April 27 2025
1 Corinthians 1:17-2:1-2
One thing I find interesting is that when you compare the two big Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter, Christmas by far has the best songs and best traditions, hands down. Yet, as soon as Christmas is over, most everybody is alright not hearing another carol for at least a year. I mean, no one will leave even one little manger with baby Jesus displayed come January. When we look at Easter though, yes, we do put away the bunny’s and the eggs, and we make sure no candy goes uneaten but what we do not seem to ever get tired of having displayed is the cross which points us to Good Friday leading up to Easter. The cross it seems, defies the curse of all holiday traditions for no matter what holiday or season we find ourselves in the cross remains.
Everything else can be put away, jammed in a closet and forgotten but the cross, the cross gets to be a permanent fixture of our lives, doesn’t it? It just makes sense, I guess, because as most of us have discovered, the cross changed everything. The cross we might say, is the point that defines, “before”, and “after”. As Paul says about what the cross and the resurrection has done, in the fifth chapter of Second Corinthians, “From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.” The old ways of knowing each other has changed because of what has happened at the cross and in the tomb. It was there upon the cross that we saw just who the worlds true king really was, the one who could wage war upon the enemy of sin and death and defeat them, rising victorious on Easter morning. In these days following after Easter, it is good for us to consider just what does it mean for us to have a resurrected king. As Paul also says in that fifth chapter of Second Corinthians, “We have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore, in him, we have all died. If he has died for all then all who live must no longer live for themselves but they should live for the one who died and was raised all for their sake.” This one that Paul refers to here, is none other than Jesus, our king. I wonder, after we have just gone through Holy Week and through the triumph of Easter, what have you and I concluded about what just happened? Has what we have witnessed, has this lead us to say, yes, Jesus has died but he has not just died, he has died for me? And as we have testified that Jesus has indeed been raised, but can we say, that Jesus has been raised for me? If we say and believe that Jesus is the warrior king who has indeed conquered our greatest enemy, then do not we owe him the sum total of our life as well? We have to ask ourselves just what have we concluded after we have been through yet another Holy Week and Easter celebration? Just why is it that the cross seems to demand so much of us?
We need to ask ourselves these questions because if we do confess that the one who died on the tree, the one who has been raised to life is this one named Jesus then this Jesus must be for us our king. And if Jesus is claimed by as to be our king, deserving of our highest allegiance, then we as all God’s people must know ourselves as his kingdom. In order for us to be people who are the kingdom of God does it not make sense that we must live the same way as our king lives his life? Of course!
Now, when we think about living our life, what we discover is that for most of our life, we do a lot of our daily activities without much thought at all. Oh yes, we may have a to-do list for the day, but unless that list has something we have never done before, the truth is that we will be just going about our business, without so much as a care. You see, we just have a way that we live our lives, a practical, sensible, way of living that doesn’t require much effort to live it. So, what happens when we meet Jesus, and he calls us to live in a new way, to live in a manner which goes against our common sense, a way that might seem stupid to the people trying to figure out just what is wrong with us. Well, the truth is, trying to live the king’s way is not easy, and prone to failure. If you don’t believe me, then read the first letter to the church at Corinth. Actually, any number of Paul’s churches could prove the point, but for today we will look at this letter we call, First Corinthians.
There are many interesting aspects of this first letter Paul wrote to his beloved people at Corinth. Paul has heard that the church had a number of troubling issues, so he pens a letter addressing what needs to be done as soon as possible. Now, if you have ever had to send a lengthy letter, or email, you know its always good to structure it according to what needs dealt with immediately and what can wait. So, when we look at this first letter to Corinth, we find that they had a number of serious problems, a person was sleeping with his mother-in-law, they totally messed up the Lord’s supper, and somebody started a rumor that the resurrection had already happened. Yet, what Paul decided to lead with was that the church had split into four factions, each group proudly declaring that they were the wisest bunch of followers because they chose wisely the right person to follow. Now, to our modern ears, this splitting the church into little groups, doesn’t sound like much, does it? I mean, we have lived through many church splits, and factions or have at least heard of them. No one seems all that surprised when they happen. So, we have to wonder just why does this issue which seems like small potatoes to us, is rather the worst thing about this church at Corinth? The answer is that these factions were a clear witness of an underlying sickness that was plaguing the church at Corinth. We begin to understand the real issue at hand from something that James wrote in the fourth chapter of his letter. We read, “What causes quarrels and fights among you? Is it not this, that your desires are at war within you?”. Here, we have to pause, to consider just what James is saying to us. James is placing the reason for the squabbles we get into not on what we might perceive to be the problem and instead he places the blame squarely on us. Our outward behavior is directly caused by inner quarreling and fighting within ourselves.James goes on to explain, saying, “You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot find satisfaction. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive because you ask in a wrong way, wanting only to spend it on what you desire.” You see, what James is saying is that when we are broken on the inside then that brokenness will be seen on the outside in how we relate to one another. I believe that Paul was very aware of what James is writing about because in his letter to the church at Corinth, he first points out their breaking the church into factions. This brokenness is but a symptom of an inner conflict going on within the members of this church.
This inner conflict appears to have begun when some church members tried to convince the church that there is no resurrection from the dead as we find in the twelfth verse of the fifteenth chapter. When they lost their faith in the resurrection then as Paul tells us in the thirty-second verse, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.” Can you see that when our faith in the resurrection wavers then the focus for our life turns inward, and we become a captive to our coveting, never finding satisfaction for our longings. The danger is as James tells us, this time in the first chapter, “Each person is tested when he is lured and enticed by their own desire. Then, desire, when it has conceived gives birth to sin and when that sin is fully grown brings forth, death.” This is why Paul tells us, if you are one of those who say that the dead are not raised, believing that we just should, “Eat, drink and be merry”, then you had better wake up and get with the program. Well, actually he says, “Do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. Wake up from your drunken stupor…do not go on sinning, for some of you have no knowledge of God.” You see, this so called, “Eat, drink and be merry lifestyle”, is the life that comes from the wrong way kind of wisdom. James, once again, tells us like it is when in the third chapter of his letter he says, “If you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to what is true. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.” Can you understand why I say that such wisdom is a wrong way kind of wisdom? This wisdom that is centered on our desires is just headed in a wrong direction from where God has always desired that our sights might be turned, that is toward heaven.
You see, when Paul address the church at Corinth, he knows that he has to get them back to having their life be lived by another kind of wisdom than this, “Eat, drink and be merry” way of life. It is easy, here, to be reminded of a proverb, found in the book called Proverbs, from the fourteenth chapter, the twelfth verse, that says, “There is a way that may seem right to us but its end is the ways of death.’ Paul knew that this church was headed toward death, this is why he leads them back to where we at last knew Jesus as our king, the place of his victory, the battlefield called the cross. This is where, Paul tells us in todays scripture, that God made this world’s wisdom, seem to be foolish, without understanding. You see, the people of the world arrogantly come to God with their worldly wisdom, desiring this sign or this proof. Yet, all God gives to us is his king, his chosen and anointed one and him crucified. The question is, just what are we to do, before our king, raised there upon that pole? For it is there, Paul tells us, is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now, Paul rightly understands that such a scene looks foolish and weak, oh but how little do the people of this world know about the God who is displayed there upon the cross. His wisdom is greater than the wisdom of anyone and his strength is greater than all human power.
To help us understand how this crucified one can be known to us as the very wisdom and power of God, we once again turn to James who in the third chapter of his letter, writes, “The wisdom from above is first, pure, peaceful, gentle, fair to all, confident, full of mercy, bearing the fruit of goodness, being wholly impartial and sincere.” Now when we hear of the qualities of the Kings wisdom, what should become obvious as we mull these over is that James, here, is describing Jesus. You see, the wisdom from above did not come to us through the speaking of a voice from heaven or written on tablets by the finger of God; no, the wisdom from heaven came to us in a human life named Jesus. You see, the qualities of this wisdom were witnessed by all who wandered after this strange man from Nazareth. They knew his heart was pure having only one desire and that was to glorify his Heavenly Father. He was a peace-maker as the cross demonstrated making a way for peace to be a reality for all people. He was gentle, calling not just children but all those society rejected to come to him and find love. Jesus was fair to all willing to speak to Pharisee and publican alike. Jesus was confident in his Heavenly Father for even in the shadow of the cross he could say that he would do his Father’s will. And there upon the cross we witnessed the fullness of mercy as Jesus took upon himself the judgment meant for us and in turn, gave us, overflowing mercy. The cross demonstrated the goodness of God, the goodness that loved even his enemies, the goodness that overcomes the evil of this world. This act of Jesus upon the cross was an act of love, one given by the Father in order to bring life to all who call this world home. The cross then, proved the purity of Jesus, for he loved his Father to the utmost and in doing so, proved his love for all people, loving them all the way to the end. This then is the Kings way of living, the very wisdom of heaven as seen lived out in a human life.
Paul also moves to how this wisdom from above is seen being lived out and he begins with the very members of the church at Corinth. He asks his audience to remember how they had been called into life by God. Just why had God bothered to speak to them? Was it because they were wise in the ways of the world? No, that obviously was not the reason. Ok, maybe it was that they were people of power and influence, yes that has to be the reason why God spoke into their life, right? No, that does not seem to be right either, does it? Alright, how about we say that God called them because they had been born to the right people, having come from the very best sort of families? No, it was not because of any sort of criteria that God could have used, to judge us and find us worthy of life. No, all that God did was to choose a bunch of fools, how is that for a humbling opinion. Yup, God spoke to those who lived by this worlds wrong way wisdom all so that those who live by that wrong way wisdom might be ashamed for doing so. And then Paul goes on to say: God chose what is foolish in the eyes of the world, to bring shame on those who think they are wise.You see, says Paul, God chose what is weak according to the world to bring shame upon the strong. And God chose what is lowly and despised according to the world, going so far as to become nothing in order to bring to nothing all that is, so that no one can boast about anything whether they think themselves as being the wisest, the strongest or if they think that they are all high and mighty. And just who is this that God has chosen to bring shame on all those who live by this worlds wrong way wisdom? This one God chose is Jesus. According to the standards of this world bent on eating, drinking and making merry until the quarter runs out, Jesus looks like their worst nightmare. Jesus is the one who looked like he had no understanding how the world works; Jesus is the one who looked weak nailed there to that tree; Jesus is the one who was low and despised, born in a manger and rejected by the very people that he came to rescue. According to the judgment of the world, Jesus was a foolish, weak, lowly, despised person who didn’t deserve to be given the time of day. He was a person that had nothing to boast or brag about according to the standards of the world.
Jesus though could have cared less about the judgment placed upon him by the world for he lived by a different way of life, the King’s way of living, the wisdom from God. Where the world wavered in their loyalty, Jesus remained pure in his devotion to his Father. Where the world quarrels and fights, Jesus makes peace. Where the world picks and chooses according to its standards Jesus chooses everyone. Where the world sees greatness in the amount of force one has, Jesus instead saw true strength in being gentle. Where the wrong way wisdom creates anxiety in those who use it, Jesus instead remained confident in his Father. Where the world judges people according to their perceived wisdom, or their power or their standing in the world, Jesus simply approached people with an abundance of mercy. And where those who use the wrong way wisdom of the world, bear the evil fruit of violence, Jesus used his good to overcome the sin of the world. Jesus alone is the impartial one who never needs to be anything other than himself. The only one deserving of any boasting is Jesus for he lives through the wisdom of the Kings way of life. This wisdom from above, Paul tells us, is righteousness, holiness and redemption. In the next several weeks we are going to look further into what these terms mean as we live out the Kings way of life. For now though, let us consider just which way of wisdom can we say that we live by. Which way are you headed, the wrong way or the King’s way? May we choose wisely!Amen!
