Friday 26 August 2022

Today is Friday the 26th August, in the 21st week of Ordinary Time.


The monks of the Abbey of Keur Moussa sing: ‘God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.’

As I enter into prayer now, can I put aside any pride I may have in my own wisdom and my own strength? Can I bring myself before God who loves me and has chosen me, with all my foolishness and all my weakness?

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Today’s reading is from St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians.

1 Cor 1:17-25


For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.

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.

This passage contrasts the wisdom of God with the blindness of human beings. The cross, that great symbol of Christianity, is the test case for this. The Jews cannot accept a crucified Messiah, and to the Greeks the whole idea is nonsense. Can you see their point?

Paul, by contrast, insists on preaching the fact that Jesus was killed in this way as a central part of our belief. Is he right? How do you make any sense of that?

It is clear that, in Paul’s view, God knows better than we do. Can you point to places in your own life where you know that has been true?

The word “wisdom” echoes through this reading. Listen out for it, and notice its different contexts, as the passage is read again.

Finally, speak to God about what you make of the crucifixion, and about what it means in your own life-experience.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.