RCL Daily Text Readings for October 22

Texts: Psalm 1, Proverbs 24:23-34, John 5:39-47

The texts for this week have brought up wisdom many times, and, in a departure from the text, I think it begs a quote from Saint Paul: "²⁰Where 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?²¹For 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. ²²For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength," (1 Corinthians 1:20-25). I think part of my frustration with most of the texts for this week is that they presume wisdom is something humans are able to attain or something we possess intrinsically, making God the fool who hung on the cross and us the wise ones who rid ourselves of one more political rebel.

So often, we cannot see what we are looking at. "I have come in my Father's name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?" Ouch. How often do we seek the glory we can recognize, glory in the name of someone we can see, touch, and hear? How often do we recognize glory sleeping in a manger, feeding the hungry, or hanging on a cross? Martin Luther, in his preface to the Small Catechism says, “To have a god is nothing else than to trust and believe in that one with your whole heart...” So often, we trust it if we can see it. So our gods become gods of stone, gods of flesh, and gods of war.

Looking at that in which we try to place our trust, we are certainly fools. Watching ourselves as we try to climb our ways to the top, trying to seem wise, all the while claiming this God who subverts our notions of what it is to have a God. To have a god outside of oneself is to have a God that we cannot confine, we cannot control, and a God that is difficult to explain. The God in whom we put our trust ought to be the God we believe will deliver us. Grasping for power, for authority, for wisdom, will not deliver us; moreover, it will leave us empty-handed. Grasping the hem of Christ's robe, we receive the God foolish enough to save us.