Read: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” – 1 Corinthians 1:25

The imagined God of my childhood was strong and wise beyond comprehension. Learning the descriptors omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent helped place God in a far-off place removed from my everyday life. This God, somewhat like Santa Claus, knew when I was bad or good. So, mostly, I tried to be good.

Thankfully, I soon encountered believers in a personal God who loved me so much that God sent God’s Son to die for my sins.

“Foolishness” is a polite translation of the Greek word that Paul used in his letter to the church in Corinth. The translation of the Greek word “fool” to English is “moron.” God made what seems to many as a “moronic” choice to use the cross as a means of our salvation.

Not only did God eschew the rich and wise to carry God’s message but chose a poor Jewish peasant who ate with sinners and prostitutes, healed the sick and lame, and preached by the sea and on the mountain. Could anything be further from the established ways of the world where power and wealth guarantee success?

Like the church in Corinth, there is disunity in Christianity today. Christian Nationalism, differences over the “worth” of women, immigrants, the poor, and the homeless divide us. God calls us, through Jesus Christ, to focus on God’s wisdom and strength, not our own.

Dear God, help us to recognize our limitations and weaknesses and rely on You and Your wisdom, strength, and guidance. Amen.
-Cathey Frederick

Read: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

“[T]he cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” – 1 Corinthians 1:18

I am surrounded by crosses. There’s a pyrographic cross I burned a few years ago that hangs above my retirement clock (so-called because it tells me what day of the week it is). I have several Cursillo crosses beside me, as well as some I crafted using wood from cottonwood branches that fell at a church I served in Montana – that broke when the wind blew – they remind me of our fallen nature. “Take up your cross,” says Jesus. Beside the office door is yet another cross I inherited from my parents’ estate when they passed away a few years ago. It hung in their living room for decades.

Crosses are iconic images for us who are alive in Christ. They are so commonplace we seldom give them any thought, but most of us can share stories behind every cross we own. For many people around us, friends, neighbors, celebrities, and athletes, the cross is simply jewelry; for Christians, though, it is a sign – perhaps the supreme sign – of our faith.

If Jesus had been gunned down, perhaps the symbol of our faith would be little gold AK-47s or AR-15s or a silver Saturday night special. Wouldn’t that be shocking? Wouldn’t that be horrible? Perhaps, if we understand that every man, woman, and child who is killed by firearms is as much a victim today as Jesus was in his day, we might carry these symbols as reminders that we kill Jesus and continue to kill him in so many ways with our own thoughts, words, and deeds.

The world sees violence as inevitable, and the use of violence as justifiable. We, as Christians, know better, or at least we ought to know better. It’s not enough to just hang our crosses, wear them, or carry them. The cross is scandalous and foolish. We wear them and display them as a reminder that there IS another way. We don’t carry on as victims; like Jesus, we carry on with a purpose: to bring life to all who hurt, and light to those who dwell in darkness.

Dear God, help me to be hope for others. Help me to help others discover that even when things are toughest, darkest, and scariest, You are there for them because I am there for them. Help me carry your cross, which I laughingly call “my” cross, in a way that brings life to others. Amen.
– Fr. Keith Axberg

Read: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

“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, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” – 1 Corinthians 1:20b-21

Something to remember when reading Paul’s letters to churches is that each letter has a specific context and addresses specific problems. In the case of this particular letter, he addresses the conflict between the church and the surrounding community.

Are we all on the same page now? Good!

Corinth was a Greek church, so converts would have approached their faith from the perspective of acquiring wisdom. Paul is warning them that trying to reconcile the faith with the wisdom of the world is going to be problematic. The sayings of Jesus are countercultural in many ways, and we have that issue even today as we live in a capitalist society where the focus is on acquiring “stuff” and money.

Paul’s words here give me hope because he mentions that the teachings of Christ seem like folly to the world and that God has effectively changed the rules of engagement. Instead of having a God we worship in the form of a statue or an oracle, we have a God who deigned to come down and be with us. How amazing is that!

Help us to understand your teachings that seem like folly and grant us wisdom for the things we face in our daily lives. Amen.
-Jen McCabe

Read: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

“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.” – 1 Corinthians 1:18

I love the song that goes: “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ Blood and Righteousness…”

The power of God manifested through Christ by His death on the cross and His resurrection, is the center of our faith and hope, but to the world, it is utter nonsense.

What could there be that gives us more hope than the cross of Jesus Christ? When Jesus died He said, “It is finished!” Our reconciliation with God was completed in and through Christ. God’s ways are not the ways of man. God is not known or understood by reason as man knows it. A virgin birth? A resurrection? Of what use to the world was that? The Jews wanted a powerful warrior king to defeat the Romans, and the Greeks were fixated on wisdom. In their minds, Jesus fulfilled nothing. He was a failure. Today, mankind is no closer to seeing God’s plan. Too many of us seem determined to have it our way or no way. But God had/has a better plan: His Son Jesus Christ who came to bring us hope and eternal life. With our hope set firmly in Christ, we can move day by day in the confidence that Christ has our back. We live each day in the assurance that is grounded in the finished redemptive work of Jesus Christ.

O Lord, we give you thanks for your plan of salvation. Let us not forget the sacrifice made on our behalf. Help us this day and every day to give you thanks for the hope you shine into our lives and let us look for opportunities to share that hope with others who see it as foolishness. Amen.
-Susan Sanderson

Read: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” – 1 Corinthians 1:18

When I saw that this passage was one of the epistles for Lent this year, I had to laugh because I knew what I would write about when my turn came up: my dad’s reaction to my conversion to Christianity.

My dad is not religious, and he pokes a lot of fun at the hypocrisy of a lot of religious people. I grew up seeing televangelists as the example of what Christianity was, and it took a lot of really positive contact with Christian people to change my heart and my attitude toward the faith. When I decided to become a Christian, I was a bit afraid of telling my dad. He and my mom were supportive of my decision for the most part, but there was definitely some shock under the surface on his part, and I have taken more than a little bit of teasing about the decision I made. To his credit, he has tried to learn more about what I believe, but it still shocks him that his scientifically-trained daughter, who went to a hippie college, could embrace a belief system that seemingly eschews science and has some less-than-positive people as its public voice.

One of the things that I cannot make him or anyone else understand is the power of the Cross in my life, and why something so anti-scientific is so compelling to me. Blaise Pascal put it best when he said that “there is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by God the Creator, made know through Jesus Christ.” The word “vacuum” gets rendered as “hole” in a lot of translations of that quote, and it really did feel like I had a God-shaped hole inside of me as I fought depression as a teenager and tried to make sense of my life. The almost 30 years since my conversion have not been easy ones, but I have survived because of the power of God and the love shown in Christ’s death on the Cross. That love changes my life daily, and I cannot imagine my life any other way. It is my hope to carry on.

Thank you, God, that you chose to reveal Yourself to me and love me enough to send your Son to die on the Cross. Amen.
-Jen McCabe

Read: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” – 1 Corinthians 1:25

In the course of my more than 70 years of dwelling in this veil of tears, I’m more convinced than ever of the foolishness of human wisdom. It saddens me that among the powerful and elite, the projection of strength has become the coin of the realm. I’d rather be a holy fool.

Lord, let me not be beguiled by worldly wisdom but prefer instead the “weakness” of God. Amen.
-Michael Boss