The Cross Reveals the Truth about God and about Ourselves

 

            Being that you all are in a call process… 
it might be worth mentioning that the letters to the Corinthians, 
if you read between the lines,
is the story of a kind of a call process, 
followed by a call process gone wrong. 

 

            The Corinthians desired a candidate who spoke and acted like Sophists, 
a type of traveling Philosopher in the ancient world.

            They hoped for a candidate 
who would speak with unparalleled eloquence, 
after all just as the city state of Elis was famous for their Olympic Games, 
so too Corinth was famed for their yearly Speech Contest
—as far as they were concerned, any candidate that didn’t follow the formula of Plato’s Rhetoric was spitting nonsense.

            They hoped for a candidate 
with a big ego, 
a Guru essentially
—who would be susceptible to manipulation, 
who would seek patrons to fund him and disciples to fight his battles for him, 
centering his own person and philosophy as the end all be all for the congregation.

 

            Instead, they got Paul.

            Paul, 
a ragged, zealous, driven man 
who forsook eloquence to take on the mantle of a messenger, 
who sublimated his own desires, 
so that all may know Christ crucified and raised… 
They wanted a philosopher, 
but got a man with one message
—the message of the cross…

            The Cross reveals 
the truth about God 
and the truth about ourselves.

 

Prayer

 

            The cross reveals the truth about God…

            Where is God found most fully present? 
Hung on a cross…

 

            A cross. To Paul, 
a religious Zealot before his bewildering-magnificent experience on the road to Damascus, 
the cross was proof that God did not work through this man, Jesus of Nazareth
—for it is written in Deuteronomy: “Those who die upon a cross are accursed.”

            Cursed it might seem, 
the very one who is Blessed of God.

 

            A cross. To Paul, 
a sophisticated citizen of the Roman Empire before that strange and sacred encounter with Jesus
—understood those killed on a Roman cross to be seditious, traitors, criminals…

            Seditious it might seem, 
the very one upon whose shoulders all real authority rests.

 

            Yet this cross, cursed and rebellious
—it is where God’s actions are most clearly seen.

            This place that might be seen as less than nothing, 
a place to put those who need to be disappeared, 
those who are low and despised in the world,
who society does not want to see, 
other than an example of what not to do
—this place, the cross, becomes the example of how God acts in the world.

            How God takes that which is nothing, and makes it something… 
the place that is shameful, weak, foolish
—and turns the whole world on its head, 
creating something out of nothing!

            Right!

            From the very start, this is God’s way. 
God creates from the formless void, 
from the shadowed deep
—ex nillo
—out of nothing.

            Friends, this means that All that is, seen and unseen, 
is an unparalleled gift from God!

            Gracious gift
—that’s the truth revealed about God on the cross…

 

            Revealed too, throughout scripture:

            The God we find enthroned on the cross. Is the God whose cradle is a manger. 

            The God whose Wisdom is found not when King Solomon is at the height of his power, 
but at the end of his life when he can no longer grasp it.

            The God whose prophets included among them:
Ezekiel struggling with PTSD 
and Jeremiah, so young he worries he wouldn’t be taken seriously.

            The God who spoke through stuttering Moses, 
gave a child to Sarah and Abraham in their old age, 
saved Hagar and Ishmael at the point of death in the desert...

 

            The same God who works among the Corinthians… 
the Corinthians who were the descendants of Roman Slaves and Roman Soldiers, 
left in Greece to found a colony, 
left behind when the Triumphant Ones returned to Rome.

            “Not many of you were wise, powerful, noble… but God chose you!”

            Corinthians, Paul is saying, 
you don’t need to pretend any more, 
The Cross reveals the truth about ourselves!

 

            The Church in Corinth, 
obsessed over their Spiritual Gifts, 
as if they proceeded from themselves, not from God.

            The Church in Corinth, 
managed their money as if it was their own, 
instead of a gift from God for them to steward.

            The Church in Corinth, 
abused their Baptism, making it the basis for cliques and divisions, 
instead of understanding it as a means of Grace, death and new life in Jesus Christ.

 

            But all of it
—all of it is God’s work. 
We just get to be some version of Paul, 
messengers of the cross. 
Ambassadors of the Crucified King.
Little letters to the cursed of this world 
Announcing that God is at work there, here!

            Among those who’ve been ground down—the cross.

            Among those who are heavy laden with tears and trouble—the cross.

            Among the humble disinherited—the cross.

            Among those yearning for the righting of the world—the cross.

            Among the kind and compassionate—the cross.

            Among the heart on their sleeve sincere—the cross.

            Among those who make peace—the cross.

            Among hunted, haunted, and mistreated—the cross.

            Among the cross-scorned of every age
—the blessed cross of Christ reveals the presence of God.

            And where Christ is, 
there is life, wisdom, justice, holiness, and, restoration.

            Thanks be to God. Amen.