Sermon: Foolishness – Third Sunday of Epiphany (1 Corinthians 1:10-18)

Today’s reading from 1 Corinthians, the Apostle Paul’s letter to his church in the Roman city of Corinth, is on the topic of divisions in the church. Of course, division in the church has always been a thing we have had to deal with. After all, Christians have been dividing themselves for centuries. We worship in a church that is part of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), as opposed to our neighbors at Northminster Presbyterian Church, and the Congregational Church of Birmingham, which is part of the United Church of Christ. And these are all protestant congregations, which are different from Catholic churches. And here in Metro-Detroit we have some Coptic Christian communities which are a flavor of Eastern Orthodox Christian Churches. So, you can see, just from all the different churches, we Christians are very good at dividing ourselves. There are just about as many denominations or subgroups of Christianity as there are opinions, beliefs, and ways to experience the faith.

Oftentimes, those beliefs and experiences of faith are shaped by our leaders and teachers. By the person or the people that taught us what it means to be Christian. This reality is part of what Paul is dealing with in this letter. Much of the letter to the Corinthians focuses on divisions in their church, and the infighting that has resulted from those divisions. Part of the reason these divisions are happening are because some members of the church are looking to different leaders. Particularly there is a man named Apollos who seems to be very popular within the church, but Paul names Peter as well, and Jesus for that matter. So, Paul is concerned that the people in the church at Corinth are listening to a distorted message. Paul seems to believe that these divisions are formed because people are taken by the way Apollos and others speak and present their message. He describes “eloquent wisdom” or “human wisdom” as being the opposite of the way he preaches. This is language and ideas that were mostly associated with the social elites. It seems that maybe concerns with social status created a division within the community.

Division, over many things, continues to be an issue that people in the church are concerned about today. Even with all the splintering of groups and the forming of denominations, we live in a time where the divisions between us are somewhat of an elephant in the room. The divisiveness of our modern world seems to hang over everything, including life in the church. The fact that we live in very divisive times is something that gets said often these days, but it’s true. Many of us have examples of how this plays out in our own lives. In the church I have seen that it is not just a matter of disagreeing on things or having different opinions. There are deep divisions, usually political or theological, that are driving people apart. Over the past year or so, especially, I have seen the pain this causes people. I’ve been in many groups of church folk, whether that’s a bible study, fellowship hour, camp, a Zoom meeting, a training seminar, and find that oftentimes it doesn’t take much for the conversation to turn to the divisions in our society. Particularly how people are feeling divided from their friends and family. They are desperate to understand how someone who they have known and loved for their whole lives suddenly seems like a different person. They struggle to understand why someone who they used to share so much with can suddenly believe things that are so opposed to their own beliefs, perhaps even opposite of what that person used to believe. Arguments have been started, relationships have been broken, and I see that it weighs heavily on many people.

So naturally, questions of division lead to questions about how we can live in community and build community together, despite our disagreements. As well as what the boundaries of those communities should be so that the most vulnerable in our communities feel safe and are not collateral in fights. So, when we come together as a Christian community where do we focus our group mind? Well, if you’re like me, you subscribe to the idea that oftentimes the simplest answer is the best bet to be the correct answer. The simplest answer, in this case would be, of course, we turn our minds towards Jesus. Jesus is what makes the church or a Christian community organization different from other community groups. This is where we return to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, where Paul tries to turn the quarrelers in his church back to a focus on Jesus. As he puts it here, we must be of the same mind. Also, in his letter to the Phillipians he says something similar, “Let the same mind be in you that is in Christ.” So, this is the mind that should inform the ways that our community thinks and treats each other and how we are called to approach our work in the world.

To sharpen this focus Paul tells them that his words, and his thoughts and ideas, are not what is important. He does not preach and teach so that people can be amazed at the mind of Paul. He does not form these early churches so that they can study the words of Paul. He does not baptize so that people can claim they were baptized by Paul. He does not give them any reason to use him as a cause for division. Instead, he offers them Christ as a point of common belief. He tries to bring them the Good News so that it will bring them together. He wants them to identify first, and only, with the gospel message of Christ. Now, what that means for Paul can be summed up in one idea: The Cross. For Paul, the cross represents the death and resurrection of Jesus. This event signifies and symbolizes the end of the old way of being and the beginning of a new creation, complete with a new social order. God’s realm on Earth.

This may have been where some of trouble came from. Some in Paul’s community may have had trouble accepting the Cross as a symbol of hope. In the Roman Empire, death on the cross was not any run-of-the-mill execution method. It was very public, it prolonged the pain and suffering of the victim, it was degrading to the body and to the soul. When someone was crucified, they were not just physically harmed by the punishment, they were humiliated. That is what happened when Jesus died on the cross. He was not merely humbling himself out of love for others and obedience to God, he suffered humiliation and terrible pain. Understanding this reality, some might call Paul’s insistence on the Cross as a symbol of hope and new life as foolishness. While other voices in the church or in Corinthian society may have been using eloquent wisdom, language and ideas favored by the city’s elite, Paul stayed on his message. A belief in the Cross, in death and resurrection and new life in God’s realm.

Paul not only believed in the cross as a symbol of hope for a new world, he believed he was going to live to see that day of the apocalypse, the second coming when Christ would return, and God’s realm would fully break into our world. Meanwhile, as the days went on and there was still no Second Coming, others in the church were having doubts and so they looked to other leaders to help them understand the world. Perhaps people who preached a message of hope in the power and the wisdom of this world, the world that Paul believed God was going to change forever.

In Paul’s letter he says that “The message of the cross is foolishness for those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” He seems to be doing some division of his own here, identifying the split in his church between what he saw as nonbelievers and believers. Nonbelievers were “perishing” but not yet doomed forever. On the other hand, believers were being saved, but this did not mean that they had “already…arrived.” All this paints a picture of God’s work as being something that was not done, but was ongoing. God’s new order is breaking into the world and this creates tension with the status quo. It creates tension between God’s wisdom, and the wisdom of the world. Creation is still in the process of becoming, and that creates tension. It creates tension because as we work toward something together, especially something that will inevitably involve change, there will be disagreements on how best to do the work. Many of the conflicts we experience, especially in the church, come from this tension between belief in the already versus the not yet. There are some things in this world that we can look at and say, “That is not how the world is meant to be. That is not what God wants so we must continue to work for something better.” And yet some people might look at that same situation and believe that it is right and natural and must be working how it is supposed to. It aligns with their particular beliefs and understandings. So, we fight amongst ourselves. We fight for what we believe is certain, and we fight against what we feel needs changing. We quarrel over the fear of being one who is perishing, and the hope of being saved.

As community is formed and we try to move toward the Realm of God together some people will cling to certainty and the idea that they have already arrived where God wants. Some will be more open to change, and be willing to go where they feel that God is calling. No one will have the full picture. No preacher or teacher or community elder will have all the answers. Some will find this lack of certainty foolish. So, to avoid it they will tend towards the wisdom of the world, which rewards power and privilege, rather than the pain and humiliation they see in the Cross. I do not claim to have all the answers, myself, but I can offer you this. As we seek to heal divisions in our lives let us remember that for Paul, the Cross was a symbol of life as the process of becoming and of God continually changing the world, until one day the realm of God would be known here in our earthly life. In such a world we can take comfort and inspiration in the knowledge that even those who are perishing, those who we are finding it hard to understand and connect to, are not lost to us forever. Just as those who consider themselves saved are certainly held and loved by God, but also have not yet experienced the full glory of God’s realm. There is hope for all of us in the Cross, as a sign of a world that is always, even if ever so slightly, moving away from the old, limiting ways of death and into the possibility of new life.

So, it is not foolish to find hope in the cross. The true foolishness is in our divisions. It is foolish to think that by separating ourselves we make ourselves stronger. It is foolish to think that we could ever truly be divided, because the truth is that on many levels – socially, economically, theologically, biologically, atomically – we are connected to one another beyond what we even understand. So, it is foolish to divide ourselves because of a belief in the misguided and ignorant idea that any one of us is truly better than the rest. That is the first idea that must die and transform on the Cross.

So, Paul calls us to be in community and to be of one mind in Christ. To form communities that do not have to be the same in opinion or belief. Or race or class, for that matter. We are called to make communities that are made stronger by the different gifts we all bring. None of these things should truly keep us apart as long as we stay aware and stay in the ongoing work of a world that is always changing. With a God that beckons us into new life we can create spaces where healing can happen through a shared hope in the God-inspired transformation of the world, towards a place of love and well-being for all. If this is foolish, then Lord let us be foolish. Amen.