Theological Truth: In the upside-down kingdom of God in Christ, what may seem like foolishness is wisdom. What seems like weakness is strength.
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hosting the Noon Lunch program provides the chance to meet people from all over our community. This week, I encountered a group from St. John’s Methodist Church, who shared their experience of hosting the WARM shelter.
The WARM, now S/WARM, stands for the Staunton Waynesboro Augusta Relief Ministry. It’s a “low barrier” overnight shelter that ensures no one is left out in the cold. No one. That’s what the “low barrier” designation means: no drug test, no id card, no background check, no backpack search. You’ve been kicked out of your home? Come on in out of the cold. You’ve burned your bridge at Valley Mission? Come on in out of the cold. You just arrived in town and have no one to turn to and no place to stay? No problem. Come in out of the cold.
The people from St. John’s, as you can imagine, admitted to harboring some fears and concerns before they opened their doors. Those seeking shelter must be the scariest of the bunch, the bottom of the barrel, the most difficult to love, potentially even the most dangerous … Many of us would think it foolhardy to even stop and talk to them on the street … but to invite them to sleep in your church … overnight … all week long!? Madness!
Turns out it wasn’t so foolish after all. Without exception, they said, the residents were grateful, mild-mannered, and well-behaved. They told the story of a woman, dropped off by an Uber driver, who had just arrived late at night with no money, no family, no place to go. Imagine her fear. Her quandary. Cold, alone, a stranger in a strange land. And then in the midst of this dark wilderness, there’s the light in the face of a St. John’s parishioner, a follower of Jesus, saying, “It’s ok. There’s a spot for you here.” Sure enough, the next morning, this late-night visitor, having gotten a good, warm, and safe night’s sleep says, “I can’t believe how good y’all have been to me. I don’t know what
I would’ve done without you. I’m so grateful. Can I give you a hug?”
Can you hear Paul’s rhetorical question echoing through the centuries, “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” Maybe opening the church wasn’t so foolish after all?
In today’s reading from 1st Corinthians, Paul reminds his friends in Corinth that the kingdom of God, which Jesus has ushered in, is an upside-down kingdom.
He doubles down on the message that the cross is foolishness to the winners of
the world who are actually perishing, yet powerfully redemptive to those surrendering themselves to it. This counter-cultural, other-worldly approach to life is “a stumbling block to Jews, and foolishness to Gentiles,” but to those with eyes to see and ears to hear — for those who are so desperate as to listen and look for it as if their lives depended on it (because they do!) — Christ crucified is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
But if we’re honest, the foolishness and weakness of a crucified messiah is a difficult lifestyle for us to embrace. It’s certainly not the way of the purportedly powerful and allegedly wise of this world. Paul exposes humanity’s misguided hubris and blind self-importance when he proclaims, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1:25). And yet even we contemporary
Christians more often choose the way of dominating power and worldly
wisdom over the power and wisdom of Love. Our continued reliance on
worldly wisdom and human strength would be laughable if it wasn’t so lethal.
Earlier this week, 100 more people died in Gaza while trying to obtain supplies to keep themselves and their families alive. The recriminations rage about who is to blame, who is the villain and who is the victim. Why does that even matter? With all of the violence, destruction, death, fear, and suffering on both sides of the border, why aren’t we willing to try another way — the way of Love?
Do we trust that the selfless, sacrificial way of loving and living revealed by Jesus is the power of God and the wisdom of God?
You wouldn’t be alone if you hesitated in answering that. Bishop Curry says that after saying he believed that “love is the only way to change the world for the better,” a reporter asked him this question: “Can it work?” (Love is the Way, p. 87)
He admits, “This was the first time I had gotten the question in a political, not personal context … I paused and thought, wanting to make sure of my viewpoint. After all, … I understood where he was coming from. And who today hasn’t felt the urge to forego love for anger, or even hate, in this time of great violence and injustice in America and…in the world? Could it be that getting angry would be more productive than doubling down on love?” (p. 87- 88).
Haven’t we all wondered this? If we’re honest, we are more willing to admire Jesus than to follow him in this way of love, this way of foolish wisdom and weak strength. But listen to the rest of Bishop Curry’s answer: “My mind raced through history, the times the world has made a real positive shift. I thought about Gandhi and the dismantling of the caste system in India. I thought about the alliance of the NAACP and parents who, driven by love for their children and all children, put an end to the evil of ‘separate but equal.’ … I thought about the fall of apartheid, and Mandela and Tutu and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Finally, I answered, ‘Not only will it work, it’s the only thing that will work.” (p. 88).
Later, when a journalist posed a similar question but this time suggesting him of being naïve and “a little Pollyannaish,” he gave this response: “OK, let me do a Dr. Phil on you. How is the way of the world working for you right now?” (p. 88).
Our Presiding Bishop makes a powerful point. How are the ways of the world working out for us? Not so well. That’s one thing that we all agree on. According to an October 2022 poll in the Economist, “62% of Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, believe our democracy is in jeopardy” (The Fractured Kingdom, p. 4). I don’t imagine those numbers have improved in the intervening 16 months. Wars rage. Dictators brutalize. Children starve. Families disintegrate. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Divisions grow more dangerous. Maybe trying another way isn’t so foolish after all.
Our work this and every Lent, is to repent. To “repent” implies a change of heart and mind. Repentance entails the reorientation manifested in our baptismal promises when we renounce the spiritual forces that rebel against God’s rule; the evil powers of this world; and the selfish, sinful desires that draw us away from God, and then we turn to Jesus Christ, accepting him as our Savior, putting our whole trust in his grace and love, and following him as the Lord of our lives. It requires trusting that the weakness of God is stronger than human strength, and the foolishness of God (the cross) is wiser than human wisdom.
Repentance means choosing the Way of Love. The way of selflessly wanting, willing and working for the well-being of others. It means thinking of “we” rather than “me” (Ibid). It means praying for God’s will to be done, rather than my own. It means seeing others as created in the image of God. It means loving my enemies and praying for those I disagree with.
In the coming weeks, as we move through Lent to the events of Holy Week and the promise of Easter, notice the power, the wisdom, and the strength in the way Jesus lives, and loves, and gives himself to the world for the world. It is starkly different than the ways of the world. It may seem weak and foolish, but it is the power to save. Turn to this love. Trust this love. Surrender to this love. Embody this love, this power, this wisdom in the world today. Not only will it work, but it’s the only thing that ever has.
Sermon for the Third Sunday of Lent at Trinity Episcopal Church, Staunton, Va., March 3, 2024.
