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Rossford UMC
To Know Christ and to Make Christ Known
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    Saturday, July 27, 2024

    1 Cor. 1: 21

    21 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.

     

    Can we sense Paul’s exasperation with the humor of God? Can we hear his own exasperation with the little church he had founded?

    Sometimes, in life, all we can do is laugh at the strange annoyances that surround us on every side. Can we gain one step on the foolishness of the world through anger or despair? No person I know can explain the foolishness which causes immeasurable pain everywhere. I have listened to husbands and wives arguing an argument repeatedly endlessly. The same word today was shouted yesterday and will be repeated tomorrow. Each one trusts his or her own knowledge, believes in only one version. Neither can hear or see the other. And is this not the model for human affairs everywhere? The desperate duty of dominance.

    The ancient Hebrews linked two ideas: wisdom and knowledge. They saw they were, perhaps, distant cousins, but not the same.

    Paul’s little church had split into arguing factions. Wise ones vs. fools. Rich ones vs. poor ones. Men vs. women. Each faction with a leader and a thought, repeated day after day to the harm of others. So too the world.

    Having knowledge of good and evil, we think we know rightness. Knowing, we believe we have wisdom. But our knowledge only feeds the storm. It cannot calm the waters. We are fools.

    The way to peace, Paul’s letter states is the way of Christ. The cross. Surrender. Love. Making the lesser one most important.

    It seems foolish, doesn’t it? I would be a fool to bow before that person whom I know to be wrong. To love them. To serve them. To forgive them. To shut up! For if I shut up, I will lose my ability to shout my knowledge.

    Foolishness!

    God, Paul realized, had a solution to all the world’s knowledge. It only seemed foolish. In truth, it was wise.

     

    Hymn of the day: Come Ye Broken and Heavy Laden. Online at Rossford UMC - Media.

     

    Rev. Lawrence Keeler