Thomas J Parlette
“A Cross-Shaped Life”
1st Cor. 1:18-31
1/29/23
Some say that we are living in a golden age of protest.
Case in point. Between 202-2022, polls have estimated that between 15 million and 26 million people have participated at some point in demonstrations in the U.S., making that the largest protests in United States history. It’s also estimated that 93% of those protests were “peaceful and non-destructive.”(1)
That’s probably a higher percentage of the population than the number of people who protested the war in Vietnam. Since 2017, protests have occurred in all 50 states, including many places where marches and rallies have rarely been seen before.
But I wonder, will these protests do anything? Will all this protesting and demonstrating and marching actually have an impact?
Only time will tell, I suppose.
What we do know is a number of protest movements have changed history. For instance:
Martin Luther’s 95 Theses nailed to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, began the protest movement known as the Reformation, of which the Presbyterian Church is a part.
The protests against the Stamp Act of 1765, eventually led to the creation of the United States.
In the 1930’s, thousands of Muslim women and men formed an “army of peace” to protest England’s oppressive occupation of what is now Pakistan.
Rosa Park’s refusal to move to the back of a segregated bus in 1955 Alabama ignited the civil rights movement.
And even The Beatles were known for some protest. In 1964, the rock stars refused to play for segregated audiences in Jacksonville, Florida. “We never play to segregated audiences and we aren’t going to start now,” said John Lennon. The struggle for racial equality in America inspired Paul McCartney to write the song, “Blackbird.”(2)
I could go on. Matches, rallies, vigils, protests – they can have an impact. They can change the world.
In a similar manner, the cross of Christ is a protest of sorts. The Cross is a protest against those who demand signs and wisdom.
In this morning’s passage from 1st Corinthians, Paul writes to the church in Corinth that “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Protesting the necessity of signs and wisdom as some sort of proof of God’s divine power is part of what it means to live a cross-shaped life.
When you think about, signs are not always what they seem. For instance, there were once two guys who got into a really bad car accident. Both of their cars were totaled, but fortunately no one was hurt.
After they crawled out of their cars and called the police, one guy said, “Wow, just look at our cars! They’re destroyed, but we aren’t hurt. This must be a sign from God that we should meet and be friends for the rest of our lives.”
The other guy said, “I agree with you completely. This has to be a sign from God!”
The first guy continued, “And look at this, here’s another miracle… My car is completely totaled but this bottle of wine I bought didn’t break. It’s a sign that God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune.”
The other guy agreed, opened the bottle, and drank half the bottle and handed it back. The first guy put the cork back in and handed it back.
“Aren’t you having any?
“No, I think I’ll just wait for the police.”(3)
Sometimes signs are not all they are cracked up to be. Sometimes signs don’t mean what we think they mean.
But why is Paul so upset about signs and wisdom? Is wisdom such a bad thing? To set the stage a bit, Paul is writing to the people of the powerful and wealthy Greek city of Corinth. He is addressing men and women who know quite a bit about the “the wisdom of the world.” Paul is well aware that in this educated and sophisticated society, “Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom.” Signs and wonders are part of their religious culture, and at first glance they don’t seem to be such bad things. After all, God has shown great signs over the years, and wisdom is a quality that is praised throughout the Bible.
Signs and wisdom don’t seem to be deserving of marches, rallies, vigils and protests.
But here’s the thing: Paulo has discovered that “the world did not know God through wisdom.” Yes, it would be nice if Greeks came to know God through wisdom. And it would be great if the Jews of his day entered into a relationship with God through powerful signs from above. But they didn’t.
Signs and wisdom are not enough, says Paul, himself, a “Hebrew of the Hebrews,” and a Roman citizen with a Greek education. Paul realizes that something is needed – the Cross. Paul believes that the surprising and shameful death of Jesus on a cross is what enables people to finally know God.
Why? Because that shameful and surprising death on the cross is a message writ large of love and forgiveness. That is, after all, the message of the cross – grace, love, mercy and forgiveness.
The Cross is God’s protest movement. And it changes the world forever.
We need to be part of this movement even today, because many us still demand signs and wisdom. Many Christians will ask God to give them a sign that tells them what to do, what kind of work they should do, or what kind of personal relationships they should pursue. Some even pray for something as simple as a parking space, and then when one appears, they’ll say, “It’s a sign!”
For instance, in Germany, a driver was going almost twice the speed limit and was caught on camera. But he was spared the fine of nearly $120 because a white bird obscured his face when the picture was taken. The police couldn’t prove for certain that he was the driver.
So the police issued a rather light-hearted statement. “We have understood the sign and leave the speeder in peace.”(4)
Nice thought – But I’m not sure God works that way.
God is not a cosmic GPS, working to move us quickly and painlessly from Point A to Point B. “God is more interested in developing a loving relationship with us,” says author Vanessa Pizzuto. Discovering God’s plans for our lives “is a natural result of a vibrant relationship with God, not it’s substitute. Otherwise, Christianity becomes a superstitious and shallow practice.”(5)
In place of signs from above, God gives us the message of the cross. Loud and clear, the cross tells us that Jesus loves us so much that he would sacrifice himself to us forgiveness and new life. The cross sends the message that, as John puts it, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.”
God give us the cross because God wants to have a relationship with us – one that is based on a loving sacrifice from below, not a powerful sign from above. The cross is a mighty act of protest, one that turns the world upside down.
When we live a life shaped by the cross and its message, we join this protest movement. We love as Jesus did, reaching out with compassion to the poor, the sick and the strangers in our midst. We sacrifice as Jesus did, giving of our time, talents and treasures in support of God’s mission in the world. We serve others as Jesus did, remembering that “the Son if Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” We show grace and mercy and forgiveness as Jesus did when he said from the cross, “Forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.”
Such a life is a protest against a world in which people usually act out of their own self-interest. A decision to put the needs of others first is as radical as The Beatles’ decision to say no to the money being offered by segregated venues, and to bring their music only to places where blacks and whites could be together.
The message about the cross is a kind of foolishness to those who are perishing, says Paul. “But to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” In the upside down world of God’s protest movement, “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” Christians who have faith in a crucified and risen Lord know that there is nothing wiser than the teachings of Jesus, and nothing stronger than the Lord who sacrificed himself for us.
If we find these words surprising today, imagine how shocking they were to the Greeks of Corinth. After all, these men and women were part of a culture that valued the insights of the great philosophers, much as we still do today. They spent their lives searching for wisdom, and then Paul came along and said, “We proclaim Christ crucified.” This was foolishness to them, completely different from their expectations.
But Paul challenged them to look at the world through the lens of God’s protest movement. “God decided,” says Paul, “through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. Suddenly a person didn’t have to be wise to be saved. You didn’t have to be a scribe and a skilled debater. All you had to do was believe.
Of course there’s more to being a follower of Christ than just belief. But, for Paul at this point in his conversation with the church at Corinth, that’s a sermon for another day. After all, these people ae not too far along in the faith. Paul is starting them out with food they can handle, as he describes later in the letter. They aren’t ready for the meaty stuff just yet – that’ll come in the future.
The Greeks received this as good news – and so should we. Like the people of Corinth, not many of us are as wise Plato, or Socrates, or Aristotle. Most of us weren’t born into power or privilege like royalty or something. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot enjoy the rich and full life that God desires for us. In the Lord’s protest movement, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”
As Jacques Ellul has written in The Meaning of the City, “Christians were never meant to be normal. We’ve always been holy troublemakers, we’ve always been creators of uncertainty, agents of the dimension that’s incompatible with the status quo; we do not accept the world as it is, but we insist on the world becoming the way God wants it to be. And the Kingdom of God is different from the patterns of the world.”(6)
Yes, we live in a golden age of protest, but no modern rally can achieve what God accomplished through the cross. God is “the source of your life in Christ Jesus,” says Paul, “who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”
Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. All of these benefits are connected to Jesus, and are results of God’s mighty protest movement. They are at the center of a cross-shaped life. This cross that stands behind me, is a symbol of what we might call “foolish wisdom” which, if we embody it by living a cross-shaped life, God can change the world through us.
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Retrieved from Wikipedia.com, January 15th, 2023.
2. Homileticsonline, retrieved Jan 5th, 2023.
3. Ibid…
4. Ibid…
5. Ibid…
6. Ibid…
