Third Sunday In Lent | Year B | 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 | Christopher Miner
At first glance, I found the Lectionary readings to be an odd combination this week: The Ten Commandments, a Psalm that starts by declaring that the sky shows God's glory, Paul discussing wisdom that looks like foolishness, and Jesus clearing the temple of money changers. (On a side note, a band called Downhere made a really cool song based on this week's Psalm - check it out!) I think, however, there's is a thread that connects these passages that culminates with the passage in 1 Corinthians, and lays down a significant challenge to those of us claiming to walk in the way of Jesus.
First, the Ten Commandments. These are some of the most famous passages in all of Scripture. Even in our post-Christian, secular world these still appear as foundational ideas of law and justice. For the Hebrews, these and the rest of the laws and commands of God were a gift of identity. These people came out of Egypt as a loosely connected group of people who's only shared experience was slavery and suffering. The Torah, or the Law, gave this group an alternative identity, complete with detailed instructions on how to live well with God and each other. Over the centuries, the people of Israel alternatively kept, discarded, modified, debated, proclaimed, and cursed this literature, but it came to define them as a people, and continued to do so in the time of the Psalms, Jesus, and Paul.
Psalm 19, which starts out with some really poetic natural theology, goes on to lift up the law, precepts, decrees, and commands of the Lord. They are better than honey and gold, the author says. This thought always struck me as weird: "Who on Earth is excited about the rules?!? No one says, 'YES, I followed the speed limit!'" But again, remember that the laws and precepts in the Torah are more than rules, they are statements of identity. Israel is what it is because of this - Torah, the Law, is what defines this group of people, makes them separate and different, explains their place in the cosmos. But even in their embrace of Torah, the Israelites cycled through periods of obedience and idolatry to their law, with the latter being much more common. As much as the Torah defined them as a people, it did not transform them into the worldwide blessing God had intended them to be.
This brings us to John, and Jesus aggressively closing the temple markets with a whip and fury. Jesus, remember, was brought up within the knowledge of Torah. He would have heard it from his earliest days, seen the priests and rabbis, watched Temple sacrifices, and heard the endless debates over its finer points. But on this day, Jesus had simply had enough. The temple was never meant to be a place that commercialized Israel's devotion - the sellers were selling animals to Jewish pilgrims for sacrifice, and likely jacking up their prices in the process. But the system worked - people need animals to sacrifice, according to the Torah. You can only sacrifice at the Temple, and some people were coming from a quite a distance. And hey, if you need to sacrifice and are unable to bring a pigeon or goat, how convenient is it to be able to purchase one, even if the price is inflated? And if you are coming from somewhere that uses different currency, we have that covered, too! (With a little on the side for the moneychangers' trouble.) However, what Jesus saw was false devotion, price gouging in the name of holiness, a system that was corrupting the Torah and God's Temple. So he did something about it, much to the chagrin of the Jews who were in charge. You can even imagine one of them yelling out, "Someone stop that crazy guy!"
Finally, we arrive at Paul. He, too, had been shaped by Torah, but that shape had been permanently altered by his encounter with Jesus. He now saw the Torah through the lens of the life and teachings of Jesus. He saw that the Torah itself was always pointing to something more, the Messiah, who would embody what Israel was meant to be, and would install a new version of Torah that was not limited to those born of Jewish decent. This new covenant, brought about by Jesus death and resurrection, was open to all, and was defined not by keeping commandments but living in right relationship with God and neighbor. The practices of this Torah were radical generosity, downward mobility, service to all, love of enemies. To Jews, steeped in their understandings of Torah, this was insane. "How can we love the people who are oppressing us in our native land, and why would we want to? How does that restore Israel?" To non-Jews, it was nonsense. "The Jews may be strange, but at least they mostly keep their weird beliefs and customs to themselves. These Jesus followers, though, claim their allegiance is not to Caesar or the Jews but this guy the Romans executed!" Paul realizes this, but does not back off - the insanity and nonsense, or foolishness, as Paul says, is simply better than what you call wisdom. This foolishness is actually wisdom, this weakness actually strength. The new covenant simply did not line up with most Jews and non-Jews understanding of the world. And that was largely the point!
If we say we are followers of Jesus, we called to embrace this foolishness as wisdom. We are called to see the wisdom and strength around us as foolishness and weakness, because Jesus demonstrated wisdom and strength through washing feet and crucifixion. And we are called to live and act foolishly under the new covenant installed at Jesus resurrection. The God behind the Torah and the Psalms never stopped moving forward with his work to save the world - he is simply doing it in such a way that the world cannot understand, and he invites us to join the holy foolishness of Jesus. Lord, make us brave enough to live out your foolish wisdom!
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