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Sunday
March 23, 2003
Rev. Gordon M. Forbes
"Wise Fools
"
I Corinthians 1: 18-31
I want to talk about foolishness today. How often what I have done in my life seemed rash and foolish at the time, at least in the eyes of others. Take our marriage for an example. Jan Forbes and I had our first date on Valentine's Day of 1957. By April first of that same year I had proposed, she had accepted, I had met her family. We announced our engagement on April Fool's Day. By August third of the same year we were married and running off to Miami Beach, Florida for a year internship at the Congregational Church in the heart of Miami Beach.
On one level we were fools. We hardly let an infatuation die down before we made a commitment intended for a life time. The wisdom of the world, wisdom I have dispensed to others from time to time, would have said, "Foolish! Don't do it! Step back and take your time." I will not speak for her. For me there has never been a wiser decision for me.
We have often spent time in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. If you visit the Wright museum in that place you see foolishness played out before your very eyes. Two guys in a garage spend uncountable hours putting together a flying machine. Every one thought they were foolish. And in less than a hundred years, air flight spans the world and the universe. Foolishness turned into wisdom
It is strange, isn't it. How often what appears to be foolish in life ends up being full of wisdom. Something defies rationality. Something takes hold in the pit of our stomach and, despite all the arguments friends and advisors give, we make a foolish decision that proves to be full of wisdom.
Our scripture this morning reads:
For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength . . . God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise and God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.
God calls us to live a series of paradoxes that seem foolish and yet are filled with spiritual wisdom. I want to commend them to you today.
I.
Jesus said, "Those who save their lives will lose it and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it." That's the first foolish word from God: To lose is to save! I can already hear the financial advisors among us groaning. What kind of foolishness is this?
One of the stories out of the 1960s that moved me most was the story of a white journalist who wrote "Black Like Me." It tells the story of how he dyed his skin black in order to walk around the South in the 1950s. He walked in another man's moccasins and then came back to narrate to his community what it was like to feel the sting of discrimination and oppression. For a period of time he lost his identity and in the process spoke new words to the white community about prejudice and racial hatred. To lose is to save… For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and Gods weakness stronger than human strength.
II.
Consider a second foolish paradox: To empty is to become full. You can see that in Jesus life. Remember the temptations? They take place in that empty, desolate, stark desert west of Jerusalem. Jesus empties himself of society. Jesus deliberately courts solitude. He fasts for forty days. Out of the emptying angels come and minister to him, filling him with strength of the Holy Spirit. That emptying prepares Jesus for his mission to the world. He begins a mission of proclamation and healing. To empty is to be filled.
I have been reading Thomas Merton's book "New Seeds of Contemplation" recently. The book speaks of how Merton's emptying leads to fulness. The more he emptied himself of all the things we fill ourselves up with - radio, television, commerce and exchange - the fuller he became of wisdom and perception. To empty is to be filled. It sounds foolish but... God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
III.
Explore with me a third foolishness: to surrender is to win. (No one in the National Football Leagues understands this.) No one really understands this in this political town. Here we inaugurate winners every two years. Winning defines what Washington is about.
I have a very good friend who lived a winner's life. She climbed the corporate ladder. She made an excellent salary. She broke through the glass ceiling. It cost her two marriages. It took her two children away from her.
Through it all she was never happy. A nagging invitation kept knocking on her heart. "Do social work!" it said. She ignored it for a long time. Still, like the Hound of Heaven, this invitation kept nipping at her heels. Finally, she surrendered. She gave up the corporate life and enrolled in a Master of Social Work program. From that day, she has never regretted it. To surrender is to win. God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
IV.
Think now about a fourth foolish teaching of God. To let go is to possess. Our brothers and sisters in Alcoholics Anonymous tell the story of a man who falls over a cliff and manages to catch onto a flimsy branch before he falls to his death. In desperation the man calls out. "God do something to save me." And the Voice says "Let go." The man looks down the hundred feet to the rock below and says "Can't you think of something else!"
Sometimes there is nothing else to do other than let go. Surely that is what Jesus did on the cross when he cried out. "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."
Occasionally, in my forty years of ministry, a family member tells a loved one struggling for life in an intensive care unit that if they think it is time for them to die, they may. Often the words go this way "I want you to live if you still find it worthwhile but, if not, I will be all right." On more than one occasion this has allowed a person to "let go" into the greater healing God promises. Letting go is to possess deeper spiritual strength. God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God's weakness is stronger than human strength
The current rush to war often make me feel foolish about advocating for peace. The constant bombardment of fear that comes from our leaders makes advocacy for peace seem foolish. How foolish it seems to talk about reconciliation in the face of terrorism threats. How stupid it seems to speak of negotiation in the face of threats to national security. The fear of being called unpatriotic or, worse, being incarcerated simply for disagreeing with the policy impedes us. Still, I go this week to St. Louis to consider our denominations strategy for peace. The call seems to be to let go of those fears and impediments and oppose the rush to war.
Do you know the story of the Confessing Church in Germany? It opposed the rush to make national socialism the secular religion of the country. Our Evangelical and Reformed ancestors in Germany wrote the Barmen Declaration, a document that challenged Hitler's attempt to replace the Cross with the Swastika in German churches. It took men like Martin Neimoeller and Deitrich Bonhoeffer to their deaths. It was, in one way, a foolish act. But the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom. It assures us of one thing. In letting go we will find a deeper wisdom, a deeper love, a fuller grace, and a hopeful future. The Apostle Paul said it best. God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
V.
In the feedback from the first service this morning, we discovered yet another paradox to not know is to know. Put another way: to be certain is to be uncertain.
I can this in two places in my life. Our youngest child is legitimately diagnosed as ADHD. The diagnosis is based on the best knowledge and experience available. Here is the surprise. Just when we think we have it figured out she surprises us. We predict a typical ADHD reaction, steel ourselves for it, and it doesn't come. Instead of hyper she become peaceful. To not know completely is to know. To be certain is to be uncertain.
Or again! I teach writing to homeless women in the District of Columbia. Their typical diagnosis is either bipolar disorder or paranoid schizophrenic. In the five years of teaching them, I have been continually surprised by their courage, their persistence, their stamina, and their strength. I no longer take the diagnosis as gospel. To be certain is to be uncertain; to not know is to know.
VI The final foolishness, the most divine foolishness you can imagine, is that in dying we live. That is the great proclamation of the Christian faith. The cross of Christ stands at the center of our faith. The apostle said it today in our scripture. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
. The ultimate foolishness of the Christian faith illuminates us in the cross. The absolute foolishness is this: that in the death of Jesus God brought new life; that in the defeat of Jesus God won the ultimate victory; that in the surrender to the powers of death and the devil, God obtained our full salvation.
So in the days and months ahead, when you are not sure what is going to happen, let this cross guide you. For here the ultimate paradox of life resides; that in dying we open ourselves to new life. It is the paradox that holds all others in redemptive fulness, the ones that say to lose is to save, to empty is to become full, to surrender is to win, and to let go is to possess. Let us pray
