1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco on January 31, 1999
What Fools Do
Have you ever wondered why you get up every Sunday morning particularly when it is chilly and raining outside to come to church in Chinatown, when you can watch Charles Osgood’s CBS Sunday morning news show? And in your hands is a mug of freshly brewed coffee?
How about writing those monthly or weekly checks to the church for your Annual Pledge commitment and your Continue the Legacy stewardship campaign commitment when you’ve been eyeing that new computer or new car for the past two years?
What have you been saying to yourself when you have had invitations and opportunities to advance in your job with greater responsibilities, more pay, and benefits, but you’ve turn these down? You have declined advancements because you are not willing to sacrifice the time that it will take for this new job from your church commitments?
For many people who don’t understand the meaning of being a Christian, they would say that we are “foolish.” We would give up rest after a long week of work. We would delay our gratification for life’s pleasures. We would remain fulfilled with what we have instead of acquiring more status and power. Many people would call us foolish for what we are doing with our lives. Harvey Cox once called people like us, a “feast of fools.”
Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians
When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he was addressing an audience who believed that from knowledge came the freedom to practice a lifestyle possessed with a variety of behaviors and choices. Their confidence in knowledge gave them a license to be uninhibited and assertive to the point that they thought people who are weaker than they are should have no respect. This feeling of superiority made them feel that they already have the possession of the Holy Spirit and some were speaking in tongues. The Corinthian Christians were downright “full of themselves!” They were “know it alls.”
We can all think about some people in our lives who are “know it alls.” Not anyone in this room, of course. Some of them make sure that all of their alphabet soup letters are listed behind their names. Others go around finishing up your sentences. Some “know it alls” are always ready to quote some fast-breaking news to show off what they know. I recently heard a radio evangelist ranting and declaring his ideas of religious truth without a shred of possibility that there could be another point of view. He went on to imply strongly that nearly everyone outside his sanctuary, were dead wrong in their thinking and probably in serious trouble with God. He’s a “know it all.”
When Paul wrote, “Has God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” he was not finding fault in advances with medical knowledge, or space exploration, or computer technology. But rather, he was criticizing pretentious claims to knowledge. These Corinthians were claiming that their knowledge gave them the right to boast and show-off how much they knew. There are some people we know who are like the Corinthian Christians. They think that with human knowledge or wisdom, we can pretty much explain all the mysteries of life. We can answer all the tough questions facing our world. We can be so “full of ourselves,” trusting that through human ingenuity, we can solve all the mysteries of the universe, that we don’t need God!
Foolishness of the Cross
It is in this setting that Paul finds himself preaching about the cross of Christ. The Cross did not make sense to the Corinthians or the Jews. Paul says the cross is foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews. For the Corinthians who were Greeks, answers to life came from those who are wise, the scribes, the debaters of the age. To claim that the meaning of life can be derived from the cross where the great Rabbi died was simply nonsense! It made no sense. For the Corinthians, the cross symbolizes for them complete failure—a sign of a weak God. How can God be so pathetic to die on the cross? And we know Corinthians had no room for those who showed any signs of weaknesses.
For the Jews who are observing this new religious movement from a distance, they saw the cross as utter scandalous! The word, “stumbling block” means a scandal. It was blasphemy according to Jewish thinking that the Messiah should meet such a disgraceful ending. The idea of a messiah nailed to the cross, coming under this ancient curse, is for the Jew, unbelievable. Although the Jews were looking for the sign of the coming Messiah, they were disappointed in Jesus.
Both Jews and Corinthians are looking for God in all the wrong places. They shall have neither signs or wisdom. Instead God is found in the grace and mercy of the crucified Messiah and the risen Lord!
Paul said that since the world did not believe in God from wisdom, referring to the Law and the Prophets, God decided to try another way. God knew that from our human dependency on our own efforts, our own minds, our own confidence, our own “know it all” attitude, that we may never turn to God. We are too “full of ourselves.” God tried another way. God decided to be foolish with us. God went up against everything that we thought or reasoned to happen and went another way. God foolishly from our perspective died on the cross for our everlasting life. Paul says,
“For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through
wisdom, God decided through foolishness of our proclamation, to save
those who believe.”
When the prodigal son returned home after squandering all of his inheritance, bringing shame onto himself and onto his father’s name, and having been compared with such perceived unclean things such as pigs, the father did a foolish thing. Instead of getting angry and screaming at his undeserving son, he runs to meet his lost son, hugs him, puts a robe on his back, sandals on his feet, and instructs his workers to prepare the fatted calf for a great welcoming home party. Changing what we know as right to reconciliation, what’s success to what’s foolish in the eyes of the world, what’s expected to a total surprise, God tells us to be foolish.
After so many years, the foolishness of the cross has been stripped of its scandalous and offensive character in our attempt to be all things to all people. Our sanctuary cross is shiny polished brass like some attractive museum artifact behind a glass case. Some of us wear crosses around our necks as objects of jewelry that belies its original offensiveness. There’s old gospel song that goes like this:
On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
The emblem of suffering and shame;
And I love that old cross where the dearest and best
For a world of lost sinners was slain.
So, I cherish the old rugged cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
And exchange it someday for a crown.
In our society, we try to package the gospel Madison Avenue style or reduce the truth of the gospel to the lowest common denominator. When we call ourselves Christians and adorn crosses around our necks, are we any different from anyone else? But the way of God is strength in weakness, glory in shame, wisdom in foolishness. How do we live out this foolish faith in our daily lives?
There is a story that some of you may have surely heard in the past that I would like to share with you now. The Ragman by Walter Wangerin.
Fools for Christ
Like the Ragman, we are invited to believe in the way of God is that strength comes from weakness, glory from shame, wisdom not from ourselves, but from our being fools for Christ. Paul himself said that his preaching about the gospel is not with “eloquent wisdom” so that to not “empty the power of the cross of Christ.” Paul wasn’t going to distract from the cross of Christ by hiding and boasting the real meaning of the gospel by his own human need for eloquence.
Next he reminded the Corinthian brothers and sisters that not many of them were wise according to human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
God goes after people who are not the “know it alls,” not the people who are “full of themselves” to be his disciples.
God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise;
God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not,
to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the
presence of God.
Forgive me if I offend you, but we are the foolish ones. We are the weak. We are the low and despised in the world. We are fools to get up so early in the mornings on Sundays to come to church. And for many Sundays, you come and miss watching the Forty-Niners play. I think you can get home to watch the Super Bowl today at 3:00! We are the weak for not chasing the dreams of the rich and famous, but rather give so sacrificially and generously to the work of the Lord. We are the lowly and the despised when we put our needs of our church’s ministry higher than other human measurement of success. Our foolish lives of living out our Christian faith turns the world’s standard of importance upside down and transform things that are not to things that are pleasing to God!
Care Partners
On Monday and Tuesday of this week, nine people from our church traveled to Stockton to learn about how they can become agents of giving care to our congregation. Why would these people give so much of themselves, taking vacation days from work, leaving children and spouses at home, and donating two full days out of busy lives to learn how to become “care partners?” They gave because they are “fools for Christ.” They are not the only ones. There are many more like them. They are here, all of you. They are those who are at the 11:15 service. They are the many who are teaching upstairs, down the street at the CEC center. They are the ones who come week after week on Friday nights to teach English to students and in doing so, show how they are “fools for Christ.” Probably the most frequently asked question from the Friday Night School students is, “Why are you doing all of this for us?” When Jesus the Christ is the source of our lives and is the true wisdom of righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, we have nothing else to do but to “boast in the Lord.”
Being a Fool Today
Remember those days when your school teachers required you to wrap your textbooks in butcher paper or shopping bags. Lauren always wanted me to wrap her books because I can do real tightly. The corners are pointed and squared. Once the books are covered, you don’t always know what’s in them.
I used to want to wrap my Bible. Not to protect the covers or to keep it looking new, but I didn’t want people to see that I was a Christian. I didn’t want them to see that I was carrying this religious stuff around with me. I was worried about what my friends might say about me. I wasn’t ready to be associated with Christ. I was not yet a “fool for Christ.”
As we all know, just carrying your Bible around is not enough. It may even be a way to be a “know it all” Christian. But when we are willing to unwrap all the butcher papers and shopping bags away from our lives, we are then willing to live our lives that show that the way of God is strength in our weakness, glory in our shame, and wisdom in our foolishness. When we tear away from ourselves the pretentiousness of human knowledge, we see that it is Christ crucified that has given us eternal life. When we take off the artificial covers off from our lives, we stand ready to be fools for Christ.
May we continue to bear witness to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior who is truly the “fool on the hill” so that we may always boast that it is in God’s loving foolishness, that we are saved in Christ eternal.
Let us pray.
Eternal God, we have tried to appear more important than we are, more worthy of praise and applause than we deserved. Instill in us the commitment to be “fools for Christ” in our world. Grant us the courage to live out the folly of the cross every day. In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen.