John
2:13-22 & I Cor 1:18-25
The
Foolishness which is Christ
Don't
you just love the story of Jesus driving the money changers from the
temple? It appeals to us for so many
differing reasons - some good, some not so good. The most common question raised over this
story is whether or not Jesus does all this out of anger. It may be helpful to see Jesus as a person
who got angry. Repeated references to
Jesus as one who knew no sin or committed no sin do very little to help
us identify with Jesus – or I should saw to see him as one of us. But show me a Jesus capable of losing his
temper and I am a lot more likely to find connections between his life and mine.
The
story appeals to me with its acknowledgment of the power which resides in a
right conviction. Picture this in your
head - there is Jesus, one little man in the midst of so many strong and
muscular individuals, yet the strength of his convictions prevents anyone from
stopping him. Because he was right, his
actions are unopposed even by those with greatly superior physical
strength.
The
story of Jesus driving the money changers from the temple appeals to us for a
number of differing reasons. Some good;
some not so good.
One
not-so-good reason would be to embolden those who read this story and
immediately begin to consider who Jesus would drive from the temples which we
call Christian churches. Some people
read this story and from it derive permission to forcefully remove from the
church those whom they consider objectionable.
Money changers may still appear on the lists of those to be
excluded. But others are readily added: those with different lifestyles; those with
the wrong political opinions; those who make use of the ancient creeds,
those who do not employ the creeds. How
often do we see the actions of Jesus as an excuse to exclude from the temple
those whom we find objectionable?
As
a campus pastor, serving in an academic community, I am sensitive to another
category of persons sometimes pushed to the edges if not over the edge of faithful
servants of the church. The reading from
I Corinthians is all too often read as an indication that those who wish to
apply intellect or rational thought to the Christian experience are wrong. Jesus’ driving of the money changers from the
temple is linked to Paul’s discussion of the misuse of wisdom and suddenly
there develops this notion that Christian faith is all about the heart and in
no way involves the head. If they are
not driven from the temple, those who would apply research and reason and
rationality to the Christian tradition are at least encouraged to practice
their craft elsewhere.
True,
it is the experience of God which brings us faith. But thinking it through and rationally
studying the scriptures are also essential parts of the experience of being a
disciple of Christ.
I
have gotten lax in my encouragement to you to start carrying your bibles to
worship. Today is another day when it
would be very helpful to have them. In I
Corinthians 1: 22 Paul writes: Jews
demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a
stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. Some,
mistakenly, take these words as permission drive intellect and reason from our religious
life in same way that Jesus drove the money changers from the temple. Is he trying to tell us that God not only
demands the sacrifice of our pagan idols but that God also demands the
sacrifice of our minds? I don't think
so.
The
interesting aspect of all this is that scholarship itself clears up the
confusion. If we use a little
intellectual insight, we can see that St. Paul is not advocating that we give
up good reason, he merely wants our reason to be pointed in the right
direction.
The
word which causes so much trouble is the one translated for us as foolishness. We read this and too rapidly assume that Paul
is telling us that wisdom and reason serve no purpose what-so-ever. We read into his words a belief that it is
foolish for anyone to try and make sense out of the Jesus event. But Paul isn't talking about foolishness in
the way we are most like to consider something foolish. The word is more appropriately translated
"scandal." The gospel message
Paul preached was not foolish - it was scandalous, it was offensive, shocking,
considered improper.
To
teach that God had entered human from - not simply walked about the earth with
humans, but actually taken on our flesh - was scandalous, it was offensive to
the Gentile mind. The Greek gods would
often interact with humans, but doing so was more a matter of play. Never would one of the God's descend so low
as to take on our existence.
To
teach that a God would love his subjects so deeply was scandalous. The gods of Paul's gentile world played with
their subjects, tricked them and sometimes tortured them. Paul was claiming that the God of the Hebrews
loved the creatures - loved them enough to become one of them. This was foolishness, it was a scandal, it is
offensive.
We
proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and (scandalous) to
Gentiles.
Paul
isn't saying that it is inappropriate for us to use our minds in the experience
of faith. He is pointing out the
offensive nature of God's love and sacrifice for us. He isn't saying that we should never attempt
to understand the experience of faith or it teachings. He is warning us that God's actions in Christ
will not fit the expected course. God's
compassion for us will surprise us and cause God to act in ways we would never
expect.
We
see somewhat more clearly what Paul is saying when we read the whole of this
letter to the church at Corinth. Our
text begins at verse 18. In verses which
immediately preceding, Paul encourages his readers to set aside all
dissension. It has been reported to Paul
that there has been quarreling among them.
Some claimed to belong to Paul, others to Apollos or Cephas. Paul responds by asking "Was (I)
crucified for you? Or were you baptized
in the name of Paul? I am thankful that
I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius ... For Christ did not send me
to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the
cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
Paul
then moves into his discourse on "wisdom." Quoting Isaiah, Paul writes, "I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will
thwart." The verses which serve
as our reading for today are an aside.
They express a thought, but are not the issue to which Paul
responds. He is calling wisdom into
question, not because it serves no purpose in religious experience, but because
some have preferred their rational conclusions to the scandalous act of Jesus
dying on the cross.
In
chapter 2, Paul will continue his insistence that we focus on this foolish act
of a God who loves us. He writes: When I came to you ... I did not come
proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you
expect Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with
plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.
And
then we get a verse which is most helpful.
Paul writes, Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom. Not wisdom of the age, but the wisdom of
God's tremendous love for us. We speak
of the wisdom of a God who would love us enough to take on our form and die for
us.
Paul
does not teach that the desire to know is inconsistent with faith. Rather he reminds us that human wisdom and
knowledge will always stumble over the cross of Jesus. An explanation as to why God would use that
instrument of torture as our means for salvation can never be found. It is a scandal - even for us. But scandalous or not, it is the way that God
has chosen.
I
have to be very careful that I don't do the very thing which I criticize in
others. I do not want to drive from the
church those who insist upon blind faith.
But I will act with a high degree of conviction as I proclaim the
scandalous message of Christ crucified.
Far from being a simple and pleasing story, Jesus' path to Jerusalem
upsets our sensibilities and offends our notions of appropriateness. We cannot reach the cross through
intellectual inquiry, but unless we struggle with its offensive nature we will
most likely never appreciate the gift it represents.
Three
days after Jesus is hung on the cross he raises from the grave and announces that
we too will rise. As wonderful as that
promise may sound it really is only the icing on the cake. The first chapter of John's gospel captures
the true marvel of what God has done.
Remember that part about God so lov(ing) the world... It is God’s tremendous love for us, which
leads to Jesus’ dying on the cross which stands at the core of what it means to
be a Christian.
Offensive,
scandalous - who could believe that God would care so deeply about us?
Amen.
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