True Wisdom

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, January 29, 2023
1 Corinthians 1:18-31

    Recently, my phone died for awhile, and as you can imagine, it was like a part of my brain was gone!  I had to drive by looking at a map beforehand to know where I was going!  I had to look at a paper calendar.  For a lunch meeting, I had to trust that the other person would show up, without a text confirming that I or they were on the way!  I had to dig out a flashlight, look at a clock and worst of all, do mental math without a calculator.  Luckily, Rich helped me get my phone back up and running pretty quickly.  I am old enough to still remember how to live without a computer in my pocket, although it’s been awhile.  I know how to ask for directions at a gas station, use a pay phone and a calling card!  
I mostly appreciate new developments in technology and how they help make our lives easier, but sometimes I do wonder (especially when forced to go without for a little bit) if it’s making society, how do I put it nicely, more stupid? Less smart?  We let our phones do a lot of thinking for us.  What other movie was that actress in? We Google it without even challenging ourselves to see if we can recall it ourselves for a minute.  I know exactly five phone numbers by heart – I used to know many more, but who needs to remember that kind of thing anymore?  Lately the girls and I have gotten into reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, written shortly after the Civil War.  The level of vocabulary and just plain good writing for children is kind of embarrassing when you compare it to contemporary literature today.  I do wonder if we are using our brains as much as we used to in generations past, or maybe we’re just using our brains differently, and we are smarter in different ways?  What does it mean to be foolish and wise, especially as people of faith?  This is the central question that Paul has us wrestling with from our second reading for today.
We are looking at the last part of the first chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians this morning, where Paul starts to focus on God’s wisdom and our foolishness.  As a brief recap, Paul started the Christian church in Corinth, and he is writing out of concern about the many divisions within the church that have arisen since he’s left to start other churches.  A primary source of the conflict is that these Christians are trying to live by the way of the Corinthian culture and society within the church, instead of by the way of Christ, which is sometimes contrary to the culture.  The Corinthian society is highly stratified, with a few wealthy powerful people at the top.  People are used to competing to prove they are richer, smarter, and more powerful than others to prove their value, boasting in themselves as Paul notes in today’s passage.  The Corinthians love wisdom and trying to figure everything out including how God works.  That’s where the word philosophy comes from, after all – it means the love of wisdom, in Greek!  Throughout his letter, Paul is consistently reminding these bickering Christians that it is Christ who unites us.  We are all one through our faith in Christ regardless of our social standing or achievements in the world.  And in this passage, Paul says, this includes what we think we know – how smart we think we are in comparison to others.  Rely on God’s wisdom rather than on your own thinking, Paul says.  “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”
Certainly the culture of first century Corinth was different from our own today – no smartphones for one thing, obviously!  But like the Corinthians, we still struggle to live faithfully as Christians in a culture that values competition, proving yourself by how many achievements and degrees you can put in your resume or bio or titles you can put on your business card.  Marketing yourself as your own brand, self-promoting on social media is a real thing!  When people get into it on social media, one of the consistent put-downs I notice is to call the other person an idiot.  Of course WE are always the smart ones who have the most accurate, right information.  What’s wrong with other people?  They’re too much into their phones for one thing.  
So Paul has us really wrestle with our foolishness and God’s wisdom today in a way that is still challenging, despite the centuries between us and the Corinthians’ reality.  Greco-Roman society deeply believed in being able to figure the world out rationally through logical thought.  I know plenty of people who still believe this – that they’ve got the world figured out, and that includes God – whether God definitely exists or definitely doesn’t.  Most of us would be mortified to admit that some of our thinking is foolish, but that is what Paul drives us to today – to admit that at face value, to the logical, rational thinking of the world, Jesus’ death on the cross is a scandal, a stumbling block and foolishness.  His crucifixion and resurrection does not make sense.  We cannot to a point rationalize our faith.  We ultimately rely on God and his wisdom, which is beyond human understanding, and that takes humility to admit that we don’t know everything, and we can’t figure everything out.  That is what faith, TRUST, in God, is.
Our humility to boast in the Lord and rely on the Lord’s wisdom and strength instead of our own levels the playing field, because all of a sudden then it’s not about the degrees and titles and achievements in the Christian community, but about all of us striving to learn more about Jesus and follow him together.  If you think you have God all figured out I would stop yourself right there and re-read this passage here from 1 Corinthians.  We haven’t earned our blessings – it is God who has blessed us and calls us blessed, as Jesus tells us in the gospel today, even when we are poor in spirit, meek, mourning, persecuted and reviled!  It doesn’t matter if you’re in preschool and can’t read yet, flunked out of high school or college, or have a PhD or several master’s degrees, we are called by God to be lifelong learners pursuing God’s wisdom beyond our own human wisdom.  On the cross, Jesus puts to death our self-pride, our claims to earthly power and wisdom, our misplaced loyalty to other people and things than God, our lapses in judgment – and exchanges all of those things for God’s mercy.  Jesus says we are blessed then when we are merciful, because we have begun to somewhat comprehend the depth of Christ’s mercy to us on the cross.
New Testament scholar J Paul Sampley says Paul writes this letter to the Corinthians so they might understand that “What counts is not what one knows but by whom one is known.”  We find true wisdom when we lay aside what we know to simply accept that we are accepted, fully; known, fully by God, right now, in all our wisdom and foolishness.  We don’t know everything but God knows, and most importantly God knows who we are and in Christ accepts us, fully.  God knew what a mess humanity was in when he sent his only Son to be born, die, and be raised for us.  God did it anyway.  God would do it again in a heartbeat.  That’s the foolishness and wisdom of God – the mercy of Christ on the cross, for us.  And because of God’s foolish wisdom, we are not perishing but being saved.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.