Plow
Creek Mennonite Church
Sunday
Meditations
Disclaimer - meditations are the personal reflections of the worship leader, not official church doctrinal statements.
Protests, Wisdom, and Foolishness
Presented by Jim Foxvog
March 19, 2006
I hear today’s readings inviting us to renewed commitment to our covenant relationship with God. In Exodus, the commandments become the standard of life for God’s people. In 1 Corinthians, Paul assures us that our commitment to Christ, though foolish to the world, is the powerful core of Christian faith. In John, Jesus’ passionate love for God ignites his anger against those who treat God’s house with disrespect.
Paul sets forth the general principle that the wisdom of God appears to be folly to those wise in worldly terms, while to those in the process of salvation, it reveals the power of God. Human-centered wisdom, which is itself closely related to our efforts, will be overturned by God.
Some knowledge of God is possible through natural revelation. "Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made", as the scripture says. But there is no worldly proof. Most of us don't see unambiguous "signs" of power. We can not prove the existence of God with philosophical "wisdom. God's act of "foolishness" and "weakness" was not what the Jews expected of the Messiah. It was not what Greeks believed about the immortal nature of divinity. Jesus was a stumbling block.
When Jesus threw out the temple business folk, he certainly met the description given him in 1 Corinthians: stumbling block.
Imagine the scene to the modern site of Vatican City: Imagine a young man entering St. Peter's Square, ranting at the sellers of postcards and souvenirs. He overturns their pushcarts and stands, dumps their money, then proceeds inside the basilica. There, he slashes expensive altar cloths and luxurious vestments. He overturns golden chalices and splinters exquisitely carved monstrances. He shatters marble sculptures and destroys relics. The security guards who question his authority receive some obscure answer about the odd young man's ability to rebuild the elaborate edifice three days after its destruction. The whole scenario is so bizarre that police commit him to a mental institution. Of course, the religious establishment continues as usual.
Jesus new order is very different from the temple's. He is trying to shift the reverence that people feel for the temple where they worship to a different temple, his body. He attempts to move the focus of peoples' relationships with God away from the fine buildings of Jerusalem to the worship in spirit and truth.
Jesus action recalls God's liberation of his people during the exodus. Just as they were once enslaved in Egypt, so in Jesus' day, they had become chained by the dictates of religious legalism. He calls the people to something better: a sense of the holy that surpasses one place, one culture, one set of customs . Jesus invites them to reject deadening religious rules and discover new meaning, new life in himself. In place of a God who had become distant and dead to them, he reveals a God who is with us.
The only real wisdom we will ever find is in Jesus. What we discover in him will not look like our world's traditional concepts. The sign of a crucified corpse may look as absurd to us as it did to the Jews. But if we enter into this irony, we too may find the power of God in weakness and the wisdom of God in folly.
Quietly consider:
In what weakness have I found God’s power?
In what folly have I found God’s wisdom?
Disclaimer - meditations are the personal reflections of the worship leader, not official church doctrinal statements.
Protests, Wisdom, and Foolishness
Presented by Jim Foxvog
March 19, 2006
1 Corinthians
1:18-25
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.
John 2:13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
Yesterday
Meg, Samuel and I were part of an anti-war protest in Chicago.
There were thousands of people, but lots of police. Can people
marching in Chicago stop the greatest war machine that has ever
existed? Foolishness? 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.
John 2:13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me." The Jews then said to him, "What sign can you show us for doing this?" Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." The Jews then said, "This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?" But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
I hear today’s readings inviting us to renewed commitment to our covenant relationship with God. In Exodus, the commandments become the standard of life for God’s people. In 1 Corinthians, Paul assures us that our commitment to Christ, though foolish to the world, is the powerful core of Christian faith. In John, Jesus’ passionate love for God ignites his anger against those who treat God’s house with disrespect.
Paul sets forth the general principle that the wisdom of God appears to be folly to those wise in worldly terms, while to those in the process of salvation, it reveals the power of God. Human-centered wisdom, which is itself closely related to our efforts, will be overturned by God.
Some knowledge of God is possible through natural revelation. "Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made", as the scripture says. But there is no worldly proof. Most of us don't see unambiguous "signs" of power. We can not prove the existence of God with philosophical "wisdom. God's act of "foolishness" and "weakness" was not what the Jews expected of the Messiah. It was not what Greeks believed about the immortal nature of divinity. Jesus was a stumbling block.
When Jesus threw out the temple business folk, he certainly met the description given him in 1 Corinthians: stumbling block.
Imagine the scene to the modern site of Vatican City: Imagine a young man entering St. Peter's Square, ranting at the sellers of postcards and souvenirs. He overturns their pushcarts and stands, dumps their money, then proceeds inside the basilica. There, he slashes expensive altar cloths and luxurious vestments. He overturns golden chalices and splinters exquisitely carved monstrances. He shatters marble sculptures and destroys relics. The security guards who question his authority receive some obscure answer about the odd young man's ability to rebuild the elaborate edifice three days after its destruction. The whole scenario is so bizarre that police commit him to a mental institution. Of course, the religious establishment continues as usual.
Jesus new order is very different from the temple's. He is trying to shift the reverence that people feel for the temple where they worship to a different temple, his body. He attempts to move the focus of peoples' relationships with God away from the fine buildings of Jerusalem to the worship in spirit and truth.
Jesus action recalls God's liberation of his people during the exodus. Just as they were once enslaved in Egypt, so in Jesus' day, they had become chained by the dictates of religious legalism. He calls the people to something better: a sense of the holy that surpasses one place, one culture, one set of customs . Jesus invites them to reject deadening religious rules and discover new meaning, new life in himself. In place of a God who had become distant and dead to them, he reveals a God who is with us.
The only real wisdom we will ever find is in Jesus. What we discover in him will not look like our world's traditional concepts. The sign of a crucified corpse may look as absurd to us as it did to the Jews. But if we enter into this irony, we too may find the power of God in weakness and the wisdom of God in folly.
Quietly consider:
In what weakness have I found God’s power?
In what folly have I found God’s wisdom?