The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on January 29, 1984. The title is, The Foolishness of God, and the scripture reference is 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 18 through 31. 

A reading from the first chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, beginning with the 18th verse. 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. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart.

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? 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, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom.

But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles. But to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your call, brethren. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful.

Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written, let him who boasts boast of the Lord.

The word of the Lord. You might care to look with me again at that passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 1. It touches on a theme that runs all the way through Scripture, and if you really take it seriously, it's pretty devastating.

I'd like to just share a couple of Scriptures randomly that speak to the same issue and set the context for this particular word. The book of Proverbs says, there is a way that seems right to a man. but the end is the way of death.

Think about that. It doesn't say that the man is doing something deliberately wrong. It doesn't say that he's going against what he knows to be right.

It says he's doing what he thinks is right. There is a way that seems right to a man and he's choosing that, he's following that but the end of that way is death. In Isaiah 55 we read, My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor my ways your ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Once again, a man is pursuing the best of his thinking. He's choosing the way that seems right to him, and God says, you've missed it.

My thoughts are higher than that. My ways are higher than that. You've done the best you could, but you missed it.

David acknowledged that in the 139th Psalm when he says, Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, and I cannot attain it. Many other scriptures would speak to the same thing, and Paul says in the passage we heard a moment ago, the foolishness of God is wiser than men.

When we hear the word of God on a given subject, it strikes us as foolishness. That's how far away it is from our thinking, and yet it's wiser. It confounds the wisdom of men.

God has ordered that His folly would confound the best of our wisdom. A theme runs all the way through the Scriptures, from one end to the other, and it adds up to this devastating conclusion that my very best analysis of a given situation, my considered judgment, my mature reflection, is probably dead wrong. As a matter of fact, that apart from God informing my thoughts on that subject, whatever it might be, apart from God informing my thinking, it's almost certainly wrong.

And you need to understand that that doesn't apply just to the unbelievers out there, just to the pagans. It applies equally well to those of us who have known and loved the Lord Jesus and tried to follow Him for years. The book of 1 Corinthians is not written to unbelievers.

It's written to Christians who in some ways, in many ways, are among the most spiritual Christians in the whole New Testament era. Look at verse 5. Well, let me back up and start with verse 4.

He says, I give thanks to God always for you because of the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus that in every way you were enriched in Him with all speech and all knowledge even as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift. These are spiritual people. and yet over and over and over and over the Corinthians are wrong and that's why the book is written point after point after point they're wrong because they're relying on their own best wisdom rather than allowing the spirit of God to invade their thinking my gut reactions to a problem my most careful thinking about it will miss the mark apart from my consciously setting aside my own opinion on the matter and asking God to speak to me.

I've just spent the last two days at our diocesan council, which is still going on and finishing up its business this morning. And I would just say that if you want to see an example of how this works, how spiritual people can think in worldly ways, just go to one of our diocesan councils. Or any diocesan council of any diocese or any church gathering.

Because almost without exception, almost without exception, they work exactly as any board meeting of any secular corporation works. You bring up an issue and you begin to discuss it, and the discussion turns into a debate, and the debate begins to get heated. People get very excited.

Sometimes they get angry. They take entrenched positions, and then finally somebody calls the question, and we vote, and the majority wins. Whether we're talking about petitioning for a nuclear freeze, or whether we're talking about electing a new bishop, or whether we're talking about setting the budget for 1984, we operate on the assumption that the majority will inevitably be right.

That's really scary in the light of those passages, isn't it? There is a way that seems right, and the end thereof is death. I think what we ought to do is figure out what the most popular opinion is and flee from it.

You see, we're dealing with a God who so often says things to us that are exactly the opposite of what we would have come up with ourselves. He says, if your enemy strikes you on the cheek, turn to him the other cheek. That's absurd.

We ought to destroy the bully. I remember Nikita Khrushchev speaking in the UN, and he had the audacity to say, I consider myself in many ways to be rather like Jesus Christ, except that where he said turn the other cheek, I'd say blow the guy's head off. And most people would agree with Khrushchev, wouldn't they?

Stop the bully. That's absurd. Turn the other cheek.

He says if somebody forces you to carry his luggage a mile, which is what they could do. A Roman soldier could compel any subject of Rome, in particular the Jewish riffraff. He could compel them to carry his luggage one mile.

And Jesus says if somebody compels you to carry his luggage one mile, carry it two. That's crazy. I didn't want to carry it one.

if he demands your overcoat give him your suit coat as well now he'll have two and you'll have none crazy foolishness and then as George read to us he says happy are those who mourn happy are those who are persecuted and on and on and on of course anybody who has tried to put one of those strange words into practice has discovered that there is a reason there it's just that we would never in our wildest imaginings have come up with that wisdom turn the other cheek and just maybe you'll convince your enemy that he doesn't need to be your enemy there's not going to be a fight and therefore he doesn't have to fight maybe walk the second mile and you'll take away the oppression because no longer is He compelling you, you're freely choosing it. Now it's a matter of giving a gift and there's no harassment there. And if you learn how to be happy in the midst of persecution, that just might stop the persecutor.

And even if it doesn't, you will have discovered a way to rise above it. There is a wisdom in every single one of those. It's just that I would never have dreamed it up Would you?

It's the exact opposite of what I would have thought. And you see, Paul has something much more specific than that in mind when he's talking about the foolishness of God. That is of a pattern, but the foolishness that he's speaking of is the foolishness of the cross, the foolishness of the gospel, that we have the audacity to make the statement that the most mighty act in all of history was the snuffing out of the life of a Jewish carpenter.

Absurd. And yet everything hinges upon that. And that's the kind of a God we're dealing with.

A God who seems to us in our best wisdom a God of foolishness. Now the point that I want to make this morning is this. That if we're dealing with a God whose generalizations strike us as being that wild, that off the wall?

Do you really think that your puny little mind or mine will be able to figure out his specifics? If his generalizations seem that strange, do you really think we're going to figure out his specifics? What am I personally to do in this particular situation?

how do I know how do I make my decision what I'm supposed to do about this by thinking about it by figuring it out by analyzing it that's not what those scriptures say to me I submit to you that the only way I'm going to know what I'm supposed to do in any given situation is by asking God and believing God and expecting God and allowing God to speak to me in a very personal way. Obviously, that begins with the Scriptures, but I mean even beyond that. To speak to me where I am today about what I'm to do today.

Do you follow what I'm saying? I was commenting three weeks ago on the absolute necessity of setting time aside on a daily basis to be alone with God, to read His Word and meditate on it and to pray and seek His face and to talk to Him. And that's good.

But there's another side to it. It's not just talking to Him. It's listening to Him.

And how little we know about that. Rosalind Rinker wrote a book several years ago called Prayer, Conversation with God. It's a two-way street.

But most of the time God can't get a word in edgewise. because I'm so busy asking Him to bless my plans that I never inquire whether He has any. Do you?

Have you ever stopped to listen? Just to listen. I remember the first time I was ever challenged to do that.

It was a brand new thought. I had never thought that thought before. I was off with a group of collegians in Michigan.

And the speaker said, I want everybody to go out after this meeting. It's a beautiful summer night. And he said, just go off and be alone with God.

And don't talk to Him. Just listen. Never done that before.

Ask God, is there something that you'd like to say to me? I'm interested in what you're interested in. Do you have a word for me?

Do you think that God has an opinion on how you should spend your money? I'm not talking about the generalization that you ought to be tithing. I'm talking about the other 90%.

Do you think that God has an opinion on that? On how you should spend your time, or what your job should be, or where you should live, or who your friends should be, or any other of the multitude of details of your life? Does God have an opinion on that?

Of course He does. And He loves you and He cares for you and He wants you to be in the very center of His will. And how are you going to do that?

Unless you ask Him. That's what Lordship means. Lordship means that I relinquish the right to make independent decisions.

I'm under new management. There's a new authority in my life. Jesus is boss.

And what I'm interested in is what He's interested in. Paul says, Consider your call, my brothers and sisters. Consider your call.

God did not choose you because you were so bright or so powerful or because you were of noble birth A few of you might be, but God chose the vast majority of us because we're just about needy enough that he might be able to do something spectacular in our lives if we'd let him. I don't know if you ever thought about this, but the person who has everything going for him, who is bright and is powerful and is of noble birth and knows how to move and make decisions and is full of self-confidence and can do anything that he wants to do, that person probably has very little area in his life where God can do anything. I remember my former boss, John Guest, used to say, just once I'd love to find somebody who had nothing going for him.

And then he'd usually look over at me very wistfully. Because the person who has nothing going for him or at least who doesn't rely on whatever little he does have going for him is the person in whom God can do spectacular things. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the impoverished in spirit who don't rely on any of their natural gifts and their natural talents.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2, I determined when I came among you to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. One of the mightiest intellects and best educated men in all of history. I determined not to rely on any of that.

I didn't come with eloquent speech. But in weakness, as you move toward the end of the book, he said, I glory in my weakness. Whatever I consider to be a strength, I put it aside.

I glory in my weakness because when I'm weak, then I'm strong. When I'm weak, then Jesus Christ can be strong in me. This particular passage ends with the statement that Jesus Christ himself is our wisdom.

He himself, Jesus, is my wisdom. Now that is not a fact carved in granite somewhere. That is not a formula to be memorized.

That's not a bunch of rules. It's a living person, a living Lord with whom I have a living relationship. Who loves me and who wants to enter into the details of my life.

He is my wisdom. But only if I let him be. So I invite you to consider your call, my brothers and sisters.

And let him who boasts boast of the Lord. Let's bow our heads together. Father God, in the name of this Lord Jesus Christ, who is our wisdom, we would ask you to apply this word to each of our lives very personally and very specifically.

Lord, there are probably as many different situations with which we're wrestling this morning as there are people here gathered. And we dare to believe that you have a word for each one of those situations. Therefore we ask you to give us ears to hear.

And hearts eager to obey. Speak to us out of your grace and your love and your mercy. And we would follow you.

For Jesus' sake. Amen.