The foolishness of the Cross

Show Your Cross to me Let it shine there in the darkness To there, I will be looking In life, in death Let me rest in Thee.

There’s something that’s been troubling me for quite a while now, and throughout this pandemic, it has taken on a life of its own.

Christians complaining about life in the west.

Claims of injustice and persecution

Wilful self-indulgence in conspiracy theories.

It’s been bugging me, but I haven’t been able to articulate why.

As I read today’s passage from Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, it struck me why all of this has bothered me so much.

To understand this, first I think we need to understand something about Paul’s letters to the Corinthian church. These letters were not written in a vacuum, but to a specific people, in a specific place, in a specific time.

Corinth was an ancient Greek city that had been re-founded by the Romans.

It was dominated, geographically and spiritaully by two temples:

Temple of Aphrodite at Acrocorinth

The Temple of Aphrodite at Acrocorinth was a sanctuary in Ancient Corinth dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite. It was the main temple of Aphrodite in Corinth, and famous for its alleged temple prostitution.

The temple of Apollo at Corinth is one of the earliest Doric temples in the Peloponnese and the Greek mainland. ... In the Roman period, when the city of Corinth was refounded by the Romans, the Temple of Apollo was renovated in order to house the cult of the Emperor.

Apollo god of poetry and music - beautiful, wise, clever

What we see in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is Paul speaking out prophetically against these powers that dominated the lives of the Corinthian people.

Apollo was the God of poetry and music, spohisticated and beautiful, and the Roman empire have co-opted the cult to project these attributes onto the Emperor.

So far, Paul sounds right in line with our current situation, right? Protest against sophistication and intellectualism. I can picture people on social media having a good old dig at snowflake Apollo.

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Yeah! You go!

I don’t need doctors and goverments telling me what to do! I’ve got freedom! I’ve got Jesus! I can do whatever I wnat and I don’t have to listen to you!

But then, Paul says this:

22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

And that’s when it hit me.

The cross of Christ. That perfect act of self-giving love. That purely motivated trust in the will of the Father, beyond the violence of the state.

Jesus was completely un-selfish in his journey to the cross. And that’s a stumbling block to anyone who protests in defiance of the common good in favour of their own self-determination.

If you wear a mask, or practice physical distancing, or follow the rules on large assemblies, then you are putting the well-being of others before your own.

And it struck me that that some of us have been protesting againsts all along. Putting the well-being of others before our own.

If you disagree, and point towards the common good in times like these, then you are told to “wake up, sheeple!” You are called a fool, and a patsy of the shadowy figures that are presumed to run our lives.

Foolishness. A stumbling block.

If this is the way that we see the world, how would we respond to Jesus going peacefully to a Roman cross?

All of a sudden, we realise that Paul was talking about something quite different. Our eyes are opened and we see that so much of this rhetoric is coming from a people and a place and a time where some Christians have abandoned the way of the cross, and taken up emperor worship, and the words of Paul mean something completely different.

Why?

How, as Christians, have our brothers and sisters in Christ fallen into this trap?

Fear

conspiracy theories rely on two assumptions

there is someone or some group out there that controls the world absolutely through subterfuge and deceit

That group has malignant intent towards humanity in genreal, and “us” in particular.

Total opposite of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Losing the central role of Christianity in society. We fear that the temple on the hill is no longer the Church.

This part is true, but it si not neccesarily a bad thing. How can we learn, as followers of Jesus, to be salt and light in a darkened world? That’s an open question, but I am utterly convinced that we cannot do so by fighting tooth and nail to hold on to our last vestiges of power. Our way forward must follow the way of the cross, not the way of the sword.

Hurt

Hurt people, hurt people

leads to hatred -> projection and scape-goating

by their fruits you will know them

Self-centredness

My rights.

Faith

faithfulness not just of us, but het God who loves us and gives his all that we might know life, abundant and eternal

faith that whatever happens, even if the worst fears of the conspiracy theorists are true, even if we end up nailed to a cross, the love and life of God will prevail

Hope

reaches beyond what we ahve, to what we know to be true

hope that is a

Love

love that puts the needs of others before our own. Love that is not a doormat, but has the mana and dignity to be true to itself, even when the rest of the world is false.

1 Corinthians 13:13 NIV

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.