Jay Rowland
“For Those Who Love God”
1 Corinthians 2:1-12
Whenever we encounter the Apostle Paul it’s helpful to first determine the specific situation Paul is addressing. In all of his writings and letters, Paul covers a variety of issues depending upon where he is and the situation there..
In 1 Corinthians Paul is addressing a community of “newbies” -- beginners in the faith -- people learning how to be a faith community, what it means, how it’s different from other communities.
Most communities have some natural amount of diversity--a diversity of personalities certainly, but also socio-economic, ethnic, racial, gender and other identifiers which naturally exist among any community in almost any era.
It’s safe to say that this community of Christians, the church planted by the Apostle Paul in Corinth, bears some of these characteristics. But what makes it fascinating is that this is a community that is new to faith---faith in God, faith in Jesus--and what it means to live together as a community of faith. Perhaps this is why Paul’s letters remain so instructive and applicable today. And now, given the significant societal and cultural shifts impacting faith communities in this generation, sweeping changes are making all churches newbies again.
Now we know from experience that there are wonderful benefits that come from belonging to a community, and there are challenges. Faith communities are no different in that regard. But what makes faith communities unique is that the main “reason” for involvement is … GOD! And a person’s relationship with God. And so whatever people may love or loathe about their church is secondary to the calling of the Lord, right?
What makes church unique is that its existence and survival depend upon God. But God also depends upon God’s people to care for and tend to this community. That ongoing tension plays out in every church and faith community ever since Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt. Every faith community must continually learn and evolve in how to live out their relationship with God, together with their community with its diverse range of human commitment, faith, conviction, experience, knowledge and … problems!
Back to those early Christians in Corinth: one of the thornier problems was that some members of the community considered themselves wiser and more spiritually gifted and knowledgeable than all of the others. So, naturally, these folks decided they were supposed to drive the life of the community. Every community has to be organized in order to make decisions and attend to the natural issues and needs of that community. But in Corinth, the folks who self-identified as the most spiritually gifted assumed their role as authority figures in this new community.
But the thing is, that’s a worldly way of determining organization. And so Paul’s response, as it often is in his letters is, “not so fast!” Paul said that for Christians and Jews, at least, wisdom and leadership aren’t about knowledge—not even “special” spiritual knowledge—it’s about love.
It’s not about self-appointed leaders who say or think they know all the answers. On the contrary, Paul says, for Christian communities, it’s all about being open to the wisdom of God as it manifests among God’s people. It’s not about knowing the answers, it’s more about the shared struggle and about the questions unique to the time and place. The wisdom God gives is not about establishing worldly certainty or political mechanisms. What makes Christian community different from other organizations is (or is supposed to be) an alternative understanding of human authority. How do we decide who “we” are? Who gets to decide? It’s a shared, organic process unlike all other worldly models and hierarchies and political machinations driven by prejudice, competition, and judgment.
But this is also what makes Christian community incredibly complex and difficult. It’s so much simpler and quicker and predictable to simply do as the world does and follow the conventional methods of authority. But faith communities are not faith communities if they derive their authority from government and business models. So perhaps that’s what Paul means when he says that God’s wisdom can seem hidden … even secret! It isn’t as obvious as we might all prefer it to be.
Because: how are faith communities supposed to benefit from God’s wisdom if it’s … hidden? Secret?!
Paul’s answer, his message to the newbies in Corinth and to you and I today has to do with identity. From where do we derive our identity? With whom do we identify? Where do we as Christians look for wisdom and authority?
Paul declares that for Christians—individuals and communities—identity must be found in Jesus Christ, specifically in “Christ crucified”.
And that’s a deal-breaker for many – even entire Christian communities and churches.
Oh I’m not saying it’s explicit. No church worth its mettle would explicitly distance itself from Christ crucified. I mean, we all get it; we all certainly know about Christ crucified. But Paul says it’s not enough to know about Christ crucified, it’s more about love. It’s all about moving toward Christ crucified, entering into the mystery of the crucified Christ such that it becomes the formative, foundational identity of communal life. Not in a way that obsesses about certain aspects of it. It’s not about the macabre details of Jesus’ physical death. It’s not about embracing a victim-mentality or messiah-complex. It’s not about strict dogmatism that God “sent Jesus to die” … no no no no!
NO! not that, but this:
The deep and profound LOVE of Jesus Christ, God-with-us, God-IN-US, God-for-us … the LOVE OF CHRIST that willingly entered in to our experience. Even death--a public torture, humiliating death. I guess in God’s wisdom, nothing else out there compares to a love that would go that far to show us the limitless depth of God’s LOVE
“The ordinary route to wisdom is through knowledge, Paul insists the point of entry for us is LOVE.” 1
The wisdom God gives is not so much for those who KNOW God, or say they know God, but for those who quietly LOVE God ... and struggle to love and live in a world with so much suffering.
Perhaps that’s what Paul means when he describes God’s “wisdom” as something that almost everyone misses.
Look, the resurrection of Jesus is clearly foundational to our faith. But Paul implies that we all seem to tolerate the crucified Christ as we rush to embrace his resurrection. We all love resolution. We all love a happy ending. But in the meantime, there’s … life. Crucifixion. The distinction is critical to understanding Paul’s message.
Paul suggests that our authenticity as Christians, our resilience as a people of faith, our daily existence in the midst of human violence and war, the outrageous tolerance of gun violence, the ongoing murder of African Americans by police departments, and now even the survival of Creation itself, is all critically connected to our willingness to commune with the crucified Christ. Or in the very least an understanding of God’s wisdom revealed in the crucified Christ.
“When Paul summarizes the content (meaning) of the gospel as “Christ crucified,” he is identifying Jesus Christ as the one whose identity remains stamped by the cross. The cross has not been canceled out by the resurrection; rather, to know even the risen Jesus is to know him precisely as the crucified one. Any other account of Jesus’ identity is not the gospel.” 2
When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you like I was an expert in speech or wisdom. I made up my mind not to think about anything while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and to preach him as crucified. … My message and my preaching weren’t presented with convincing wise words but … I did this so that your faith might not depend on the wisdom of people but on the power of God.
Notice Paul does not bring up blood atonement or dogmatic requirements about how to be saved. “Rather, the cross marks God’s intervention”3, God’s protest (as TJ said last week), and I would say, God’s rejection of normative human practices and assumptions of community, justice, law, and authority.
Because remember: God entered into the human condition in Jesus Christ. And when Jesus was confronted by the most influential power-centers of human life--religion & government--Jesus was unflinchingly rejected. Arrested. Interrogated. Beaten. Tried. Assassinated. Crucified.
All of this is critically important for faith communities as we navigate this vastly changing world. Following in the Way of Christ feels inadequate. Following Christ crucified collides with the gravitational pull of the predominant way(s) of the world. But Paul is adamant: following the crucified Christ is the key to growing in wisdom--wisdom which advances the “kin’dom of God” on earth as it is in heaven.
“Comprehending what God reveals through the Spirit (and Christ) involves a distinctive form of discourse, a kind of spiritual grammar, a language that makes sense only in the world of faith.” 4
Paul’s emphasis on the crucified Christ is not a comforting or cheerful message. But it is 100% REALITY. Maybe it’s too real for most people. Clearly it’s not “the opiate of the masses” Marx once suggested. The crucified Christ “takes into account the full measure of human depravity in order to meditate deeply and focus our attention of the radical character of God’s solution.” 5
This is not about personal philosophy. It’s not about being an optimist vs a pessimist. It’s about hearing God’s still, small voice of wisdom amid the daily barrage of noise and subterfuge and deception being mass-communicated every waking hour of our lives and spouted by once-trusted institutions and elected leaders.
The crucified Christ cuts through all that other noise as nothing else can.
In an age of continual public-relations hype, ego-inflation and self-aggrandizment dressed up as leadership in the public and political arena, the cross stands over it all, silent, unheeded, un-noticed. Rejected as readily as the one who was nailed to it.
But when life and people disappoint us and when life drives us to our knees, no other can meet us in that place of darkness as intimately as Christ crucified.
As individuals, as families, as communities who endure suffering, we all deep down long to face the truth together about our desperate situation and our common hope–a loving God who stops at nothing to show how much LOVE can do. We can keep our ties to our nation, our tribe, our ethnicity, and our culture—all important facets of our identity until they divide us. When “religion” fails to unite amid diversity, when religion abandons the uniting love of God in Christ crucified, it becomes just another shout clamoring for attention and allegiance among all the other noise and subterfuge and deception and calls for action.
Because only when the desperation of our situation is recognized and accepted can the depth of God’s grace, and the power of God’s LOVE be fully accepted and shared in the world that God made and loves, by those who love God.
Notes/Sources:
1 Carl R. Holladay. Preaching through the Christian Year. Year A. Craddock et. al. p.106
2 Richard B. Hays. First Corinthians - Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. p.35
3 Hays, p.36
4 Holladay, p.106
5. Hays, p37
1 Corinthians 2:1-12
When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you like I was an expert in speech or wisdom. 2 I had made up my mind not to think about anything while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and to preach him as crucified. 3 I stood in front of you with weakness, fear, and a lot of shaking. 4 My message and my preaching weren’t presented with convincing wise words but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power. 5 I did this so that your faith might not depend on the wisdom of people but on the power of God.
6 What we say is wisdom to people who are mature. It isn’t a wisdom that comes from the present day or from today’s leaders who are being reduced to nothing. 7 We talk about God’s wisdom, which has been hidden as a secret. God determined this wisdom in advance, before time began, for our glory. 8 It is a wisdom that none of the present-day rulers have understood, because if they did understand it, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory! 9 But this is precisely what is written:
God has prepared things for those who love him
that no eye has seen, or ear has heard,
or that haven’t crossed the mind of any human being.[a]
10 God has revealed these things to us through the Spirit. The Spirit searches everything, including the depths of God. 11 Who knows a person’s depths except their own spirit that lives in them? In the same way, no one has known the depths of God except God’s Spirit. 12 We haven’t received the world’s spirit but God’s Spirit so that we can know the things given to us by God.
[a] Isa. 64:4
