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The World Cup is in full swing now…and I’m pretty certain this is as close to heaven as I’ll get this side of death.
But reading this Sunday’s scripture has given me a different pair of eyes through which to watch these matches. Recently in a United States match, one of the opponents cynically chopped down a US player with a swing of his leg. The referee called a foul but didn’t issue any further punishment, such as a yellow card. The US players were incensed. A few minutes later, Tyler Adams, who is one of the leaders of the US team, a short, scrappy defensive midfielder, committed a robust challenge against the previous offender. Let’s just say he made sure his tackle left a mark. He received a yellow card but seemed nonplused. In an interview after the game, Adams was asked if his challenge was an act of retribution. He responded: “If I see one of my guys get kicked, I’m going right after them.”
I’ll put my cards on the table. When I saw Tyler Adams rush into that full-blooded tackle, I felt a surge of satisfaction—right in line with the sentiments he expressed after the match. Against a tough opponent, you need to show you’re no pushover. If they hit you, you hit them right back.
It’s the wisdom of our world. Maybe a bit unsavory, but I think most of us feel that rush of satisfaction when we see the little guy stand up for himself. I remember growing up and watching countless sitcom television shows that included among their catalogue an episode where a youth is getting bullied at school and receives the tough wisdom of the streets (usually from his father) that if he wants the bullying to stop he has to hit back. Finally he does. Regardless of whether he’s victorious or he comes home pummeled to a pulp, his deed is considered a victory, and the show ends on a happy note. Finally, he stood up for himself.
“Christ
Crucified” Is Not Common Sense
The same time that I was watching these sitcoms, I was learning at church about Jesus. I was taught that the crowning moment of his life was the cross…where he did not fight back. I scratched my head. What was going on here? The cross didn’t make sense by the world’s logic. “Christ crucified” is not common sense.
And yet much of what I learned at church passed right over this fundamental contradiction, with barely a nod. I remember there were various courses and books at church that presented Jesus as the epitome of worldly wisdom in all walks of life. There was a course about how Jesus was a consummate business leader, and how CEOs should model their practice after him. (I scratched my head, wondering how forgiving all of your debtors was going to grow your business; cf. Matt 6:12; 18:22.) There was a book that explored how Jesus lived by democratic principles and how therefore the fight for democracy around the world was crucial for the kingdom of God. (I scratched my head, wondering why Jesus repeatedly disarmed his own followers if the fight was so crucial; cf. Luke 9:54-55; Matt 26:52.) There was a course about how Jesus was a champion for family values. (I scratched my head, wondering about the numerous sayings in which he spoke of the necessity of leaving one’s family or hating one’s parents or families being divided by the gospel; cf. Mark 10:28-30; Luke 14:26; Matt 10:34-36.)
Perhaps…but as we see in today’s scripture, what the world sees first in Christ is likely not supremacy, but strangeness. Difference. Contradiction. Or as Paul puts it, “foolishness” and “weakness….”
18 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. 19 For it is written,
“I
will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and
the discernment of the discerning I will thwart”—this
is a quote from Isaiah 29:14.
20 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? 21 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. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,
23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness
to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than
human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
As a person intimately familiar with the Jewish scriptures, Paul knows that God’s wisdom is not common sense. There is a rich tradition in the Jewish scriptures (the Old Testament) that maintains the strangeness and mystery of God’s wisdom. We see this in the quotation of Isaiah 29:14. We see this in the book of Ecclesiastes, which is one long quest for wisdom that is never fully satisfied. I’ve included on today’s scripture handout a portion of Job 28, which describes wisdom as a mystery hidden beyond the limits of the world. Wisdom cannot be found in wealth and power. It cannot be found at the ends of the earth; even death can only say, “We’ve heard a rumor of it with our ears” (Job 28:22). The point is not to despair but rather to accept that God’s wisdom is not something that can be grasped. The moment we humans have knowledge of something, is the moment we try to leverage that knowledge for our own gain. (All those books and studies on the supremacy of Jesus were, in my opinion, an attempt to domesticate Jesus for the sake of advancing our own projects.)
It strikes me as significant that Paul refers repeatedly to the cross and identifies Jesus as “Christ crucified.” Why does Paul not refer instead to the empty tomb and “Christ resurrected”? Why not choose a nickname or a handle that points to God’s power and victory? I think the answer is simple. Paul wants to ensure there is no confusion: the gospel is ultimately not about power and victory, but about love. And the ultimate symbol of God’s love is the cross, where instead of fighting back, Christ utters forgiveness; where instead of seeking retribution, Christ reconciles. There’s no way around it. From the outside, from the world’s vantage point of common sense, love looks weak and foolish.
God’s
Choice
26 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. 27 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; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Last week, we read in the gospel of Matthew how Jesus invites those who are “weary” and “carrying heavy burdens” (Matt 11:28)—quite likely those whom the world considers “wise” and “intelligent” (cf. Matt 11:25)—to take his yoke upon them and to learn from him who is “gentle and humble in heart” (Matt 11:29). I emphasized the point that this is the only direct identification of the character of God’s heart: “gentle and humble.” Not “proud” and “strong,” not “confident” and “self-assured.” “Gentle and humble.” Even as I made that point, however, I sensed a rebuttal. “Gentle and humble” could be easily confused, couldn’t it, with being a doormat or a pushover? (I suppose that’s why some people mocked the early followers of Christ. They followed a crucified God…which is to say, a doormat God, a pushover God.)
I’m reminded of how the folk singer Pete Seeger once remarked how some people confused Mister Rogers with being a “namby-pamby” pacifist. Maybe what he taught was suitable for little children, but come on, man—grow up. In the real world, it’s eat or be eaten.
When Mister Rogers stood before Congress to advocate for funding for his children’s program, he shared with them one of the songs that he’d written for his program. His sincere conviction was that most children’s television shows taught violence as the solution for one’s problems. From his faith—which he rarely revealed in public (the point for him was not posturing or winning adherents to an institution, the point was the message itself)—from his faith, Mister Rogers drew the conclusion that there was a radical alternative. It was the way of Christ. Listen to the words of the song that he read before Congress:
|
What do you do with the mad that you feel When you feel so mad you could bite? When the whole wide world seems oh, so
wrong... And nothing you do seems very right? What do you do? Do you punch a bag? Do you pound some clay or some dough? Do you round up friends for a game of tag? Or see how fast you go? It's great to be able to stop When you've planned a thing that's wrong, And be able to do something else instead And think this song: |
I can stop when I want to Can stop when I wish I can stop, stop, stop any time. And what a good feeling to feel like this And know that the feeling is really mine. Know that there's something deep inside That helps us become what we can. For a girl can be someday a woman And a boy can be someday a man. |
Paul’s encouragement to the Corinthians who follow the “weak” and “foolish”-looking Christ is not the promise that one day things will change and they will rise above their stations and be presidents or CEOs or celebrities. Rather it is the assurance that God’s most precious work is being done in the shadows where they live, in the unseen corners of the world, in the overlooked crevasses of obscurity. Repeatedly he declares, “God chose…,” “God chose…,” “God chose….” And who has God chosen? The “foolish,” the “weak,” the “low” and “despised.”
When history gets told, most of the focus rests on emperors and kings and presidents, on wars and battles and espionage and high-stakes diplomacy. But according to Paul, God’s history is happening mostly in the shadows, with the obscure and anonymous. I think immediately of little children learning from Mister Rogers, their hearts and minds quietly shaped into alignment with Christ. I think of hospitals and recovery communities and reading circles, where care takes precedence over control. I think of little churches and crowded living rooms, where the strange Wisdom of God—the Wisdom of love and peace and reconciliation—is taught.
Paul doesn’t spend much time trying to refute the negative name-calling that Christ-followers might receive. Doormats? Pushovers? Paul just shakes his head, and says, “You are doing things God’s way. ‘He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God’” (cf. 1 Cor 1:30). If you want to know what God’s wisdom looks like, look at Jesus.
As I was reminded while watching the World Cup, the wisdom of the world is to stand up for yourself (and your team), which really means to fight back. It is a wisdom we see across the realms of life, whether in business or relationships or politics. I wonder: does this mean that the way of Christ is not standing up for yourself? I don’t think so…. I think what we see in Christ crucified is Christ standing up—not just for himself, but for the kingdom of God, for a new creation, a new way of living together. It’s the same thing we see in Mister Rogers’ song, where “I can stop, stop, stop anytime” is a defiant refusal of the way of the world, a defiant insistence on living a different way. This quiet insistence from Christ and from his followers like Mister Rogers on forgiveness and reconciliation is standing up alright, but it’s a “standing for” something, rather than “standing against” someone. Their strength is not the strength of this world, but the strength of God. It is not force but steadfastness. Like a living stream of water, quietly shaping all that stands in its way.
Prayer
Your body bears
The scars of your love—
And we are your body
Here on earth.
…
Help us to learn
The wisdom of God,
That we might not seek our own greatness
But something even greater.
In your gentle and humble spirit, we pray: Amen.
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