Foolishness

1st Corinthians 1: 10-18, page 155
Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.
For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”
Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)
For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.
For 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.
Sermon
The Deacons here at the church have been kind enough to take me along on their visits, and last week, thanks to Bill Handy and Doreen Wohlfarth, I had the pleasure of meeting Jim and Lenora Parnell. About half-way through our visit Mrs. Parnell looked at me and said, “Well Joe, you’re from Atlanta. What do you think of us?”
It’s not really the kind of question I’m accustomed to answering, and only having been here for four weeks I’m not able to answer it with any kind of confidence. It takes a while to answer a question like that, “What do you think of us?” but that doesn’t always keep people from offering their assumptions.
The night before my last Sunday at Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church, the church I last served just outside Atlanta, the congregation gave a dinner and roast in honor of my family and me. The president of Good Shepherd’s senior group, a fine man by the name of Gus, stood up and presented me with a gift. “All the members of the senior group got together Joe and we raised a great deal of money,” he said. “We’ve come up with $5,000 as a sign of our appreciation, but the president on the bills is Jefferson Davis – we’re hoping they still use confederate money up where you and Sara are going.”
Of course, while it might be fun for folks from Atlanta to make jokes about folks from Tennessee, assumptions that we make about other people can sometimes not be so amusing. Everyone in Atlanta knows that people in Tennessee don’t use confederate currency; everyone in Atlanta probably knows that people in Tennessee do wear shoes; but it probably is true that people from Atlanta really do think they are better, more refined, than every other group of people living in the South, so assumptions that people make – even when they are joking can be dangerous – and I would go so far as to say that assumptions that we make about other people can sometimes take a nasty turn.
So Paul worries about the Christians in Corinth. How they are dividing themselves up into groups – saying “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ” as though Christ could be divided.
Paul worries because once folks divide themselves up into groups they get comfortable. The ones who belong to Paul don’t spend quite as much time with the ones who belong to Apollos as they used to – maybe they still worship together but on different sides – it’s just nice to spend time with your own kind. And before long the ones who belong to Paul have gotten away from the ones who belong to Apollos to such an extent that their opinion of each other is no longer based on experience but assumption. Paul’s people haven’t asked Apollos’ people why all the donuts are gone from Fellowship Time before they even get there – Paul’s people just assume that Apollos’ people are greedy. And Apollos’ people haven’t really talked with Paul’s about a good date for the church picnic; they just assume that Paul’s people won’t be able to make it.
It goes on like this OK until the two groups are so divided they don’t even sit together and they don’t even live on the same side of town.
This past Monday, on the other side of town, I had the pleasure of joining a group of a hundred or so people, several who are members of this church, gathered in front of one of Columbia’s African American churches. In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King we marched from there to the court house, but on the way we stopped at the sight of the 1946 Columbia race riot, a riot that, like so many race riots that followed World War 2, involved military veterans who were unwilling to accept segregation in the country they had put their lives on the line for – they were frustrated that store clerks, who seemed so in need of their service before they left, would not respect them enough upon returning to offer them the same decency they gave to white citizens.
So when James Stephenson felt that his mother was being disrespected by a local department store clerk when they went together to pick up her radio, something erupted. The store clerk may have assumed that Stephenson’s mother should be satisfied with the service she received, while Stephenson may have assumed that the store clerk was treating his mother badly based on the color of her skin. Then maybe the clerk assumed that Stephenson was another angry, black, veteran – the kind who would resort to violence - and so he defended himself accordingly – next thing you know the clerk winds up through a window and by nightfall the Mink Side was surrounded, shots were fired, four patrolmen were wounded, windows were broken, houses were raided, weapons were confiscated, and more than one hundred African American’s were arrested.
It all started with a store clerk and a customer – a simple exchange, nothing more than a broken radio – but because this simple exchange took place between two groups of people who had forgotten how to deal with each other things went in a different direction.
When people forget how to talk with each other – when assumptions guide our behavior rather than experience – things can take a nasty turn.
So Paul calls the congregation back together: Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.
This was a tall order for them as it is for us, as a world without divisions is hardly imaginable.
A world where people don’t see race or class.
A world where association with a particular church, a particular club, a particular strata of society doesn’t matter nearly so much as accepting ourselves and each other for who we are.
A world where people don’t assume they know how another group of people thinks or acts, but instead takes the time to learn.
It’s foolishness really – nothing more than a dream, because for whatever reason, it’s easier to go on believing that our assumptions are right than it is to put them to the test.
That some kinds of people are naturally hard workers;
While some are either happy being poor or aren’t willing to do anything to make their lives better.
That the way things are meets everyone’s needs so there’s no reason to change.
In this kind of world it becomes particularly important to remember that our salvation comes from the God who chose not to assume. That our God didn’t assume anything about life on earth – rather than assume, our God became one of us.
While Christ certainly could have stayed with the angels of heaven, he came down, and after living among fishers, adulterers, the lame and the blind, he was handed over to be crucified in-between two thieves.
It would have been easier to leave it to assumption, just as life is easier for us if we never put to the test the kind of assumptions about particular groups we have learned to believe.
The world is an easier place to live in if you go on believing that the way things are is the way they need to be. That people always get what they deserve, and if they really wanted to improve their lot in life they could.
The world is an easier place to live in if the poor are poor because they’re lazy, just as the Pharisees believed the sick were sick because of their sins.
The world becomes a strange place when you start to question these assumptions, and no one should be surprised - for 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.
Be foolish today – put the assumptions of the world to the test – living not confined to the group you are most comfortable with, but out among – working with, eating with - those you assume you know but you may not know at all.
This is the heart of the gospel – that when people the world has called different do something as bold as sitting around one table, breaking bread together and sharing wine – such a thing is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Amen.