Fool Squad

September 7, 2009

A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church
September 6, 2009

I Corinthians 4:6-21

I love the writings of the apostle Paul. I don’t always like how Christians use his writings, but I can’t control that. I will say that when you hear Paul used to defend strict legalism, or to keep God’s grace from people, to keep people out, that his writings are being misused. Because Paul, again and again, seeks to build up the Body of Christ. And seeks to do so by including more and more people into the Body.

And, of course, Paul wasn’t really writing for us. He didn’t know we’d be studying his letters 2,000 years after they were written. He certainly had no idea he was writing Scripture. To Paul, Scripture was the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament. Paul was writing letters to actual people. To congregations he either had started or was going to be visiting. He was writing to address specific issues in the lives of these churches.

Your Year of the Bible readings started you out with Paul’s final letter—the Letter to the Romans. That letter was written to people he’d not yet met, and serves as an introduction of sorts to who Paul is and what Paul understands about how God is at work through Jesus Christ.

Yesterday, we began reading 1 Corinthians. And the Letter to the church in Corinth, is very different from Romans. It is an earlier letter. It is not, however, his first letter to this church, because in it, he refers to an earlier letter. (1 Cor 5:9—I wrote to you in my letter.)

Corinth was a Roman colony and an important port city on a trade route. Paul is writing to people in an urban setting, with many different religions and gods with which the people would have been familiar.

The “church” in Corinth during the time Paul was writing to them, would have met in homes, and not in separate church buildings, as we do today. He founded the church around 51 CE. And, after he left to visit another church, there was at least one other leader—Appollos.

And the people to whom Paul is writing, are, apparently, having trouble getting along. From earlier in the letter:

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. (1 Cor 1:10)

All of the reasons for their divisions are unclear, but it seems as if some have decided that Apollos was a better leader than Paul. And so Paul seems to be writing them back to establish some authority. As you read the earlier chapters of this letter, Paul acknowledges that he’s not as good of a public speaker as Apollos is, but he makes it clear that isn’t the point. Both Apollos and Paul are working for something bigger than themselves. They aren’t in this so that people will follow them. They are doing this so that people will follow God! He wants them to rise above their differences and be united as the body of Christ so that God’s work can be done through them.

Chapter 4 is a continuation of the argument begun earlier in the letter that Paul has unique authority with them and that they should not just listen to what he has to say, but they should model their lives on his example.

But not on his example of wisdom, strength, or public speaking. They are to follow him in his weakness, foolishness, and lack of public acclaim.

So, even though we are just reading chapter 4 today, know that you need the context of the entire letter to allow Paul to build his argument. And remember that while Paul may not have been a good public speaker, he was a brilliant writer. He was well versed in the styles of rhetoric used in his culture. He is great at building up his argument in a way that gets people to start patting themselves on the back and then he will pull the rug out from under them, exposing the fallacies of their reasoning.

As I read over these words again and again this week, I couldn’t help but hear Paul writing these words to us today. “so that none of you will be puffed up in favor of one against another.”

I’ll likely get in trouble for wading again into politics, but I just can’t help it. Truly, seriously, I am not expecting that you should agree with me about any political beliefs. But I am appalled and dismayed that the political conversation has broken down to such a degree in our nation that we no longer even want to talk to each other.

From the news this week:

–A person in favor of healthcare reform bit off a finger of a counter-protester this week at a healthcare rally.

–Some politicians are saying they won’t even listen to President Obama’s address to the nation this week because they don’t agree with what he has to say, even before he says it.

–Parents are pulling their kids out of school rather than let them hear an address by the President of the United States.

On both sides of the political spectrum, we are reacting out of fear and anger, without really listening to what people are saying and seemingly with little regard for what is at stake.

Liz Emrich, in an editorial at Salon.com summed it up well, when writing about the kerfluffle over school children being addressed by the president:

“What we really teach our children when we tell them that they shouldn’t hear the words of their President, because he isn’t espousing the party line we personally agree with, is that our identity as Americans is somehow less important than our identity as partisans. It’s one more nail in the coffin of our national identity, our collective pride in our political system. We should be teaching our children to respect our President, even when we disagree with him. And the first step to respecting someone is listening to what they have to say.” (http://open.salon.com/blog/liz_emrich/2009/09/04/in_case_you_hadnt_noticed_hes_the_president)

I don’t know if she knows it, but Emrich is recapping Paul’s argument in First Corinthians. Whether you identify with Apollos or you identify with Paul, you have a larger obligation as a follower of Christ to come together and work together to build up the Body of Christ.

“Who sees anything different in you?”, Paul asks. Another way to translate that verse is “who makes you different from one another?”

“What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?”

I posted a link on Facebook yesterday to the editorial I mentioned. And the comments turned into an illustration of 1 Corinthians. People started flinging around words like “liberal” and “conservative” as if they were weapons. People weren’t listening to each other’s ideas and opinions. I posted the article to call us back into conversation, yet people just kept on ranting at each other.

How did we get here?

I’m not a Pollyanna, really. I know that there are real differences of opinion out there. But don’t we still have things in common too?

And Paul wasn’t telling the Corinthians to pretend that they agree about everything. Remember that unity in Christ is not the same as uniformity.

He’s calling them to a higher purpose. And reminding them that the things that divide us—Paul, Apollos, Republicans, Democrats—are secondary issues.

“What do you have that you did not receive?” He asks them. “And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?”

Friends, what do we have that we did not receive?

This week, as two members of our congregation have passed from this life to the next, I’ve been very mindful of the gift of life, as well as the gift of life in Christ. And as I tried to minister to you through a difficult time, you ministered to me with your kind and supportive emails, prayers, and hugs. So I’ve also been very mindful of the gift of community this week.

Not a community where we always agree with everything the others say. But a community where we love each other despite what the others say. That is why Southminster is the community it is—because we all share the gift of new life in Christ, we are able to come together as community, overcoming our differences.

That’s what Paul wants for Corinth. He wants them to see their very lives as gifts. Because when you do that, you respond in gratitude.

But to do that requires seeing things differently than the world sees. We’ll see this again and again in Paul’s letters.

The wisdom of this world will only make us fight with each other about who is right and who is wrong. The foolishness of God, however, will make us look at each other with different priorities, calling us into community, giving us the gift of true wisdom.

But imitating Paul is not easy.

Because he doesn’t tell us to be successful and well spoken and appreciated by the world.

Listen again to how they are supposed to be imitators of Paul:

“We are fools for the sake of Christ, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day.”

He also says, “the kingdom of God depends not on talk but on power”. Which is sort of odd, since he’s always telling people to be weak, and not strong. But I think what he’s doing is reminding them that the foolishness of the gospel is not about talk. It is about how it lives out in our lives.

What if we really were to be imitators of Paul, who is, of course, imitating Jesus?

What if, when we were slandered, we spoke kindly in response?

What if, when people reviled us, we blessed them?

Have you seen the bumper sticker, “Love your enemies—it messes with their heads”?

In some ways, that’s what Paul is calling us to do.

Because it is hard to have an argument when only one person is screaming. It is hard to escalate a situation when only one person is rising to the bait. It is hard to think that the wisdom of this world is wise when you look around through God’s eyes and see the pain it is causing us.

As we read through this letter, and the ones to come, pay attention to how Paul speaks of foolishness and wisdom. Notice how the unity of the body of Christ matters so much to him. Notice how the gift of faith that comes through Jesus Christ is supposed to transform how we live our lives.

And may we learn how to be fools for Christ.

Amen.

3 Comments | 1 Corinthians 4:6-21, foolishness, wisdom | Permalink
Posted by marciglass

Being Saved Community

March 16, 2009

A Sermon preached at Southminster Presbyterian Church
March 15, 2009

1 Cor 1:18-25

This passage from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth is one of my favorites. I love it because it best illustrates Paul’s gift of radical grace. But not all Presbyterians are fans of Paul, because he is often cited only as a moralist. Passages from his letters are used to say that people should do this but should not do that—take preaching for example. There are some passages in scripture that suggest that you should not have hired me, a woman, to be your pastor. But Paul addresses many of his letters to women, who were leading the churches in their community. Perhaps we can have a Paul Sunday School class next year to solve these discrepancies. But until then, please trust me when I say that mainline Protestants need to re-claim Paul and his writings.

He was a good Jew, well versed in the traditions of his people. He was not someone who followed Jesus. He was someone who persecuted the followers of Jesus. And then God broke into his life through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
And once he encountered the risen Jesus, he completely changed his life. Dropping all of the privilege and power that came with being a Jewish leader, he became an itinerant preacher, roaming around Asia Minor, delivering the Good News of Jesus Christ.

And once he met or started a community in a town or city, he kept in touch with them through letters. Some of these letters, written to address specific situations in specific congregations, were copied and passed around to other churches and became a part of our New Testament. But Paul’s writings were never meant, by him at least, to be scripture.

And remember—when we open our bibles, we see the Gospels in the New Testament before we encounter Paul’s letters, but Paul’s letters predate the writing and circulating of the gospels. Paul would have been a contemporary of Jesus, yet they did not know each other. His missionary journeys begin less than 10 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection and he is suspected to have died around the year 60. The earliest possible dating of a gospel account is in the mid 60’s, after Paul’s death. So, while accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry were no doubt circulating in oral form in the years after his death and resurrection, Paul’s letters are the first material we have from the early church.

One of the reasons, I suspect, that Paul’s letters were circulated so widely in the early church is because of how unique his message and his experience of Christ was.
Even though his message grows out of Old Testament understandings and beliefs, his experience with the risen Christ leads Paul to turn those understandings upside down. For example, there is a theme in the Old Testament of God siding with the underdog. Israel is the prime example of a people who had no army, no power, no resources, no land, and no future. And yet, God chooses them to be God’s people. But Israel continued to believe that their selection by God had removed their underdog status. Now that they were God’s people, they kept expecting success. Their plan, now that God was on their side, was to defeat and destroy their enemies and to become the ‘top dog’, as it were.

But Paul, reading the Old Testament through his experience of the risen Christ, preaches a new message. Paul says that the wisdom of the world is foolishness. That the plan to become the top dog will not work. That self preservation and self promotion will get you nowhere. Paul argues that being the underdog is what God is calling us to be.

Echoing the passage we heard last week from Mark—if you lose your life for my sake, you’ll find it.

This passage from Paul’s letter to the believers in Corinth was written with a very specific context. He had spent some time with them. But then his journeys took him elsewhere. And when he left, some other teachers showed up. Some other teachers who were better spoken, and better looking. They were charismatic and quickly drew a following, but they were not preaching the same message that Paul did—of radical abandonment of the status quo. Instead, they were preaching a prosperity gospel, of sorts. They were continuing on with the understanding that having God on your side means success and prosperity.

And so Paul writes the Corinthians a letter, praying for unity. Praying that they might not be divided. Praying that he’ll remember the gospel they heard proclaimed by him.

Right before our passage today, Paul sets up his argument—“now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.”

And if you want to know what that same purpose is, he says, listen to Paul, not to some smooth talking guy.

Because Paul was apparently not a good speaker. Preaching was not his gift. And he wasn’t so nice to look at either, by his own admission. But Paul is a brilliant rhetorical thinker, who was well versed in the crafting of an argument. In verse 17, after talking about the factions and who-baptized-who, he says, “for Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel—and not with eloquent wisdom, so the cross of Christ might not be emptied.”

In other words—eloquent wisdom empties the cross of its power.

And then Paul, the person who puts no stock in human wisdom, uses a lot of it to build his argument.
God tried the wisdom of the world, he says. God sent prophets. God gave the people signs. God raised up kings, leaders, and judges. And you know what? The world still didn’t know God. So God threw human wisdom in the recycling bin and did something crazy. Foolish, even. God became human.

And God did not become human the way Hollywood would script it. He was born in poverty, in a no account town, to an unwed teenage mother. And the clearest expression of God’s human divinity was through humiliation on a cross, at the hands of an occupying power.

Think about how odd that looks to the world. The central Christian symbol that decorates our sanctuary—the cross— is the ancient equivalent of the electric chair.

And Paul argues that this is GOOD NEWS because it DEFINITIVELY kicks us out of the cycle of trying to solve our problems through human wisdom. We will never be clever enough or eloquent enough to rely on our own abilities or expertise for salvation or to know God. Paul reminds us that the foolishness of God is better than the best human wisdom. So why would we want to rely on ourselves?

This message from Paul also has implications for us at Southminster as a community of faith, as part of the body of Christ. Because it is to Christ we look for our model. But the church is as seduced by the wisdom of this world as was the church in Corinth. Christians seek power in strength, not in weakness. We seek to be popular and successful, not maligned and oppressed. I, as your preacher, seek to be eloquent and use the wisdom I possess; yet it is through the “foolishness of our proclamation”, as Paul puts it, that God saves people.

This is one of those sermons where my answers only get me in more trouble. We are left to struggle with this text if we want to be faithful to the gospel and not be distracted by human wisdom.

A famous preacher provides a helpful term as we consider the paradox of modeling church on the weakness and foolishness of the gospel. He calls the church a “being saved community”,(David Buttrick Homiletic: Moves and Structures (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987) p 459) which comes from the beginning of this passage—“for 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”. Each day, every day, we are in the process of being saved from “cramped little lives of selfishness and saved for the broad, roomy, loving discipleship of the cross”. (Jeff Paschal, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 2 p. 89)

Perhaps if we see ourselves as a “being saved community”, it will help us live in humility. Rather than just becoming a Christian and then considering the matter solved, this might help us live each day as people in need of God’s grace. Perhaps if we see ourselves as a “being saved community”, we’ll feel less need to rely on human wisdom, and can instead trust in Christ, the “power of God and the wisdom of God”.
If we see ourselves as a “being saved community”, hopefully there will be room for others to join us in the journey.
Hopefully we’ll be able to trust in God’s foolishness and see the paradox of our faith as Good News. And, hopefully, the sign of the one cross will call us, again and again, to unity. It is around this cross, this sign of the world’s wisdom being revealed as foolishness, that we all gather. Young and old. Rich and poor. Liberal and conservative. All of those labels belong to the wisdom of the world. Trusting in the foolishness of God to bring us all together under the cross, under the label of “those who are being saved.” Amen

Leave a Comment » | 1 Corinthians 1:18-25;, Apostle Paul, foolishness, wisdom | Permalink
Posted by marciglass

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