As with last week, we are using
the sermon slots in Lent for part of our Lent Course which we’ll be exploring
in greater detail on Tuesday evenings.
In a moment we’ll discuss
today’s theme, the foolishness of the Gospel. To prepare for that I’ll say something briefly
about today’s readings and unpack some of the things that are going on there.
But then it will be over to you to discuss that in pairs or in threes, for you
to think about how the Gospel message might apply to us here and now.
The foolishness of the Gospel
is how St Paul describes the Christian message, the good news that we bear. But
as Paul makes clear in 1 Corinthians, what is foolishness to the world is
wisdom to God, and what is weakness to the world is power to God. Whether you
see the Gospel message as wisdom or foolishness depends on how much you have
learned to see the world and the Gospel from God’s perspective.
This has always been the mark
of God’s calling to his people. Our first reading from Genesis told of Abram
and Sarai, the physical ancestors of Israel, and, according to the reading from
Romans, the spiritual ancestors of all who have faith in God.
Why? Because they had faith.
Although they were nearly 100 years old and childless they believed God’s
promise that they would become the ancestors of many nations. And Sarai
conceived and gave birth to Isaac, the father of Jacob, himself the father of
the twelve tribes of Israel.
God’s promise to them could
easily have seemed foolishness. Indeed, when she first heard it Sarai laughed.
But God’s promise was fulfilled, anyway. Faith enables us to see how God is
working through human weakness and what seems to be foolishness.
St Paul in our reading from Romans
draws a parallel between Abraham and Sarah and those who believe in Jesus. Just
as Abraham believed even though he was “as good as dead”, and this was reckoned
to him as righteousness, so also those who believe in Jesus, risen from the
dead, will be reckoned as righteous because of their faith.
And faith in the resurrection
is the challenge in today’s gospel reading. Jesus, as we saw in last week’s
Gospel, is the one who will defeat the powers of oppression, accusation and exclusion
that are at work in human society. And yet he says that he will undergo great
suffering, and be rejected, and killed. How can he defeat the powers, if he is
going to be defeated by them? This seems to Peter to be utter foolishness. But
as yet Peter does not have faith in the resurrection. He does not see that the
violent powers of the world can never be defeated by violence.
When Jesus rebukes Peter he
goes on to say that his followers must “take up their cross and follow me”. At
the time of Jesus, this was no figure of speech. It is much more scandalous
than that. It is meant quite literally. Crucifixion was how the Romans got rid
of political dissidents and trouble makers. At that time Jewish nationalists
were saying that people should “take up the sword” against the Romans. But Jesus
says instead that his followers must take up the cross, as though they were
already defeated.
This indeed is the foolishness
of the Gospel, the weakness of Christ. But it is God’s wisdom and power.
Violent resistance to a violent world will only perpetuate violence. The only
way out of the cycle of violence is to follow Jesus on the path of radical
non-violence, trusting not our own swords, but God’s power to overcome evil
with good and to bring life out of death. In the world as it is, this is the
only path to the new life of the Resurrection. Nothing less than a new creation
can free us from the violent disorder of the world that we call sin.
Now it’s your part. In twos or
threes, could you please reflect on these readings and the discussion points in
the news sheet:
· Can you think of situations, locally
or elsewhere in the world, where the faith of Christians has seemed weak and
foolish, but looking back we can see how God was at work in that situation?
· How does our faith change our
attitude to weakness?
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