In What Can We Take Pride?

Sermon by James W.  Crawford

February 7, 1999

I Corinthians 1:18-2:5

Paul finds his Corinthian congregation a constant nemesis.  Oh, surely the challenge of that diverse city, its location at a continental intersection, even the city's reputed moral depravity suggests good reason to assemble a congregation.  What a great place for a Christian church, he concludes.  No, the problem Paul faces with this beloved congregation lies not so much in the impact of outside influences—though these influences no doubt shape the congregation's cultural perceptions and religious vocabulary—Paul's problem lies within the congregation itself.  They do not agree with him anymore.  They are running amok.  With Paul  gone from among them a couple of smart, dynamic spiritual teachers show up and persuade the Corinthians that Paul may be OK as far as he goes, but they have devised a new Gospel, the real one, something brilliant, esoteric, the next step in spiritual sophistication.  It is smarter, wiser, more intelligent, more mystical, more religious than anything Paul can come up with.  "Paul: you're gone!" they gloat.  "We've got a spiritual life we can really be proud of."

    And if that is not enough to get Paul's dander up, class differences tend to drive wedges among the congregation.  The well-born believe they should inherit the leadership posts; the well-educated claim authority when it comes to understanding the nuances of religious tradition; the well-moneyed think because they provide the financial underpinnings for the congregation they can call the tune or take their game and go home; and of course the poor feel trampled on.  Thus, unseemly bickering, incessant power plays, justification of self interest with high moral rationale, these eruptions of individual and group pride frustrate Paul no end.  And as he seeks to resolve these bitter tensions and pretentious claims, he turns their world upside down.  "You want to be proud and brandish your spiritual badge?" he asks.  "I'll tell you what you have to be proud about.  You want to boast about something—your job, your residence, your genes, your degrees, your title? I'll tell you what you should boast about.  You want to make some sort of superior intellectual, or spiritual or experiential claim? Let me tell you what you can finally claim.  It is the Cross of Christ.   Got that?  It is the Cross of Jesus Christ.  That is your identity; that defines you; that brings everything into perspective and frees you from all the junk you would claim for yourself or your church or your spirituality." And with that he is off to the races.

I

In the first place—and most importantly—Paul insists the Cross reveals God to us.  Can you imagine that? The Cross reveals God to us.  Now over the last two millennia we have grown so accustomed to its presence we take the Cross for granted.  It is a nice, warm, fuzzy symbol.  Well, maybe so for us.  But not for the world Paul speaks to.  For Paul's world the Cross is not a charming or benign religious symbol.  The Cross is a brutal, bloody, demeaning, cursed, violent, tortuous instrument of execution.   And anyone claiming that a criminal, put to death by religious and civic powers, bears Messianic gifts and represents God—represents God—just does not understand the power the expected Messiah is supposed to bring to shape up this woebegone world, or frankly is just plain stupid.  God? On a Cross? Unimaginable! Power for good bloodied up and left for dead? No Messiah there.  A Divine presence supposedly bringing coherence into this chaotic creation, a convicted religious blasphemer and national traitor? You have to be kidding: foolish, absurd, crazy.  God on a Cross?  You must be nuts!

  But that is what Paul and our whole tradition testifies.  To know the power of God, while not stopping the likes of the Cross, yet transforms it to a sign of the love of God, is something all the smart people, the wise people, the academic people, the speculative people, the powerful people, poets, philosophers, theologians, we church people, we religious types could never in a million years dream up.  We tend to look for God elsewhere.  We create God out of some brilliant cranial abstraction.  We will start with a sunset, a mountain top, an idea, a relationship and we will extrapolate God.

Not so, says Paul.  You want to know who God is? Start at the Cross.  That is where God is, putting all your other intellectual presumptions, your spiritual pretensions, your cultural sophistication to shame.  The Cross stands against all our religious claims and claptrap.  You want to see God? Look first to the Cross of Christ.

II

And Paul continues.  Not only does beginning with the grace and power of the Cross dissolve and transcend all your presumptuous and mistaken avenues to spirituality—now, just take a look around you.  You are not so hot yourselves.  You may think God is crazy to choose the way of the Cross to reveal grace, peace and power, but brother, sister, talk about turning the world upside down! Not only does God choose a Cross to reveal himself, She chose you! Yes, you!  Miserable, faulty, messed up, just-hanging-in-there, trying-to-make-it, stumbling-along, sometimes pathetic, a lot of the time anxious, striving YOU!  Not big time, but small time you.  Not celebrity, not even l5 minutes of fame type, but pusillanimous, anonymous you.

How many CEOs, in the congregation? Paul asks.  Maybe a few, not many.  How many Daughters of the American Revolution? Sons of the Mayflower? Maybe a couple, but not many.  How many University presidents, Ph.D.s, Colonels, Union muck-a-mucks, civic office holders, prominent public bigwigs—you name it? Probably a few, but not many.

You see, Paul has his head screwed on straight.  He is not big on self esteem.  In fact, as Paul takes inventory of the folk hanging around churches , he allows for a few worldly winners, but he says that just as God chose what looks like the stupidity and shame of the Cross to show us the love of God, just as God chose the weakness and failure of the Cross to show us the power of God, just as God chose the darkness and death at the Cross to show us true light and life.  .  .  Hey! look at that weird, motley, gang at worship, that crowd chosen to mediate the healing and reconciling, transforming reality of the Gospel to a busted up and suffering world.  To do God's work of justice and peace in this world, they are as weak and in many cases as ludicrous as the Cross! That is you, he is describing!  That is me!

Did you see that wonderful group of new members we welcomed into our congregation this morning? Gorgeous, weren't they? Do you remember the Covenant we shared with them? It is all about leaning on the everlasting arms, leaning on one another, radiating the compassion and joy of the Gospel to our world together.  We did not ask for a credit rating; we did not make their joining us contingent on their income, their contributions, or an admissions fee; we did not get a bead on their titles, their office suites, their graduate degrees; we did not require them to be American citizens, or UCC or Protestant; we did not genuflect in the presence of what one might call beautiful people—though these people are beautiful people—we asked them if they would join with us in sharing in and serving the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a Gospel beginning at the foot of God's absurd Cross.   They said yes—they said yes—and with that, all the other stuff we depend upon to give us distinction, identity, self esteem, all the other rubbish we strive for so we will get something great in our obituary or we will be recognized at the corporation, or we will get some credit on the street, in the store, among the family, with our colleagues—as soon as we shared the Gospel of God's crazy (actually, the Greek word means mad) God's act of madness, as soon as we shared the Gospel of God's madness we shucked all that other sad and—believe me!—ultimately worthless stuff, freed ourselves from it, and became, if you will, disciples whose major identity (what a relief!)  now lies in the confidence and hope mediated by that ostensibly nonsensical, but in faith, truly radiant, Cross.

III

And you know, while Paul reminds his Corinthian congregation of the power lying in that absurd Cross, while he suggests his church in Corinth is in many ways equally absurd, he does not let himself off the hook.  He is absurd too.  He makes no special claims.  What he brings lies not in his rhetoric, or status; he does not pawn himself off as "The Reverend" or as Doctor, or as Senior Minister.  He does not let a stream of Boards and Committees, of Directorships, Trusteeships, seminary professorships and preaching stations serve as his credentials.   He knows nothing, he says, but Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

My soul, that I could say the same! Oh you wonderful congregation, listening to this preacher over these many years.  No doubt you have been like that preacher's son who saw his father kneeling before going to the pulpit and asked his mother, "What's daddy doing?" His mother replies, "He's asking God for assistance in preaching his sermon." "Why doesn't God help him then?" asks the boy.  Or you have no doubt been like that Lancashire churchgoer, meeting his Sunday friend some twenty minutes late, his friend wondering if the preacher even yet had finished.  "Oh, aye," says our churchman, "he finished long ago, but he just won't quit."  

I have never forgotten the story about the preacher, a gifted rhetorician, humorous, loaded with dazzling illustrations, a triumphant presence stepping into the pulpit one Sunday morning and there finding a note in the handwriting of one of his parishioners, "Sir: We would see Jesus."

Of course! Who else?

So we ask this morning: In what do we take pride?  Or as Paul asks it, of what can we boast?  Nothing! You see: Nothing! Everything gone.  We are free.  Except—except—and this is our greatest honor, our highest privilege, this wondrous source of any pride we dare boast—Christ Jesus, and him crucified.