[0411E] Epistle for Holy Tuesday

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

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."

There are two prominent themes in this Epistle for Holy Tuesday.

The first is the crucifixion of Christ.  The Apostle Paul reminds the Church that the cross stands in the midst of Jews who demand signs and Greeks who desire wisdom.  Consequently, each of these who stand outside the Church reject the cross and the Christ; the Jews as this is a stumbling block and the Greeks as this is foolishness.  How so?  For the Jews, the Church needs to remember that the Law says quite bluntly that the one who is hung on a tree is cursed of God.  For the Greeks, the Church needs to recall that the Greeks could not envision a God who would be so invested in the people to draw near to them and offer himself in the way that Christ does upon the cross.  Any God, in the Greek mind, who would do so, was no god at all.  And yet Paul speaks of this as the very means of the Church knowing that we have received the gift of the fullness of life given from God who has come into our midst and taken our place and our experiences fully into himself in order to transform us and our experiences.

The second theme is an examination of the Church.  Paul reminds the Christians that God in Christ Jesus has called not the rich and the powerful but the lowly and the poor.  God calls us and uses us in our lowliness and our humility in order to show that his power is made perfect in our weakness.

The Rev’d Father Timothy Alleman, Rector

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