A few years back – the AC in our car went out in the midst of a sweltering summer. The problem confounded the multiple mechanics we took it to in New Jersey. And after an incredibly sweaty windows-down road trip that summer to visit family, we finally took the car to our old mechanic back in Kansas. He told us, “Well, it could be that the whole compressor needs replacing, but let me try fiddling with something else.” I’m not totally clear what he did – something about taking a grinder to the clutch plate that enabled the system to kick on properly – but it worked. The AC has blown cold ever since.
He was a wise mechanic with decades of intuition. He had a hunch of where to begin looking when faced with a daunting problem.
When I think of wisdom and those that are wise – I think of people whose intuitions have been shaped by deep care and attentiveness. They might not always be able to directly solve every problem immediately – but they know where to begin looking for answers.
Car problems? You want a wise mechanic. Questions and uncertainty about your money? You want a wise advisor or investor to protect and grow your finances. Feeling uncertain or alone? You want a wise friend who listens well and encourages thoughtfully. And when you’ve got a nagging pain or a troubling illness, nobody requests an appointment with a fool. No, you want a wise doctor or medical professional with wisdom informed by the best of training and research fused with care and compassion.
We are in a collective moment that demands profound wisdom. Because it’s difficult to know which way to take or even to glimpse the contours of the wise paths available to us.
How do we respond to authoritarianism that ratchets up deportations, concentrates power for the wealthy, and strips protections from the vulnerable? How do we know the truth and pursue it in an AI-saturated, digitally-distracted world? And as a church – where and on what and with whom and how… do we focus our attention and time and resources? There is so much that matters but where does Wisdom call us?
Amidst the disturbing dilemmas and overwhelming opportunities before us, in these situations of complexity for whom there is no seasoned mechanic or wise doctor to call, how is the wisdom of God pursuing and seeking us out?
There is a temptation that when we’re under pressure to address a problem or when we care deeply about something – that we double down in an effort to appear smart, in-control… wise. That’s a temptation in preaching – that by beautiful words and the right story and a smooth transition from one well-crafted argument to one another – that the message will finally sink in. Paul certainly faced this pressure as he preached in person and then later wrote to the early church community in Corinth. Yet Paul dismisses the power of slick rhetoric and inspiring charisma.
Instead, Paul describes himself as preaching with “weakness, fear, and a lot of shaking…” and “without [any] convincing wise words…” (I Cor 2:3-4). Paul writes that his focus was on nothing except Jesus, the crucified Christ.
The message of the cross – then and now – is “foolishness.” That word cross – a Roman imperial device of terror torture and execution upon which Jesus and countless others died…this is the symbol at the heart of Paul’s message.
The life and death and resurrection of Jesus is a scandalous stumbling block to our ideas about how the power of God works in the world …Jesus is foolishness to our visions of the wise progress of self-promotion. And so in our text for today – Paul as a preacher – turns this idea of foolishness on its head by emphasizing how God’s wisdom has always upended humanity’s conventional wisdom.
Yes… it is utter foolishness that somehow life and salvation would come from the horror of the cross. But God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. Yes – Jesus is not stereotypically strong…he is not a muscled hero or commander of bristling armies…but God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Paul is using a device that minority groups have often resorted to. He redefines the value system around what is considered shameful and what is honorable.1
When Mennonite men who were conscientious objectors to war in the 20th century were attacked as unpatriotic, unmasculine, cowards, they in turn framed what they were doing as epitomizing bravery, they argued that their work fighting forest fires and in mental health institutions was what service to the common good looked like in practice.
When the epithet of “queer” has been hurled against LGBTQ folks, they embraced “queer” and “queerness” as a beacon of proud identity and resistance outside of heterosexual norms.
And so when Paul responds to that word “foolish”- a word that captures all the objections to the Jesus, Paul claims as Messiah and Savior, Paul turns the word “foolish” on its head.“Hasn’t God made the wisdom of the world foolish?” asks Paul (I Cor 1:21).
By wisdom of the world, Paul refers to the human standards of power and strength and self-promotion and wealth building (1 Cor 1:26). This is the real foolishness, preaches Paul. And real wisdom is the teaching and life and power and vulnerability and triumph of Christ. Or as Paul says, “It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus. He became wisdom from God for us.” (I Cor 1:30).
A life of true wisdom is hearing the words and following the example of the One who was present at the first birth pangs of the Big Bang and whose spirit rumbled in the belly of the prophets in ages past and present. True wisdom is present in the person of Jesus who has overcome death and brings us into life with God.
One of the things that I love about Jesus – is that he grew up with Joseph as his dad, learning construction and so even though as an adult when he’s an itinerant, preacher relying on the hospitality of others because he doesn’t have a house of his own, he still peppers his teaching with language drawn from the building trade: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise person who built his house on rock…the foolish one built their house on the sand…and great was its fall,” Jesus says in our gospel passage (Matt 7:24).
The other week I was out on the coast – in Rodanthe – and one evening on a walk along the beach and I was struck by the remnants of homes – piers and crumbling foundations lurching in the surf and sand. I later learned that Rodanthe has gained acclaim for news of multiple vacation homes built on water’s edge tumbling into the rising seas.
We receive the words and teachings of Christ as gifts of faith, passed as a sturdy foundation by beloved community that continually seeks his wisdom. We receive and trust Christ’s wisdom as the rock to build upon no matter how daunting the questions that confront us.
Yet to a world bent on self-promotion, self-accumulation, which practices a false-wisdom devoid of vulnerability – Christ’s wisdom will appear like foolishness. A world that turns its eye away from the image of God in the poor and hurting epitomizes foolishness of the cruelest kind. Living as if the problems we face and long to fix were merely mechanical or financial or medical, would be to build our lives on the shifting sands of human wisdom alone.
But for us as a church, we celebrate the foolishness of God as our wisdom, we rejoice that the weakness of God is our salvation.
Give all you have to the poor and come and follow me. Be born anew. Receive the kingdom of God like a little child. Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or what you will wear. Do not worry about tomorrow. Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me. This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.
These words of Christ sometimes may sound like foolishness. Like sand. But God chose what the world considers foolish to shame the wise.
God chose the weak to shame the strong. God chose Jesus to become the wisdom of God for us. Thanks be to God.
- Dan Nighswander, I Corinthians, Believers Church Bible Commentary, (Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2017), 85. ↩︎