Wise Foolishness

​When we live in such foolishness, death actually loses its sting. Fear loses its grip. And God’s love rises up victorious.

These last few weeks, we have been walking in the long light of Easter. We have been looking at the cross not as an ending, but as the surprising beginning of everything.

In this great story, we get the divine imperative – Go, and share the Easter story!

But like Mary, Mary, and Salome discover, that’s not such an easy thing to do. A man dead three days... walks out of a grave?

It sounds a little… foolish. And foolish doesn’t sit well in a world obsessed with being right, being strong, being in control.

​In his letter to the Corinthians—Paul confronts a community puffed up with their own wisdom and need to be right. He shares this which I’m sure didn’t make a lot of sense to them either.

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. 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 scholar? 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 the proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews ask for 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.                                                                   (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)

 Before we get into this, I want to share a true story about a guy named Carl who thought he was clever and wise. Thought he could pull a fast one, dating two women at the same time. 
 
He even created a foolproof system, so they’d never find out. Go to the same restaurant and order the same thing. See the same movie. Buy same concessions. He even bought the same cards and scribble the same sappy words into them so he wouldn’t slip up.
 
Clever, right? Until it wasn’t.
 
Because one of the women was actually wise. She eventually caught on. When she found the other woman, she didn’t get mad. She got clever. Together, the two hatched a  plan to catch Carl red handed.

They meet him at the airport as he returned home from a business trip. Each one holding up a sign that said, I love you, Carl. 
 
Right there, in terminal B, Gate 4, all of his wisdom was exposed for what it really was. Foolishness.
 
Turns out, sometimes what looks wise can collapse under its own weight. But sometimes what feels foolish, can end up saving lives.

Take vaccines as an example. Who would have thought it wise to inject themselves with a little bit of the very disease they’re trying to prevent catching? It sounds crazy but it works. It saves lives.
 
Paul reminds us that it’s the same with the Cross of Christ. Who would have thought an instrument of death would be the very thing that saves you. But that’s the wisdom of God, whose “foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and whose weakness is stronger than human strength.”
 
Only God could strip the cross of all its power. Only God could take Rome’s most brutal symbol of death and transform into the world’s greatest sign of hope. It sounds foolish to some, but to us being saved by it, it’s the power of God at work in our lives.
 
We might be scratching our heads wondering where Paul came from with such logic. He got it from Jesus who turns the world upside down in the most right-side-up way possible.
 
He said things like, “Whoever wants to save their life must lose it.”
 
“The first will be last, and the last will be first.”
 
“The greatest among you must be a servant.”
 
Jesus never said, “Win at all costs.” Or “Get revenge.” He flips that script and says, “Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.”
 
That was pure foolishness to those in power. But to everyone suffering under poverty and oppression… the things Jesus said brought them hope.
 
In fact, Jesus’ own life was, and still is, a holy paradox. A king born into poverty. A savior who doesn’t slay enemies but forgives them. A God who doesn’t demand sacrifice but becomes the sacrifice. This doesn’t make sense to the Romans, or to the religious leaders, or to the crowd shouting “crucify him.”
 
It doesn’t always make sense to us, either. The cross still looks like weakness in a world obsessed with power. But to us who are being saved by it? It’s the very wisdom of God.

And the way I see it…this wise foolishness is our proof of just how far God is willing to go to rescue, redeem, and love us. This love, God’s love, is stronger than death, wiser than empires, deeper than our logic.
 
So, Paul tells us not to boast in our intelligence, brilliance, or strength. Instead, boast in the Lord. Boast in the cross. Boast in this beautiful, upside-down love that chooses mercy over might, forgiveness over revenge, and community over division.
 
Love is the foolishness of God. Love the wisdom of the cross. And with this cruciform Love we can build a community of hope together in a world drowning in despair.
 
Paul calls us to see the world according to God’s logic. Where our weakness is God’s strength. Where our confusion is God’s wisdom. Where in Anamesa, God’s love isn’t a joke…but the very heartbeat of all we are. And what we are called to proclaim.
 
In God’s love, we build this community not with brilliance or bravado, but with foolish things. Kindness when someone is cruel. Forgiveness when it’s easier to stay mad. Showing up when we want to turn away.

​When we live in such foolishness, death actually loses its sting. Fear loses its grip. And God’s love rises up victorious.
 
It shouldn’t surprise any of us then to know that the foolishness of love is the cross Jesus calls us to pick up. It’s how we are to follow him - loving God, loving others, and serving both. This is Christ crucified. The very good news we’re sent to proclaim. But how do we share this news if we don’t quite have the words formed?
 
Let me share another true story that happened back in 2006, in Pennsylvania when an angry young man walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse and executed five schoolgirls and wounded seven others before turning the gun on himself.
 
Instead of responding to his violence and anger with more of the same, the grieving community chose to show the world the wise foolishness of cruciform love. 

While the blood of their children was still wet on the floor, members of that Amish community walked to the shooter’s home, holding their own grief in one hand and grace in the other.
 
They went there not to retaliate, but to forgive and embrace his family who were also in shock, and suffering loss. And if that wasn’t enough, the entire community showed up at this man’s funeral. They even took up a collection to support his widow and children.
 
Foolish, the world said. But to us being saved, it looked an awful lot like Jesus. Because what seems foolish, God makes wise. What seems weak, God makes strong. Through suffering and pain, God’s hope and glory is revealed and proclaimed.
 
As we leave here today, may we all be wise enough to do such foolishness, in the name of the One who walked out of a tomb and into our lives, still bearing the wounds of love. And may we carry that love into every space we enter, and every soul we encounter.
 
It might sound foolish to some. But to us who are being saved it’s the power of God’s love that comes alive, made manifest in us. With it, we have hope.

As Paul will write later in this letter, “Faith, hope, and love abide; these three. And the greatest of these is love.”