This week’s text, I Corinthians 1:18-31, is difficult for me because of recent political events. It is hard for me to affirm foolishness, even the Lord’s foolishness that is wiser than human wisdom, when it seems like our country is being subjected to the triumph of foolishness over wisdom, the victory of unreason over reason, and ultimately the overcoming of good by evil.
So it takes a bit of subtlety, something for which the current cultural climate has no patience, to grasp that the wisdom under attack in the text is precisely the sort of foolishness which has ensnared our nation. This wisdom-which-is-foolishness is the utilitarian, practical human wisdom which supposes that whatever works is true and good and the best for human welfare. This wisdom which God wants to destroy is the self-aggrandizement of those who imagine they are sophisticates who know how to “make a deal” and thus achieve by human cleverness alone a better world.
Far from an excuse for simple-mindedness or, worse, simple stupidity, the call to accept the “foolishness” of the Cross runs at cross-purposes to all the thoughtless “wisdom” of those in power. Rather than offering a formula for accruing power and advantage to ourselves, the “foolishness” of the Cross calls us to relinquish our own advantage and security for the sake of others.
Contrary to the “wisdom” of making America great and strong again, the “foolishness” of the Cross in verse 27 is meant to shame the wise and shame the strong.
Despite the current populist trend against careful political thought and despite, more painfully, the recurring Christian mistake of supposing that the faithful need to shield themselves from reason and intellect and thoughtful study, the foolishness of the Gospel, of the Cross, of Christ our Lord, demands the deepest thought. For one must understand that what feels natural and even good, like getting the most I can for myself and for those nearest to me, is deeply flawed and mistaken thinking.
One can only justly arrives at the embrace of foolishness when, like Paul, you have brought all the God-given powers of mind and heart to the contemplation of what is true and good. Careful reasoning itself leads to the conclusion that the most reasonable choice is the apparently foolish subjection of oneself to weakness and shame alongside our crucified Lord.
The final verses of the text again challenge the spirit of the age which allows unbridled boasting and self-assertion, even when the assertions are false. Those boasts of wisdom and power come to nothing before the Cross of Christ.
And verse 28 is the great reassurance that things will not stay in this sad state. Arrogance, boasting and the thirst for power and wealth will have their day but ultimately be brought low. “God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are.” If kindness, gentleness, civility, humility and love seem in short supply around us, let us not fear. These precious virtues, which seem to be fading from existence around us and even in ourselves, shall, with our Lord who embodies them all, rise again and put down and bring to nothing all that which opposes them.
So when we hear the boasting of those in power, let us remember with Paul in verse 31, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”