Century Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ)

1301 Tamarack Road, Owensboro, KY 42301, (270) 684-0286, Pastor:  Rev. Jim Westmoreland

Called To Be Foolish
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
by Jim Westmoreland

I'm not sure I like the idea of being foolish, or acting foolish or being called foolish. It reminds me of some the stupidest things I've done in my life. I also think of the reckless and ignorant fanaticism that represents the worst parts of human nature and some people's religious practices. There are things I don't want to be associated with or have anything to do with, and some of it is done in the name of "religion."

I would much prefer to be called wise or respectable a lot better. Sometimes, I'm uncomfortable with the way the apostle Paul writes. He makes things so either/or, so black or white. It is like he is making me make a choice . . . to live one way or another.

It is like he is marking a line on the ground and saying, "If you really believe following Jesus' teachings and having a relationship with God through Jesus is the way to forgiveness, joy and finding your purpose in life, step across this line."

Some of us might have a hard time stepping across that line if we were all lined up with everyone else in town, all mixed together. We don't want to look foolish or stupid. It's like we are afraid that Jeff Foxworthy will show up and hand us our sign that says "stupid" or maybe "foolish" on it.

Jeff Foxworthy is the comedian best known for his jokes that start "you might be a redneck if . . ." Well, he has a monologue about "stupid" people, that plays to our eagerness or willingness to laugh at someone else who does something "stupid."

He says things like, "Stupid people should have to wear signs that just say, "I'm Stupid." That way you wouldn't rely on them, would you? You wouldn't ask them anything. It would be like, "Excuse me...oops...never mind, didn't see your sign."

He says, It's like before my wife and I moved. Our house was full of boxes and there was a U-Haul truck in our driveway. My neighbor comes over and says, "Hey, you moving?" "Nope. We just pack our stuff up once or twice a week to see how many boxes it takes. Here's your sign."

He continues, A couple of months ago I went fishing with a buddy of mine, we pulled his boat into the dock, I lifted up this big ol' stringer of bass and this idiot on the dock goes, "Hey, y'all catch all them fish?" "Nope. Talked 'em into giving up. Here's your sign."

He closes his monologue with these words, "Anybody you know need a sign today? The next time someone says something stupid, ask them where their sign is."

Perhaps, we live with a horrible fear that someone will think we are foolish if we take our faith so seriously that we try to live it and practice it. We fear that we will have to wear a big, "foolish Christian" sign around our neck.

As Paul wrote his letter to the church in Corinth there were those who struggled with how to take the message about Jesus. Corinth was a major port which was on the major land route between the Adriatic and Aegean Seas across the narrow isthmus connecting the Peloponnesian peninsula to central Greece. It was a commercial, industrial and cultural center. Its inhabitants came from far and wide and comprised many nationalities, including Jews, amidst the dominant Greek culture.⁽¹⁾

The "message" of Christ crucified, risen and alive is God's power for us who believe, but to those who hear the good news and reject "the cross" it is nonsense. In the first part of 1st Corinthians chapter 1 Paul has just dealt firmly with divisions in the church. Beginning in v. 19 he speaks of two types of people, those who consider themselves to be "wise" and "those who believe." He asks if the Jewish "scribe" and the rationalist "debater," both of whom possess worldly wisdom, are really wise? Paul is contrasting a wisdom that takes the shape of words, eloquence and debate with wisdom with a different shape.⁽²⁾ He has experienced a different kind of wisdom that resides in the cross.

The Jews pointed to their scriptures and quoted, "He who dies on a tree is accursed." So, to them, Jesus on a cross was definitive proof that He was NOT the Son of God. They also wanted signs, signs that proved that Jesus was setting up an earthly kingdom and was going to overthrow the Roman government. They cold not accept a suffering servant, spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, as the Messiah of God.

The philosophical Greeks thought the whole idea of a god who cared, or was sad, disappointed or had any feelings at all as foolish. Their view of God is much like those who reject the idea of a personal god today. A non-personal, non-theistic view of God makes God an idea or a force, but not someone with whom you can have a relationship. There is no real basis for caring, forgiving or loving in this view of God. At best, these exist only as ideas.

For Paul, the cross completely overturns the ways of the world. I don't think he is putting down the weak or the strong in vv.27-29. But he is saying that God's wisdom upsets what commonly passes for wisdom.

Though the early church had people from every strata of society, it also attracted the common people, who were not excluded or made to be second class. In fact William Barclay writes in his commentary, "Somewhere round about the year A.D. 178 Celsus wrote one of the bitterest attacks upon Christianity that was ever written. It was precisely this appeal of Christianity to the common people that he ridiculed.⁽³⁾

In the Roman Empire there were sixty million slaves. In the eyes of the law a slave was a "living tool," a thing and not a person at all. But "It was the glory of Christianity that it made people who were things into real men and women," and even more, "into sons and daughters of God; it gave those who had no respect their self-respect," And it gave Eternal Life to those who seemingly had no life. It told people that felt like they didn't matter to anyone that they mattered to God. And, it told people who, in the eyes of their world were worthless, that, in the eyes of God, they were worth the death of God's only Son."⁽⁴⁾

Paul helps us to see and to choose our identity. God uses unlikely people at unlikely times to care for others and to bring glory to Him. We are all weak at times and we all have our weaknesses that we bring and offer to God. God says we all offer our weaknesses so that no one can boast in themselves. Rather, "let him who boasts, boast of the Lord."

To the world this is foolish; yet, we are called to be foolish for Christ. When the line is drawn in the dirt, we who believe that our life and forgiveness and joy comes from the power of the cross, will confess our fears and our weaknesses, and still, we will step across that line!

Endnotes:

2. Terrance L. Dinovo, "Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified," in World in Word, Texts in Context, Luther Northwestern Theological Seminary, 1995.

3. William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians, St. Andrews Press, Edinburgh, 1965, p.23-24.