The first two chapters of 1 Corinthians are about simplifying things. Paul is peeling back the layers of the divisive Corinthian group, revealing the rotting core of factionalism and competing loyalties. Paul is saying that they need to simplify and get focused on the same thing.
Richard Foster describes the power of simplicity: "Have you ever experienced this situation? One person speaks, and even though what he or she is saying may well be true you draw back, sensing the lack of authenticity. Then someone else shares, perhaps even the same truth in the same words, but now you sense an inward resonance, the presence of integrity. What is the difference? One is providing simplistic answers, the other is living in simplicity." (Freedom of Simplicity, 13)
It's easy to have simplistic answers. We resort to them when we don't want to get bogged down, or when we just want to make somebody feel better. It's a lot harder to live a disciplined, committed life of simplicity. And what is our organizing center, the thing we should simplify around? This one thing: "I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (2:2).
There are several things which seem so unpleasant about this. One is the taint of failure - that we're worshipping a glorified wimpy guy, somebody the old Saturday Night Live duo, Hans and Franz would have made fun of. The other is the focus on death. It seems so gloomy, like you've been living in one of those haunted funeral hearses in St. Augustine.
Paul contends that there is a powerful subversion going on at the cross. God is turning things upside down. "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God." (1:27-29)
There are two ways God turns things upside down. First, God chooses it. We often think of the power of choice in consumeristic terms: the more money you have, the more you can choose. Not often enough do we see that the choice to simplify - to eat less, to spend less, to watch less TV, to be chaste, to sleep more, to worship more, to pray more - are just as powerful. God chooses the way of the cross, and it is the "power of God." (1:18) Nothing wimpy here. This is the power of God, subverting our usual ideas of power.
Second, these things shame those who think themselves strong. We hate shame, but there is no denying that it exists. When we look back over our life, and want to forget that certain days, weeks, years, or decades even happened, when we are downright embarrassed about the trivial things we thought were so important, shame is what we feel. Paul's point is that we who spend most of our lives steering clear of anything that looks, sounds, or smells of death and stowing money away in every nook and cranny to safeguard ourselves against encroaching death will be ashamed when we see that life is all about dying to ourselves as early as we can - "dying young", in fact - so that our life can belong to God. We will learn that knowing nothing but Christ crucified is not the same as knowing nothing.
What we spent a lifetime scorning, we will realize was God's precise way of giving us value. Shame of Jesus, shame of the cross will give way, as it does for each Christian, to shame of ourselves that we ever scorned an act so beautiful. In fact, the cross is the very center of God's plans to enrich us; for being crucified with Christ is directly tied to the promise of the Spirit, which Paul describes: "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him." (2:9)
'Christ crucified' is a simple approach to life. But it is not simplistic. It is an approach which trusts that if God really gave his Son on the cross for us, it is something beautiful and it is something serious which demands our attention and which will change us. God does not coyly play around with us, but has made himself abundantly clear. He speaks with a deep resonance at the cross of Christ. And we won't draw back, for he speaks sincerely. We will listen and find ourselves drawn into the beautiful life of God.
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