Wisdom Through Foolishness

Wisdom Through Foolishness
I Corinthians 3:10-23

     When you heard the Scripture readings for today, did you think that maybe you were hearing something wrong?  If you came here today with simply worldly thoughts in your head, you probably wondered what those Scripture readings were trying to say.  Most of it sounds like it is just the opposite of what you would normally think.  The first reading from Leviticus presents God’s will for His people as they live out their lives in service to Him and to their neighbors.  The Gospel lesson presents us with a portion of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount where He talks about a couple of unwritten rules to live by that were common in His day as they related to interacting with other people.  In both cases, I’m sure what was presented raised some eyebrows when the people first heard it.  In both cases, God was speaking about fighting against the urges of our sinful human nature.  Imagine for a moment that you didn’t know much about God’s will and you heard what Moses had to say to the people.  For example, when you go into your vineyard to harvest your grapes, don’t take them all.  If some fall to the ground, leave them there.  Leave them for the poor and someone who happens to pass by on a journey.  What?  Did I hear that right?  I’m not supposed to harvest all my grapes?  That’s going to cut into my harvest.  It’s going to hurt my profit.  That sounds foolish.

     Another example:  You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people.  What?  Did I hear that right?  I’m not supposed to get even when someone does something to hurt me?  If I let him get away with it this time, he’s going to come right back and do it to me again.  That sounds foolish.

     Then you hear the Gospel lesson and it sounds like more of the same foolishness.  “If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”  What?  Did I hear that right?  Let him hit me again?  That sounds foolish.  Love your enemies?  More foolishness!  What does God expect of me?  Am I supposed to be perfect?    

     If you listened all the way to the end to both of the readings, the conclusion in the Old Testament lesson was, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  The conclusion in the Gospel lesson was, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”  That pretty well answers the question.  That too may sound like foolishness because you know that you can’t be perfect.  Where is all this foolish talk leading us?  The Apostle Paul in our Epistle lesson has the answer for us and as we think about that for a few moments today, may we grow in our understanding of the true Christian life and may we be strengthened by the Holy Spirit to be able to live according to God’s will. 

     It’s helpful to know that Paul’s letter to the Corinthians was addressing some problems that the Corinthian Christians were facing.  He is writing to them to help them to understand God’s will, especially when it came to figuring out the difference between a life lived by the Spirit and a life that follows the desires of human nature.  Prior to coming to faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, many of the early Christian converts were pagans who followed other gods and lived according the unwritten laws that result from only living to satisfy their own desires.  The more that we study the will of God as He has made it known to us in His Word, the more we find that it is just the opposite of the ways of the world.  That can create some real inner conflicts as we try to do God’s will but at the same time feel compelled to follow our selfish human nature.  That should sound familiar because we all face that dilemma each day of our lives.  In many ways, we are not that much different from the early Christians who were struggling to do God’s will when their old self was still there trying to confuse things.  Cartoonists have captured this conflict when they show a character struggling with this kind of moral battle.  On one shoulder is a little angel that tells him to do the right thing and on the other shoulder is a little devil that tells him to do just the opposite.  You might find that funny but in reality, that is going on inside of you all the time.

     To help us understand all of this conflict a bit better, Paul talks first about building our faith on a solid foundation.  The solid foundation is the only one that will stand on the last day when you will be called to account.  The foundation that Jesus has laid is quite different from a foundation that is based solely on human wisdom.  The foundation that is laid in Christ rests on the most important teaching in the Christian faith.  That most important teaching is that we are justified by grace for Christ’s sake through faith.  In other words, I am  declared righteous by God by His grace, His undeserved love because of what Jesus Christ has done for me, namely that He lived a perfect life in my place and the died on the cross as the punishment for my sins.  The blessings of His suffering, death and resurrection become mine by faith, itself a gift from God, worked in me through the Holy Spirit, so that I believe and trust that Jesus Christ alone is my Savior.  That is a solid foundation, the only foundation that will stand in the final judgment.  All other foundations will crumble.  Human wisdom would rather build on a foundation that depends on my good works as a way of earning my place in heaven.  In that case, I am the one who is responsible for my salvation.  It makes sense to human thinking because that is the way everything else in the world works.  I do the right thing and I get rewarded.  Why not apply that to my place before God?   Depending on someone else sounds like foolishness.

     That is where Paul steps in with the wisdom that comes from God.  In verse 18, we hear the difference between the wisdom of the world and the wisdom of God.  Worldly wisdom is a deception.  “Let no one deceive himself.  If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is folly with God.”  The warning is clear.  If you think that you have it all figured out with your human wisdom, you are really a fool.  Human wisdom looks to human achievement as the way to heaven.  In reality, it will only fall short because as Jesus said, “You must be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”  Even human wisdom would have to admit that no one is perfect.  Therefore you have fallen short of God’s expectations.  You are lost.  Your human wisdom becomes folly with God. 

     What is needed is that you have to look to what you thought was foolishness to really find true wisdom.  It means believing the foolish notion that someone else would be responsible for your eternal salvation and that someone else is Jesus.  You can’t earn that place in heaven.  It is yours because God declares you righteous.  He justifies you not because you tried hard but simply out of his undeserved love for you.  He declares you righteous because the requirements for you have been satisfied by Jesus.  He then gives you the faith to believe that through the Means of Grace, the Word and the Sacraments.  It may sound foolish to your human mind but it is the wisdom of God.  You find true wisdom through what you thought was foolishness.

     At this point it might dawn on you that there are an awful lot of people in this world who still live according to human wisdom.  They might even consider themselves religious people.  They may even try to do good things in the hope that through their good deeds they are will score enough points on God’s scorecard.  God would consider their thinking folly.  They haven’t yet heard the real wisdom that comes from above that brings true joy and peace with God.  That’s where you come in.  You know the wisdom that the world considers foolish.  You know the flaws in a foundation that is laid with human wisdom and you, in love, can help them to build on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ.  Then you can come to see the place of good works in the life of a believer.  Then you can help them see how a believer responds to the blessings that we have through faith.  Then you can show them the true wisdom that rests in Christ alone.   Amen.

 

Rev. Gerald Matzke
Zion Lutheran Church
Painesville, Ohio
The 7th Sunday after Epiphany

 

Help In Time of Temptation

Help in Time of Temptation                                        
Hebrews 2:14-18

     One of the things that makes Christmas and Epiphany a special time for many people is that we get to see Jesus as a little child.  From the manger in Bethlehem we see Jesus as an infant.  One of the comments that we often hear after the Boar’s Head Festival presentations is how cute the baby Jesus was.  It seems year after year, the opportunity to have a new born baby portraying Jesus just brings a special touch to the whole production.  It is a reminder to us that Jesus, who was true God from all eternity, came down to earth and took on human form in order to be our substitute.  This is something that we talk about all the time but it is really brought home to us when we are able to remember that He was a tiny infant, just like we all were at one time.  That idea continues to be presented as we see Him at other times during the Epiphany season.  This week we hear about an event that took place forty days after Jesus was born.  It was required in the law that the first male child was to be dedicated to the Lord.  In the Gospel lesson we heard how Simeon and Anna responded to the presence of the One who was promised by God.  Simeon had been told by the Holy Spirit that he would see the promised One before he died.  His song of praise continues to be part of our Communion liturgy yet today.  Anna was overjoyed and told everyone about the child.  As the infant Jesus is presented at the temple, we see another aspect of His life being shown forth.  His life is dedicated to serving His heavenly Father’s will.  Simeon spoke of that when he told Mary, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for sign that is opposed and a sword will pierce through your own soul also so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”  This was a bit of prophecy regarding the things that would happen later on in the life of this child. Once again, we are given a glimpse of why Jesus came into the world.  The rest of the Gospels make clear to us how Jesus would be our Savior and what things would happen that would bring about the great reconciliation between God and man.  The writer to the Hebrews, in our Epistle lesson, goes into greater detail about how the life of Jesus, true God and true Man, touches our lives yet today. 

     As you grow in your faith and learn more and more about Jesus, one of the things that begins to stand out is how important it was for Jesus to be not only true God but also to be a human being.  His whole purpose in coming to the earth was to be our substitute, to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.  In verse fourteen of our text, the writer says that He shared in their humanity.  That means that He took on our human form so that He could experience life in this world as we experience it.  That meant that as the son of Mary, from the tribe of Judah, from the house and lineage of David, He would be subject to God’s Law, just like we are subject to God’s Law.  The writer goes on to speak of His death.  In order to die, He had to be a human being.  He also carried out His office as a merciful and faithful high priest.  The priests in the Bible were expected to live a life that would be an example for the people.  Jesus was more than just a good example.  He lived a perfect life.  The priest also prayed for the people.  Jesus did that as well and continues to do that for us today.  Perhaps most important and the most visible part of the priest’s life was carrying out the sacrifices for the people.  Those sacrifices would make atonement or satisfaction for their sins.  What makes Jesus’ role as our priest so important is that He, Himself, was not only the priest but He was also the sacrifice for the sins of the people.  When He died on the cross, He was the one, final sacrifice. 

     He was also true God.  He never stopped being God when He came down to earth.  The only reason that He could keep the Law perfectly in our place is that He was true God who had power over sin.  He also had to be true God so that His sacrifice would be the sufficient price for the sins of the whole world.  Because He was true God and true Man, we have a Savior who was not only promised by God, but also the One who fulfilled all the promises through His life, death, and  resurrection. 

     It would be easy for us to think that Jesus’ job is done once He gave His life for us and then was raised again on the third day.  Of course we also think about the fact that He will come again on the Last Day to judge the living and the dead.  We say that every time we confess our faith in the words of the creeds.  But there is something else that Jesus does for you that is also very important every day of your life that is easily forgotten.  Think back again to the words of the Apostles’ Creed.  “He rose again from the dead, He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.”  The part that we often forget is that He sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven.  To be at the right hand is to be in the place of greatest influence.  Not only does He carry out His priestly role as He intercedes for us, speaking to the Father on our behalf, but He is also watching over us.  Remember, He is still true God and true Man.  He is not restricted to one place.  He is true God and He is present everywhere.  He told His disciples, “I am with you always to the very end of the age.”  He is with us to watch over us and provide us with those things that we need to live out our lives here on earth doing His work. 

     The writer to the Hebrews in the last verse of our text brings us something very important.  “Because He Himself suffered when he was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.”  All human beings face temptation.  Even Jesus faced temptations.  The best known are the temptations that He faced when He was in the wilderness, preparing to begin His earthly ministry.  The devil came to Him and tempted Him with three universal temptations: greed, fame, and power.  I say those are universal temptations because you all face them from time to time in your lives. Jesus recognized the temptations for what they were and used the power of God’s Word to fight them off.  We can certainly imagine that Jesus faced other temptations during His earthly life.  As He thought about the agony of the cross, you would think that He was tempted to turn His back on the whole thing and refuse to submit to the pain and death.  As He became very popular among the people, He may have been tempted to take advantage of His popularity.  Whatever the temptations may have been, He did not give in to them.  He lived a perfect life because He knew it was for us. 

     Since He faced temptations, He knows what it is like for you to face temptation to sin.  He knows how difficult it is to say no when your sinful nature and the world around you are egging you on to do what feels right.  He knows what you face and He is able to help you overcome your temptations.  The fight can be difficult and many times you are simply not able to stand up against the influence of the devil, the world and your sinful nature, but you have the assurance that you are not fighting the unholy three by yourself.  One who knows what it is like is there to help you.  He helps you by reminding you what God’s will is.  It can be easy to forget that in a world that continues to drift farther and farther away from the truth of God’s Word.  He also helps you by sending the Holy Spirit to strengthen your faith so that you have the armor and the weapons to defend yourself against the devil.  The Spirit uses the Means of Grace to strengthen you and support you in the fight against the enemy, the old evil foe.  Not only is He there to help you stand up to the temptations but He is also there to help you when you fall.  He offers you the blessings of forgiveness when you give in to those temptations.  The forgiveness that He gives is yours because He gave His life for you.  With the assurance of that undeserved love, you can be encouraged and strengthened the next time that temptations come your way.  You know they will.  They come at you all the time.  Every hour of every day, the temptation to sin against God stares you in the face.  St. Paul talked about this in Romans and said, “What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God—through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  He will rescue you.  He knows what you face.  He will help you when you are tempted.  He will rescue you when you fall.  Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Rev. Gerald Matzke

Zion Lutheran Church

Painesville, Ohio

The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost