist preacher, Charles Hadden Spurgeon.

 

In the great day, when the muster roll shall be read, of all those who are converted through fine music, and church decorations and religious exhibitions and entertainments, they will amount to the tenth of nothing; but it will always please God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe”.. Keep to your preaching.

 

I thought of this quote as I thought about the challenging passage that we read from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. So this morning I am going to focus my comments on the foolishness of the cross of Jesus,  how it is a scandal to us still, and how it is still the power and wisdom of God revealed in weakness and pain.

 

As I get older and think more and more about the work of those very first Christians,  I am constantly amazed. We have to remember when we read the New Testament that when Paul and the other Christians went out into the world to share the Gospel story of Jesus,  there was no Christian history to bolster them up.  In the early days,  if there was a Jewish synagogue,  they would go there and the story of Jesus then had some context and history. But when they went to places like Corinth,  and told the story of Jesus to non Jewish people,   with no church buildings or New Testament or church history,  then the reality of the Church becomes more incredible.

 

And it is even more interesting when we consider the message that they proclaimed. Here in our New Testament lesson in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians we read the core of this early Christian message. The gospel message was not the story of the life of Jesus,  but it was a concentration on the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Paul here calls it the message of the cross, or literally the word of the cross.

 

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. 

 

Listen to this part of the first recorded speech we have of Peter on the day of Pentecost:

 

Acts 2:22-24 ( NRSV ) 22“You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know— this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law.  But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.

 

In this first part of his letter to the Corinthian church,  which some date between 52-55 AD,  Paul is reaffirming this message of the cross over against attacks on what to many seemed a foolish and ignorant message.  They wanted to make it more palatable, more sophisticated.

 

 Paul founded this church,  but now many problems were going on in this small group of believers. Corinth was a vibrant and sinful place,  and these early believers came from the culture around them. When we read this letter we learn what kind of problems they had:  There were divisions among them – they were forming their denominations; there was sexual immorality, they were suing one another, they were worrying about eating food sacrificed to idols, they were getting drunk at their social and religious gatherings, there was a division between the rich and the poor: some were mis-using their spiritual gifts, and they were confused over a key theological doctrine – and you though Faith church, or that church you just left was bad!! And you have heard of the lady who was looking for the perfect church, and the pastor said to her, well, Mam, when you find it, they want let you in!

 

 Along with this,  and probably most importantly to Paul,  these early disciples were shying away from the message of the cross. To them, as to many today, it did not seem sophisticated enough.  In a real sense, it was embarrassing,  because it seemed so primitive and simplistic to the Greek mind..  Paul says that, yes, to the Greek mind,  it is seen as foolishness.  To the Jewish mind he says, yes,  this message is a scandal.    Here is what he says:


1 Corinthians 1:22-23 ( NRSV ) 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,  23but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 

 

The word translated here stumbling block is literally “scandal”.  A crucified Christ is a scandal to many Jewish thinkers and it is utter foolishness to Gentiles.

 

But then Paul goes on to say:

 

1 Corinthians 1:24-25 ( NRSV ) 24but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  25For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

 

While the message of Christ crucified is a scandal and foolishness to many,  to those who receive the message it is the power and wisdom of God.

 

Today,  as then,  this message is still seen as foolishness. To many who call themselves Christians it is embarrassing. The libraries are full of books that try to lessen the scandal and foolishness of this message. It is more comfortable to proclaim a Christian faith that makes sense to people.. . that  talks about doing good and being good and nice… that doesn’t offend people.

 

I have, and still feel,  these forces coming against me when I talk about or preach this message. Many of my friends in the clergy are uncomfortable making our faith about Jesus dying on the cross for our sins and then rising for our salvation. One Easter Kathy and I visited an Episcopal Church and the message was essentially about making bread and how we were to leaven the world.  A dying and rising Jesus was embarrassing to preach!

 

I know and appreciate the theological and intellectual issues that make people uncomfortable with the cross. But when I reflect back on my life,  it was precisely this message that saved my life. It was not my great intellect, or my great works,  or my imitation of Jesus’ life that allowed me to experience the life and reality of Jesus….  but it was a simple saying “yes, Lord,  …..I believe”…..that unleashed  the power of God into my life. I heard the message,  and I confessed my sins and humbled myself and cried out for grace,  and thus began my adult Christian journey.

 

As I reflect more and more on the cross,  it seems to me that the scandal or stumbling block of the cross somehow consists in the fact that in the cross we see that true love and power are unleashed through weakness and humility.  In the days that Paul preached,  there was nothing glamorous about being crucified on a cross. People did not wear crosses as jewelry,  just like today people don’t wear electric chairs around their necks! The cross means pain and suffering and weakness and death. It means blood shed and body broken.  This is not easy or comfortable for us, nor does it allow us a lot of pride in our religion. What it says about us is that we are broken and needy too.. It proclaims to us our weakness and inability to conquer death. As we say in our Eucharistic prayer:  “when we had fallen into sin,   we became subject to evil and death.”  The cross, as Paul later writes,  strips us of all pride and ego.  The cross also ells us that power is unleashed through giving and sharing and loving and dying. This is God’s way.

 

It also speaks to a part of our being that, I believe,  goes deeper than our minds. The concept of blood and sacrifice and forgiveness of sins speaks to the deep, primitive, but very real part of our being. Don’t you think it is a little weird that in a few minutes we will be coming forward and eating flesh and drinking blood!  How barbaric is that!  And yet you can see how, because we are so used to it.. that we don’t really think about what it is that we are doing. Broken body and shed blood,  and then eating flesh and drinking blood… all of this is speaking to that part of our being that needs forgiveness, needs salvation,  needs hope in the face of death,  needs life drawn from the divine source. In baptism we are buried with Christ in his death.. we are led out of the bondage of sin into everlasting life, we are joined with Jesus in his resurrection.  Again,  as in the Eucharist, this sacrament speaks to a very deep part our being. We can, in a sense, understand it intellectually,  but really it makes little sense to our sophisticated selves.

 

So what are we to do with all of this. Simply,  we are called to believe and to proclaim. In a sense I like to visualize that, when the cross is preached,  the Spirit of  God joins with the message and then enters the hearts of those who hear it. The power of God is not unleashed by my sermons about praying more or reading the Bible more… those are good messages which we preach to feed and encourage the faithful. But form time to time, whether we are just beginning Christians or have been at this for a while,  we need to embrace the foolish and scandalous message of the cross ….that Christ has died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,  that he rose again… and that he now lives and reigns at the right hand of the Father. In essence, if we are to experience the power of the cross, we have to bow before it. We have to lay aside our pride in the presence of the Cross. The wisdom of the wise and all the wisdom of the world pales in the presence of the cross.

 

So as we end this message, let us take a few seconds and sit in silence before the cross.

 

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms on the hard wood of the cross, that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace…. Help us O Lord to trust and believe… even now… that we might be those who know what it feels like to be in your saving embrace… and to share this love with others.

 

AMEN!