The Foolishness of the Cross
Text: I Corinthians 1: 18-31
January 30, 2005
Kendall Brown Kendall's Notebook Page 40
Not a day goes by without our experiencing the divided nature of our world. Even more painful for me, is the deepening divide in the wider family of the Christian church. In the world, there is that huge division between the rich and the power. Economic statistics and census bureau reports reveal that fewer and fewer people have more and more; and more people on the poor side have less and less of the economic pie. The church itself is more divided today than anything that most of us can ever remember, and I am thinking more than anything that I have ever studied. The art of apology seems to have been totally lost among us. The rigidity of our positions and opinions has ossified us into a perpetual state of animosity towards any who would disagree with us. We have an inability to even eat and converse with someone who does not think the same as we think.
From the world of art, the picture of the Last Supper painted by DaVinci on the dining room wall at the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie (Refectory), Milan is often before us at some point during the Lenten season. The picture depicts the disciples at the last supper with Jesus in the upper room and at the very moment when Jesus says, “One of you will betray me.” Given the state of the church today as well as the world, I have considered some fitting and striking visuals to have here in church for Lent. One thought that has occurred to me is to make a huge copy of DaVinci’s Last Supper (the original itself is 15 by 29 feet - that would make an impressive display). Then I would rip the picture right down the middle, cutting Jesus right in two. I would not cut it, I would rip it to have the jagged, rough unhealed edges of a tear left behind. These two halves of that precious and priceless treasure would be set up here in the pulpit area behind the table and cross with as much space as possible between the two halves. To emphasize the brokenness and the wounded nature of our church and world, the space between the halves would be filled with a blinding, if you will, and impenetrable darkness. I hope with words I have painted the picture of division well enough this morning. It is a division that, I am sure, weighs heavy on God’s heart, and is today’s reason for Jesus, who wept for Jerusalem, to weep for the world.
If the divided world in which we are all a part does not make us feel a wee bit wretched there is something wrong with us. It also makes me feel wretched and helpless to realize that I am on one side of the divide and there isn’t anything I can do about it. If there is a fence down the middle between liberals and conservatives, it is a fence that does not allow for any fence sitting. Try to sit on the fence, and you fall off to one side or the other as soon as certain hot topics are brought up. Start talking about abortion and try to sit on the fence. It can’t be done.
It has not always been like this. I have preached on hot topics many times in the past without anyone throwing any bricks at me and without worrying that I might throw the whole congregation into a fit conniption. Some time ago I chose Mothers’ Day as the Sunday to preach on abortion and choice. I did that without sending a ripple through the congregation. Just imagine, on Mother’s Day a couple months from now my taking that very same sermon out, it is in my old files somewhere, dusting it off so I can read it, and preaching it without changing one single word - which I probably could do because my thinking on the subject has not changed.
I am not going to do that. Taking that sermon into this pulpit and many pulpits today would be the same as putting a stick of dynamite with a short fuse too near the candles. I survived that sermon and am still alive today to tell about it not because I was preaching in a church where everybody agreed with me in the first place. The church survived the sermon because of the strong sense of covenant in the congregation and the recognition that there are thing’s more important than agreeing with each other, more important things than even being on the right side of the fence, and more important than winning an argument.
What I am talking about here is a little thing that used to be discussed in churchy circles: Original Sin. Original Sin is not something that happened once and for all history a long time ago with the Fall of Adam and Eve. Original Sin happens over and over again with each generation and with each of us.
What does Original Sin mean? What is Original Sin? Forget about Adam and Eve. Theological reflection and Biblical Study in all of your Sunday School Class Rooms or anywhere else is a total waste of time and a non-productive pastime, unless you personalize it. In a nut shell, original sin means we can’t help ourselves. We are human and a part of our sinful, human and inescapable (that is the original part) nature is that we can’t help ourselves. Original sin is about our being arrogant. Sin isn’t about little things we do here there that send God searching for Rolaids. Original Sin is the arrogance of our idolatry, of our thinking that we can save ourselves, which is the same as making ourselves God. Only by the grace of God are we saved. We are divided even among ourselves, and only God’s grace can bring us together. All of our human imagination and ingenuity, the very best of our human endeavors, is helpless to reconcile us. The best that we can do is make things worse. We can’t help ourselves into the reconciliation we need. Only God can lift us out of it. All humans are good at is making things worse and we are getting better at that. Some people think that I lean a little to the left and am a bit on the liberal side. They completely overlook the fact that there is a huge dose of good old New England Calvinism spiced with a dab of Puritanism in my blood and brain, preaching and teaching.
If you don’t quite believe all this then just imagine what might happen around here if I bring my Mothers’ Day Sermon on Abortion to this pulpit for our next celebration of Mothers’ Day. I am inclined to think that it won’t fly. Some of you might not agree with me here and you might be saying to yourselves, “We can handle that.” “What are you talking about?” “Preach your Mother’s Day sermon on abortion, we all want to hear what you have to say!” “No Problem.” If you do disagree with me and are thinking those things, I really want to hear it. I would be very encouraged and uplifted by your disagreement on this particular point. For now, I consider caution the better part of valor.
Does our original sin mean that we are condemned to being perpetually at each others’ throats, and filled with confusion, much like the tower of Babel workers who woke up one morning and found that they could not understand or make themselves understood to each other? Does our original sin mean we are beyond all hope? Does our inability to do anything to save our selves from ourselves mean that there is no chance for some reconciliation? Does our helplessness mean that the only thing to expect is that things will just get worse and worse?
The answer to those questions is, “YES,” if you don’t believe in God. The answer to those questions is, “YES” if you don’t open your heart to the spirit of God. The answer to those questions is, “YES” if you don’t let the spirit of Christ mold you and shape you instead of being shaped by the spirits of the world. Paul wrote about the powers and principalities in the world. There are many worldly powers that work hard to have you on their side and do that by convincing you that your side is the right side, the correct side, the truth, God’s way of course. The deviltry in our divided state today is that people put little tags on the their side’s positions that say, “Christian.” If you think my way, you are a Christian. If you don’t think like I think then you are not a Christian. That is an illustration of the arrogance of our original sin at its very worst. It is our original sin that we cannot have winners without creating losers. Arrogance creates a community of losers – everybody loses, most especially those who think that they are on God’s side. God’s distress is that we don’t know how to live with each other and do not have the humility to deal with each other in such a way that we are all winners.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the foolishness of the cross. He wrote about the wisdom of the world and about God’s foolishness being wiser than the wisest wisdom in all the world. Paul calls us at one point to be fools for Christ. In I Corinthians, he plays with that word and the words ‘fool’ and ‘foolish’ are found more in I Corinthians than in all the rest of the New Testament combined.
As humans in our sinful state, the only thing that is foolish to most of us is ever admitting that the other side might be right. Going back to the business of original sin, our sinfulness or lack of it is not determined by what side of an issue we place ourselves. Our original sin is in our being divided from others who don’t happen to agree with us, or who hold a different opinion.
There is a way out of this deadly chokehold. We are set free by realizing that being on the right side of an issue is not the place to which God calls us or that makes us right in our relationship with God. The cross is the place to where we are called; and making a big, big place for the cross in our hearts is the first step to becoming whole, healed, reconciled and reconciling people. Without the cross shaping our spiritual identity, we are wretchedly lost as the hymn “Amazing Grace” articulates original sin. Our positions, right or wrong, will not save us, but only lead us deeper and deeper into the darkness.
We become peacemakers and reconcilers by having only one position and that place is before the cross of Jesus, maybe even on the cross with Jesus.
Being on our knees before the cross is the only way to get it all in perspective. Having the cross constantly in front of us helps us see the big picture, what is really important, and to understand that being right is not the most important thing on earth, and definitely not in heaven. Being before the cross, the foolish cross so unlike anything human, we come to sense how God has taken all of our petty positions and has taken all the nasty things we do to each other in the name of our petty positions, and drawn them into God’s self. That is what Christ did when Christ died. He was killed by human nastiness, and in his death he de-fanged human nastiness for us. We cannot do it by ourselves. And he forgives us and empowers us for a new life – the new life of reconciliation, healing and wholeness.
As a church we need to believe that these things are possible. We need to open ourselves to the possibility of God’s reconciling and saving grace, by putting ourselves in a new position and living from that position instead of living from any other position with which the world may tempt us as being right and belonging to God. The position of being religiously right is one huge temptation. But, yes, people, it is possible to beat the temptation. This can happen and has happened. This is the softer side of Puritanism.
Last spring at the Annual Conference, we heard a story about a church moving away from their sacred positions around an explosive issue and coming as a whole church to a new space, a foolish place before the cross that is wiser than all the places where we might put ourselves in life. The church is in Massachusetts. Years ago this UCC congregation voted to become an open and affirming church. One of the biggest arguments against the idea at the time was, “Why do we have to vote to say what every church should be saying anyhow? If you are a church, all are welcome. And if all are not welcome you are not a church. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out.” When the vote was taken there were some apprehensions, which prompted an amendment to the original motion. The amendment barred same-sex unions from being celebrated in the church sanctuary. The congregation felt, we are open but we aren’t quite that open. Also, every one agreed that to take on that particular issue would be too explosively divisive. The church wouldn’t be able to handle it. This is a thousand member church – one of the largest in our denomination. Some probably thought, should we take on that issue we will quickly be a 500 member church - or less. They realized that no matter which way the vote would go, one or the other side would win but in the long everyone would lose in the damage it would do to the church. This is a good example of original sin in action. They were helpless to save themselves. So, the matter was essentially tabled for the future.
The way things happen the future came quicker than anticipated. Remember, we are talking about Massachusetts here. Same sex unions became legal and that made it necessary for every church catholic, protestant and non-Christian congregations in the state to deal with the issue one way or the other. The law gave the fence a good coat of grease, and fence sitting on the issue was no longer an option for churches.
Sure enough a gay couple and members of the church wanted to have their relationship celebrated in a church ceremony. The church leadership quickly recognized its state of original sin. We can’t help ourselves. If this issue were taken to the congregation for a vote, the church would be a wretched wreck. If this conundrum was to be worked through, something far more powerful than the strongest of any opinion on either side was needed.
The minister reflected on original sin. Many churches in Massachusetts go back to the 1600’s and are older than our nation. These same churches take great pride in having given to the nation the gift of democracy. A long time before the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights, our ancestral churches in the UCC were developing a democratic system as a way to run the church. We also pride ourselves with the idea that democracy is the wisest of earth’s wisdom, when it comes to governmental systems. The minister and church realized that if they kicked the democratic process into gear and called for a meeting to vote on the same-sex wedding issue it would be a disaster for the church. Even the world’s wisest process was foolishness. Democracy would not save the church. The church was in a wretched place.
The minister did a little research, and studied some of the histories of those old churches that were among the first to practice democracy as a system of church governance. He discovered something that needs to be rediscovered by us all. He discovered that those old churches had their hot issues. They had their decisions to make that people had firm and fixed opinions about on both sides. He also discovered that the early churches that invented democracy, did not rely on democracy to lead them through and to settle the tough issues. When the early churches had a tough explosive issue to work on, they did not vote on it. They prayed about it. And they prayed and prayed and prayed. They did not vote until they had
worked through a process of spiritual discernment and had arrived at a consensus in the community as to where God’s spirit was leading them. When they did vote, there were no losers. Everyone would win.
Spiritual discernment is more than simply praying about something. It is a process that includes prayer, Biblical reflection and struggling. It is a process in which the participants grow in their spirituality and the depths of the praying. It is a process where learning to pray by listening in quiet is practiced and is more important than saying the right words.
So the church, decided we need to take our original sin seriously. We need to realize and accept we can’t do this by ourselves. The wisest of all human wisdom, our democratic system, is pretty foolish here. It doesn’t know what to do. And if we employ it, if we vote without a process of spiritual discernment, we are indeed lost.
So they set up a spiritual discernment program which they kept at until a consensus was reached which all could agree was where the spirit was guiding them. Then they took the vote. The church is still a thousand member church. The explosive issue did not blow the roof off. I don’t know what they decided in their final vote. Maybe the storyteller didn’t tell it or I just plain forgot. But this story isn’t about the final vote.
The story is about a church that found it’s place in front of the cross, and made that place the only place of any importance for them, as they received an explosive issue to be handled among themselves through spiritual discernment. They put aside thinking that their positions and opinions on issues were the most important things. They put aside thinking that what it is all about is winning an argument and being right. They saw that being on God’s side is not a starting place but a finishing place and you haven’t gotten there until you are all together. No one gets there alone. Being right is not the pathway to salvation. They agreed that indeed God is still speaking and we need to listen and more importantly we need to listen together before the cross. That is our place and our space.