The Foolishness of God

Rev. Mark Porizky

3/9/06  

I 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. 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 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, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand 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.

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength."

I love the story of the 10 year-old boy whose mother asked him what he learned in Sunday school.

He said, "Well, Mom, today we learned about the time when Moses was leading the people of Israel out of captivity in Egypt across the Red Sea . They got there at the Red Sea , and Moses realized the Israelites couldn't make their way over. So he asked the Israeli Corps of Engineers if they would erect a pontoon bridge over the Red Sea , and all the people of Israel walked over that pontoon bridge. But when the Egyptians got there, they had their tanks and their guns and all the their heavy artillery; and they sank in the mud. So Moses had the Israeli air force come over, and they bombed them and they wiped out all the Egyptians."  

Well, the mother was horrified. She said, "Is that what they taught you in Sunday school this morning?"  

He said, "Well, not exactly. But if I told you what our teacher told us, you'd never believe it."    

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.  

When we read these stories with our erudite, intellectual minds, sometimes our minds say, That can't be possible. It's absurd. It is foolishness.

Think of that remarkable story of David and Goliath. David was just a shepherd boy armed with five smooth stones and a slingshot, going up against the great Goliath, the Philistine giant. If this was March Madness, Goliath was a number 1 seed and David was a number 16 seed.  Not even Vegas would give odds on this fight. David didn't have a chance against Goliath. Everybody knew Goliath would mow him down quickly.

Everybody but David.  David took one of those smooth stones in his slingshot and put it right in the center of Goliath's forehead. Goliath dropped like a shot, and he was dead.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

What about that foolish story of Abraham and Sarah in their old age, whom God told they would have a child? They had wanted a child. They had prayed for a child. But then came the time in their older years when they realized they would not have the child that God, they thought, had told them they would have.

But when they were advanced in years God told them that Sarah would give birth to a child. And Abraham and Sarah, that patriarch and matriarch of the Christian faith, laughed hysterically at the promise of God. They didn't laugh when Sarah became pregnant and when Sarah gave birth to a son and God said, "Name that son Isaac." In the Hebrew language the word Isaac means "one who laughs."  

For the foolishness of God is wiser that human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger that human strength. 

The most foolish story in the Bible about the birth of God's Son .

Jesus’ birth is a crazy, ridiculous kind of story. When the Son of God would be born, wouldn't you think that he would be born in a palace? His father would be a king, and his mother would be a queen. The pillowcases would be satin; the sheets would be silk. He'd be laid in a beautiful, handsome, lace gown. He would have clean cloth diapers around him. But that's not the way it was.  

Read Luke 2 or Matthew 1. It is an amazing story that when the Son of God was born he was born not in a palace surrounded by a king and a queen; but he was born in a manger, in a stable, really in a drinking trough, that animals, cows and horses, drank and ate from. It was a filthy place surrounded by the smell of straw and chickens and horses and their sweat and their manure.  

He was not born of a king and a queen. Joseph the carpenter was probably no more than 17 years of age. Mary, the peasant girl who was Jesus' mother, probably was no more than 14 or 15. We're talking about young people who today would be a freshman or a sophomore in high school.

What is even more foolish is that the timing was all off. If the Son of God was to be born a Jew, you would expect the Jews to be in power. You would expect Hebrew or Aramaic to be the universal language. But Rome was in power. The Pax Romana was in effect. And to make matters worse, Caesar and Pompey, who were in power, made Roman roads so that if the Jews or any others tried to attempt an insurrection, they could go down those Roman roads and quell that riot. The Jews didn't have a chance.

Hardly anybody spoke Hebrew or Aramaic. Greek was the world language. The Jews, instead of being gathered together in Jerusalem for the birth of the Son of God, were dispersed all over the world, where the foolishness of God is wiser that human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

When the Romans built those roads, they didn't realize they were building pathways down which the messengers of peace would go with the good news that the Son of God would be born. And there was one universal language, not Hebrew but Greek. People could communicate with one world language. And the Jews, because they were dispersed, met in synagogues all over the world, so that when missionaries, the apostle Paul and others, went to preach the Gospel of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, there was a place for them to go.  

And Mary and Joseph (this is the crazy thing about this birth) believed the story. Mary said, "Let it be to me, according to your word." Read Matthew 1:18-25. Joseph said the same thing. The God of the universe entrusted the care of his Son to a young man and woman who weren't erudite or scholarly, but they had the one quality God looks for in a faithful . They trusted in God. They believed this foolish promise, and into their care the God of the universe entrusted his own Son.  

The foolishness of God is at work in our lives every day.  

In 1989 I began working at Miami Shores Presbyterian Church.  The first three years there were wonderful.  The last four were not bad, but trying.  A staff conflict that led to the Senior Associate resigning, followed shortly by the Senior Pastor himself.  And then Barb felt called to resign and stay home with Joshua.  A church that once had five pastors was now down to two, and budgetary problems meant that they probably were only going to hire one more. 

Thus, my job changed from youth minister to youth minister/hospital visitation minister/new member visitor/mission trip coordinator, all while doing most of the preaching.

Working way too many hours, I realized that I needed a change.  It occurred to me that I loved all the new jobs I was doing, I simply couldn’t accomplish them all on my own at a 1,000 member church.

I needed a church more in the 200 member range. 

Just about the time you were looking for a solo pastor.

What is so interesting is, as I look back on it, the very issues I dealt with at Miami Shores Presbyterian Church were the very issues I needed to learn in order in order to become your pastor. So when Saint Andrew extended a call to a 32 year-old youth minister, there were probably a few who thought the move was foolish.  Maybe some still do!

But it was finally the right time in our lives to say yes, and I believe it was the right time for Saint Andrew to say yes.

Have you ever seen the foolishness of God in your own life? Have you ever seen something happen and you said, "God couldn't possibly be in that. There is no way God is in that. In fact, that act even seemed evil"?

But you later find out God is working. God doesn't cause everything to happen that happens. Make no mistake about that. But God can use everything that happens for God's own good.

For the foolishness of God is wiser that human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger that human strength.

A minister colleague of mine, Dr. Tad Stewart, took a church in Teheran , Iran . He was married, with a wonderful family. They were on the streets of Teheran , Iran , during revolution and revolt. The government under the Ayatollah closed his Presbyterian Church. It was a small, struggling Presbyterian Church. Hardly had any members. Very few showed up for worship. But the government came in and burned all the Bibles and Sunday school curriculum, and took the church newsletters, ripped them up, and put them in the garbage. Then they took a big padlock and locked the door of the church. They wiped their hands and said, "Aha! We have closed Christianity in Iran ."

Tad Stewart and his wife opened their small home, and on Sunday mornings people would go through the underground network. Nobody dared to say where they were going, but they came along the streets early in the morning while it was still dark and they came to the home for breakfast and for worship. Church attendance grew until it doubled, and then it tripled. People had no Bibles, only what they had at home. And they smuggled them. You would have thought they were pure gold.

When Tad returned to the states he said that when he opened the Bible and read it, because it had been taken from the people, they finally realized what a treasure was theirs. He said, "When I read from it, you could have heard a pin drop." He said it was as if this was the very Word of God. He said for the first time in people's lives they began to take it seriously.

Suddenly electricity and faith broke out in that church, and soon that church grew and made an impact all over the city of Teheran , all over the nation of Iran , and even over that part of the Middle East .

It's amazing what came out of locking the church, burning the Bibles, burning the Sunday school curriculum. "How could anything good come out of that?" the skeptic asks.

Ah, but the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God, I tell you, is stronger than human strength.  

Sometimes when people face a dead end, sometimes when people face adversity, sometimes when people face something they can't conquer, it is the first time in their lives they really yield to God. Sometimes it's only when they're out of work that they finally turn to God. Sometimes it's only when there's a death of a loved one or a divorce that they finally yield and trust in God. Sometimes it's only when they face alcoholism that they turn to God.  

Rev. Tom Tewell of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church tells an amazingly foolish story.  This is what he says:

“One Christmas Eve I had an experience I will always remember. It was a half hour before the 11:00 p.m. Christmas Eve worship service. The choir was starting to sing in the sanctuary. The brass and the strings were getting ready. The sanctuary was getting packed with people. Out in the hall, an associate pastor and I were getting a drink of water. As we were walking down the hall, almost ready to come into worship, one of our members came down the hall, sobbing. I knew he had battled with alcoholism and was proud of him for going to Alcoholics Anonymous, for facing the problem and getting help. But there he was sobbing in our arms Christmas Eve night.  

I asked him what the problem was. He said, "You know, Tom, I've been through a divorce, and my wife has custody of our two girls. But now I just got word that my wife is not going to let me see the girls over Christmas vacation, and she promised. The court mandated that she should. But now to see the girls I've got to go back to court. I don't have the money for that. I'm facing bankruptcy. My whole life is broken."  

He said, "I came to this service tonight to be comforted, and of all things, I went into the pew, and there, several pews over, was a mom and a dad and two daughters. I just lost it. That could have been my family. But because of my alcoholism, because my wife and I couldn't get along, instead of that kind of family I've got this kind of family. I'm nothing. I'm not staying. I'm going to a bar and drink. I've had three months of sobriety. But, Tom, I just can't do it anymore."  

I knew he needed an aa meeting. He gave the phone number of his sponsor, but the sponsor was away for the holiday.  So at quarter of eleven before the eleven o'clock service an idea hit me. I remembered that alcoholics are the most loyal people in the world and when you've been to aa and been helped, you want to help others. I remembered that the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous was a man named Bill Wilson.

So I went out before worship and stood in the aisle and welcomed everybody and asked them to greet each other and told them a little bit about the service and the joy of the Christmas season. Then I said, ‘I've got one more announcement to make. If you don't understand it, it's okay. But if you do, I really need your help. If there's anyone here tonight who is a friend of Bill Wilson, would you come to my study? It's right out that door. We need help tonight. Any friends of Bill, I just need to see you for five minutes.’

One by one they got up from the balcony and from all over, they walked in many circuitous routes, but they all ended up in my study, dozens of them. And at eleven o'clock Christmas Eve, as I was going into the service, all of those folks had an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. They prayed for my friend. He maintained his sobriety.

A phenomenal thing happened to that group of people. They grew in their faith in Christ because they believed God had led every one of them to that place on that night at that time. One of them took him home for Christmas dinner, and he stayed over there for a couple of days. That group became galvanized into a group that helped changed our church for God and Christ.”

Someone said to me, "How did you happen to think of asking the friends of Bill Wilson to come at 10:45 to your office? How did you think of that? I said, "I don't know. Let's just call it the foolishness of God."

Keep your eyes open, my friends.   And maybe you'll see the foolishness of God in your lives this month. For I tell you the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Believe it. Claim it. Bet your life on it. That is the Word of God.

Will you pray with me now?

St. Andrew Presbyterian Church, Groton , CT

Web Site: SAPC-CT.HOME.ATT.NET

Office Email: SAPC-CT@ATT.NET

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