Christ crucified

Wise Guys

Posted on by Betsy

Early in my ministry I did prison ministry for about five years. It was eye-opening, important, and terrifying at the same time. I visited a state prison with a death row one time and had to pass through metal detectors, metal doors, and intense security. Guards ushered me into a large open waiting area that spoked off into many different wings. Wide-eyed, I waited for hours to be called. Suddenly I spotted a SWAT team member go through an entryway that hadn’t opened before. Behind the door I could see a large chair with foot rests. Did I just see the electric chair? Why would it be in such a visible place? I couldn’t breathe. In a few minutes he returned in his newly polished boots. The “electric chair” was a shoe-shine perch. Foolish me!

The horror I felt at the very idea of the electric chair is exactly the idea that the Greeks and Jews had of the cross. Public executions by hanging a man on the cross were horrific. The cross became a symbol of deep shame, humiliation, and indecency. 

Paul understood that when he wrote these words to his church in Corinth. Corinth was one of the largest cities of the ancient world and was known for its wealth, prosperity, and growing business sector. It was also known for its debauchery, drunkenness, and loose sexual morals. Paul’s letter in 1 Corinthians is a response to reports he had received regarding some of the behavior in the church. 

In a series of contrasts, Paul draws out an argument to settle their disputes. God chose the foolish over the wise. God chose the weak over the strong. God chose the low class nothings over the affluent somethings. God chose life over death. So preaching Christ crucified is an act of foolishness that has to overcome people’s aversion to the cross. 

1 Corinthians 1 (Common English Bible)

18 The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are being destroyed. But it is the power of God for those of us who are being saved. 19 It is written in scripture: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will reject the intelligence of the intelligent. 20 Where are the wise? Where are the legal experts? Where are today’s debaters? Hasn’t God made the wisdom of the world foolish? 21 In God’s wisdom, he determined that the world wouldn’t come to know him through its wisdom. Instead, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of preaching. 22 Jews ask for signs, and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, which is a scandal to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.24 But to those who are called—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom. 25 This is because the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

26 Look at your situation when you were called, brothers and sisters! By ordinary human standards not many were wise, not many were powerful, not many were from the upper class. 27 But God chose what the world considers foolish to shame the wise. God chose what the world considers weak to shame the strong.28 And God chose what the world considers low-class and low-life—what is considered to be nothing—to reduce what is considered to be something to nothing. 29 So no human being can brag in God’s presence. 30 It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus. He became wisdom from God for us. This means that he made us righteous and holy, and he delivered us. 31 This is consistent with what was written: The one who brags should brag in the Lord!

Paul once thought the cross was foolish. Nobody hated the cross more than Saul, until that glorious moment when God struck him down and struck him blind on the road to Damascus in Acts 9. Three days later he could see the glory of the cross and began preaching “foolishness” from that day. No wise scribe or debater could do what Jesus did on the cross. Paul preached that salvation is not the achievement of human cleverness or wisdom but is the eternal embrace of God’s great love and incomprehensible action at Calvary.

Are you foolish or wise? Are you willing to preach Christ crucified to a generation that wants signs and wisdom? Be a wise guy; people are dying to hear the good news.

Its a Sign

Sheer Silliness

Posted on by Betsy

Isn’t it amazing how many experts there are in the world today? Gosh, all you have to do is open TikTok, X, or Facebook and voila, there they are. Everyone now has a PHD in something, it seems. You can find all kinds of nutritional, medical, and health advice. Not to mention all the online science experts who pontificate their opinions on vaccines, weather, climate change, etc. Political, financial, and global experts abound and have lots of great information to share on these platforms.

I hope you are reading the sarcasm in my tone. Based on what I am seeing, this new faux brand of PHD must stand for Pretty Horrible Disinformation. A friend recently told me that the Canadian wildfires were deliberately set by an all-female firefighter crew. She knew that because she saw it on TikTok. According to the Pew Research Center, about 52% of adults who use TikTok get all of their news there. TikTok! Lord, have mercy.

Paul wrote about the sheer silliness of the (good) news to those who were rejecting it. Christ dying on the cross for the salvation of the world was unacceptable to the supposedly wise people. God used their preconceived ideas to turn their conventional wisdom upside down and the so-called experts in the Jewish and Greek communities were exposed as fake news readers.

1 Corinthians 1 (The Message)

18-21 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,

I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as shams.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

Don’t look to the pulpit here for “preaching.” What Paul is saying is that we are all called to share the wisdom of God in our testimony. We are all responsible for sharing the truth of Christ-crucified with everyone we meet. You are the news anchor of the Good News and are meant to be broadcasting it every night. You, my friend, are the preacher, called to bring others into the only way of salvation: Jesus Christ.

22-25 While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”

So let us go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified to the world. People will accuse us of being absurd. But human wisdom is nothing compared to what we know to be true about the Resurrection. In God’s wisdom, we will find strength to combat the silliness of the world. Preach on, my friends!

Erin’s Might by Michelle Robertson

Blow Your Horn

Posted on by Betsy

What is it with trumpets this week in the lectionary?

If you read the last devotional, you might have picked up on two trumpet references. (Like a Trumpet.) In the Message version of today’s scripture, we see another invitation to “blow a trumpet for God.” As a former bassoonist, I protest. We never see our instruments elevated like this! Flutes, lyres, harps, drums, and trumpets get all the glory in the Bible. But you will never read, “David lifted his bassoon and soothed Saul with his music.” Nope, not gonna happen.

Unfair!

In today’s reading, Paul wrote to the church in Corinth and laid out an argument against the arrogance of the Jews and Greeks who were proclaiming that the crucifixion and resurrection were utter nonsense. He built the case that God chose humble, ordinary folks like them to reverse the ideas of wisdom and stupidity, miracles and anti-miracles, strength and weakness, etc., and invited them to celebrate their “nobody” status:

1 Corinthians 1 (The Message)

18-21 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,

I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as shams.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid —preaching, of all things! —to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

“God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid — preaching, of all things! — to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.” Amen, brother. Speaking for myself, sometimes my preaching is truly stupid, and surely all of us, laity and clergy alike, sound stupid to the non-believer when we preach forgiveness of sins, salvation through Christ, and the resurrection we all share with the Son of God himself. Stupid, indeed.

Stupid-smart, as it turns out.

22-25 While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”

Paul is exactly right. Human wisdom is cheap and impotent next to the absurdity of the cross.

26-31 Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”?

This is when being a nobody is the greatest thing in the world. Do you ever feel like a nobody? Never mind. You truly are somebody to God.

That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.”

Everything we have comes from God through Jesus Christ our Lord. And Christ gave us his everything. His heart, his mind, his teaching, his healing, his life on the cross, and the promise of life abundant. He didn’t withhold a thing. Neither should we. Now that is something to blow a trumpet about!

Or even a bassoon.

Horn Blowers by Michelle Robertson

Conventional Wisdom

Posted on by Betsy

The disunity we are experiencing in our country, our towns, our churches, and our families is rooted in our discourse, and the subsequent positioning we take from intractable sides. One says blue and the other says red, and both point to endless articles to bolster their point. One says conservative and the other says progressive, and both point to scripture to prove their position. This type of debate-posturing results in both sides being disenfranchised from the koinonia, or the fellowship/kinship of the combined whole.

Paul writes this in Philippians 2:

1-4 If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage.

The root of our disconnect with one another is found in our reliance on our own wisdom. We apply our personal conventional wisdom to matters that wisdom defies. Our wisdom is colored and flavored with the prejudices of our environment, our status in society, and our upbringing. And when we think that OUR wisdom is better than THEIR wisdom, the community is destroyed. Truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent people can effectively argue an issue from many sides. So where is the truth?

1 Corinthians 1 (The Message)

18-21 The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hellbent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written,

I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head,
I’ll expose so-called experts as shams.

So where can you find someone truly wise, truly educated, truly intelligent in this day and age? Hasn’t God exposed it all as pretentious nonsense? Since the world in all its fancy wisdom never had a clue when it came to knowing God, God in his wisdom took delight in using what the world considered stupid—preaching, of all things!—to bring those who trust him into the way of salvation.

22-25 While Jews clamor for miraculous demonstrations and Greeks go in for philosophical wisdom, we go right on proclaiming Christ, the Crucified. Jews treat this like an anti-miracle—and Greeks pass it off as absurd. But to us who are personally called by God himself—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Human wisdom is so cheap, so impotent, next to the seeming absurdity of God. Human strength can’t begin to compete with God’s “weakness.”

The only truth that matters in the end is Christ crucified. All other debates, posturing, and positioning can only lead to further disruption of the singular message of “Christ crucified.” There is no human wisdom that can adequately explain this. There is no intelligent education that can sufficiently prove anything. Christ is God’s ultimate miracle and wisdom all wrapped up in one. Go and preach THAT, and that alone.

Unconventional Beauty by Michelle Robertson