1 Corinthians 1:18-31 For 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. For it is written, “I will
destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will
thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the
debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For
since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God
decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who
believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we
proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to
Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ
the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser
than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider
your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human
standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But 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. He is the source of your life
in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption, in order that, as it is written, “Let the
one who
boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Matthew 5:1-12 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat
down, his disciples came to him. Then
he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be
comforted. “Blessed are the
meek, for they will inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. “Blessed are the merciful, for they
will receive mercy. “Blessed are
the pure in heart, for they will see God. “Blessed
are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted
for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when people revile
you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my
account. Rejoice and be glad, for
your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the
prophets who were before you.
+++
Antoine de Saint Exupery was a pilot and a philosopher, a
designer and a writer, but he is best known as the author of a book for
children called “The Little Prince.” He
flew for the French air force in the 1920’s, and later for the mail service,
flying regularly between France and Africa.
He was said to prefer the earlier simpler planes, with few instruments,
and he said those who flew the more advanced planes were more like accountants
than pilots. In aircraft and in
everything else, he prized simplicity.
He said, "It seems that perfection is reached not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." Think about this for a minute.
Have you ever had the experience of cooking a dish – a soup
or something – and find yourself adding more and more and more in an attempt to
fix it? And you realize that you have
done more harm than good.
Have you ever listened to a melody that seemed to have too
much going on? In the film Amadeus, the
Emperor critiques the young Mozart’s music saying there are “too many notes,”
whatever that means. It may be nonsense,
but doesn’t it seem true that sometimes the simplest melodies are the most
beautiful?
Have you ever drawn a
picture and at a certain point realize that with every mark you make you are
actually making it worse, and you will have to start over again if you want to
make it right?
Have you ever looked
around your house and thought that there is just too much! It is cluttered full of things that have
become nothing more than distractions.
So it’s time to start filling up bags to take to the Goodwill, in the
hopes that someone else can use and treasure these things.
Have you ever written
a sermon and looked at it and thought all these great things I have said, all
these words, I need to take them away?
Because I have made it too complicated, and confusing, and crowded.
Our theme for the
next few weeks together is “keeping it simple.”
Because sometimes things just become too complicated. Because our tendency is to just keep adding
things: adding notes, adding words,
adding knick-knacks and gee-gaws, adding rules and directions, until it reaches
a point of diminishing returns; until it reaches a point of doing more harm
than good. Sometimes less is more;
sometimes simplicity is perfection.
And sometimes that
idea, that less is more, seems contrary to the conventional wisdom. We want to respond to every problem, every
need, by adding something. Add a new
tool to your tool chest, add a new kitchen appliance. Buy a new pair of shoes because you don’t
have a pair of purple suede shoes to go with your purple sweater, so … you need
them. Yet, at some point the principle
turns on itself.
I have known school
principals who responded to every problem by making a new rule until they were
so tied up in their rules they could barely function. I have known churches who added so many
doctrines, who insisted on so many essential beliefs, that the list of beliefs
became the idol that was put before their relationships with God and one
another. At what point does adding more
create less value?
So occasionally we
have to go back to basics. For some
people this means taking every item out of your closet and examining them one
by one and asking the question, “Do I need this?” Or, if you are a devotee of Marie Kondo’s life-changing
magic of tidying up, you ask, “Does this bring me joy?” If the answer to either question is no, then
out it goes. Clearing the decks. Back to basics.
For matters of faith,
to me, it means turning to the scriptures and approaching them with fresh
eyes.
In the next few weeks
we try to get back to basics by spending some time with Jesus’s sermon on the
mount, because that was where he started with his ministry. Richard Rohr refers to it as his inaugural
address.[1] And we will add Paul to the equation, using
his letter to the Corinthian church, with his call to simplicity, or what he
calls foolishness. Paul looked at this
church and saw that they loved wisdom too much – their own wisdom, that is.
Corinth was a
diverse, cosmopolitan, vibrant city. It
was a city full of gentiles – Greeks, non-Jews.
And when Paul came to them with the gospel of Jesus Christ, many of them
– people of all classes – embraced it.
They became Christians, and they began the practice that became common
in other cities where the church had taken root – they began gathering in small
groups in one another’s homes for worship.
But it wasn’t too
long before problems started to appear – disputes about appropriate conduct,
about authority in the church, about how to understand the gospel. These things should not surprise any of us
because today these kinds of disputes are quite common in the church. We take it for granted that there are
divisions among us.
But from the
beginning, Paul made it clear that we should not allow division to become the
norm, we should not get used to it. He
opened this letter to the Corinthian church saying, “I appeal to you, brothers
and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you be in agreement and
there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and
purpose.”
No
winners and losers, only unity. No upper
and lower class, only unity. No left and
right, only unity.
Again,
we are reminded that the ways of the world are in conflict with the ways of
Christ, who called the first last and the last first; who said that the meek
shall inherit the earth and the hungry shall be filled. We are reminded that hierarchies of the world
are turned upside down by God, and have been ever since God called Abraham and
Sarah, and made Sarah the oldest woman in the maternity ward. We are reminded that what the world calls
foolish is salvation to us.
Yet
we continually struggle against these things, because we are attracted to the
ways of the world. We are excited by
things that sparkle and have that smell of newness about them. We are soothed and comforted by the sense
that we have superiority over someone else.
And we are energized by arguments and anger and self-righteousness. We don’t find meekness attractive. And the idea of being united in the same mind
with our enemies appalls us.
We
can’t hear the truth of Paul’s words unless we understand that he is asking us
to begin seeing through the eyes of Christ.
Begin living the life in Christ. Be
united in the mind of Christ.
Paul
is not telling us to check our brains at the door, to engage in groupthink for
the sake of unity. He is not expecting
us to set aside all differences, the uniqueness and variety of how we were
created. He is not urging us to stuff
ourselves into ill-fitting boxes so we are indistinguishable from one another. Be united, Paul asks us, in seeking the mind
of Christ.
Seek
unity in Christ-likeness, and the secret to this is love. The radical notion of love.
Our
first week on this journey toward simplicity calls us to see the world the way
Paul sees it, the way Christ sees it. When
we look at those with whom we disagree, sometimes violently, to see another
beloved child of God. This is not easy;
I would never say that it is. But it is
the beginning of simplicity – perfect simplicity.
No comments:
Post a Comment