We Preach Christ Crucified

Such is the title of a book by Kenneth Leech, a classic evangelical Anglican priest, theologically conservative and a worker among the poor. It’s a somewhat difficult but excellent book, especially for Lent, as one might expect from its title, borrowed from Paul’s first letter to Corinth. The Corinthians were looking for signs or wisdom, but Paul wasn’t about to give them what they wanted. “We preach Christ crucified,” he wrote – a stumbling block instead of a sign, foolishness instead of wisdom. Indeed, the “scandal of the cross” remains a stumbling block for many, as Leech points out.

Paul is pretty hard on wisdom in this letter, no doubt because the Corinthians thought they were hot stuff. Paul knew he was even better. He wasn’t shy about pointing out how learned he was, advancing “beyond many among my people of the same age” because he was “far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.” Later in life, his defense of himself was so spirited that the Roman governor told him that too much learning was driving him insane. Even the second letter of Peter commented that Paul’s letters have “some things in them hard to understand.” There’s an understatement!

Yet all of his learning Paul counts as nothing before the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ. I’m reminded of another great theological mind, Thomas Aquinas. A few years after finishing his massive Summa Theologica, he had a mystical experience that led him to describe all of his works as “so much straw.” Wisdom is important, yes. But it is not the highest good. The most erudite writing about God does not compare with the direct experience of God.

That’s why there’s hope for us. “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters,” Paul writes, “not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” And yet God chose us just the same. That’s the real foolishness of God. As Paul points out, it removes any reason we have to boast about ourselves. It also removes any reason for us to think that we are beneath God’s notice, that somehow we are not good enough for God. God chooses us anyway, knowing who we are – or rather, knowing who we can become.

This Sunday we’ll have the Annual Meeting at church. Some clergy give a “State of the Church” on that day. (Now where do you suppose they get that idea?) I’m one who thinks that the lessons preempt whatever else is going on, or more accurately, that Scripture interprets life, rather than the other way around. “We preach Christ crucified” is central to our faith. It doesn’t make sense to the ways of the world – but then, neither does going to church on Sunday morning, nor using one’s time and money to help others. Churches are, or should be, fundamentally counter-cultural. Sometimes they get caught up in the worries of the world, like paying for a new roof. But there’s always that call back to the love of God revealed to us through Jesus Christ. That’s the foolishness of God, wiser than any wisdom of this world. I’ll take that any day.

[Epiphany 4: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31. This is a Sunday of riches, for we also have Micah 6:1-8 and the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12), but one can’t preach for that long in an Episcopal church!]