At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said,
“Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!” (Matthew 7:24-27)There’s a promise that’s implicit in this teaching. It’s the promise that Jesus offers to his listeners a foundation on which to build their lives that is strong, durable, and able to withstand the proverbial storms of life.
Although their fears and old habits made it difficult for Jesus’ first disciples to truly live by this promise–(even their best efforts to do so, like our own, often failed)--the words that Jesus said, the things that Jesus did, and what these things revealed about who Jesus was, did, in fact, become the Church’s example, guide, and cornerstone.
As an old hymn reminds us, “The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord.”
This focus on Jesus’ life, ministry, and how he still changes people’s lives ultimately helped believers discern a model for Christian discipleship and the message Christians seek to share.
Think of this discernment process as both learning how to take Jesus’ promise to heart in one’s own life and learning how to share that promise with others in a way that is genuine and authentic.
Scholars of the New Testament have given a name to this distillation of ideals, intentions, and messaging. They call it the kerygma, a Greek word that means “proclamation” and it describes the essential, fundamental ideas of the Gospel.
The Church has spent almost two thousand years being tempted to add more to that basic message–saying “Yeah that stuff is really important, but so is this and that” and a lot of those efforts, while well intentioned, only made things more complicated.
Church history is full of people who thought they were sharing an essential Christian message, when, in truth, they were really sharing the ideals and values of their culture, race, nation, or party.
One way to think of kerygma, then, is as a teaching device intended to remind Christians of every age that their mission, to borrow a phrase, is keeping the main thing, the main thing–and the main thing for Christians is making disciples of Jesus Christ, not copies of themselves.
Talking about the kerygma, therefore, takes us back to the very beginnings of our Faith–to a time before denominations, tall steeples, stained glass windows, and potluck suppers.
Actually, that’s wrong. Even in the beginning, there were potlucks.
Regardless, we should understand that this is real “back to the basics” stuff.
The New Testament authors tell us that the kerygma is about Jesus’ resurrection and the new life and renewal of Creation he makes possible.
It is about grace, forgiveness, and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
It’s good news that’s meant to lift people up, not hold them down.
Unlike the creeds that it inspired, however, the kerygma of the early Church was never worked over, edited, and codified into precise language.
That being said, a few years ago, Pope Francis gave all Christians a beautiful and useful definition to consider.
Writing in “Joy of the Gospel,” Francis wrote, “(Our kerygma or essential proclamation is this:) Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.”
I think this quote from Francis is wonderful and I want to use it as our starting point as we unpack what Saint Paul is saying in chapters one and two of 1st Corinthians.
“Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.”
It’s fair to say that this gets to the heart of the message Paul shared with the people of Corinth during his ministry there–a ministry, the scripture tells us, that kept Paul in town for 18 months.
Given his investment of time and energy in that place, Corinth was something like a proving ground for Paul. He saw successes there and failures, too. He knew the people–their strengths and weaknesses, what they had been through, what old habits still constrained them, and the potential they still possessed.
Accordingingly, his letters to Corinth make up a significant portion of Paul’s theological and literary legacy, including the revelation in book one chapter one that he understood how foolish his message truly was.
It’s there that he wrote,
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 God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. (1 Cor. 1:18-25)This talk about foolishness is more than a nice turn of phrase to Paul. It’s actually a profound statement about some of his deepest convictions.
Afterall, he was writing at a time and a place where anyone with half a clue knew exactly who had all the power—and it wasn’t a crucified Jewish rabbi.
It was Rome. Rome had the money. Rome had the influence. Rome was willing to destroy you and everything you cared about if you got on its wrong side.
That’s what strength looks like!
But that’s not what Paul called strength.
As goofy as it sounded and as foolish as it was, he kept pointing believers back to Jesus as the source and example of real strength, power, and value.
For Paul, the cross was history’s hinge point and the way in which the barriers that divide people were tumbling down in Jesus’ name was evidence of a force against which no man-made wall could stand.
[For] 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 abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. (1 Cor. 1:27-29)Friends, I think Paul’s insights into foolishness are as timely today as ever, because everyday we are bombarded with grandiose displays of what we’ve been told strength looks like.
We’re seeing vice celebrated as virtue by people who think that cruelty and arrogance makes them look tough, like real men.
We’re seeing communities turned upside down, lives ruined, and people killed because our shared humanity has been trumped by zombie nationalism and blatant racism.
We’re seeing–even in redacted emails–how some of the world’s richest and most famous men have degraded women and children in the most grotesque ways imaginable.
And we’re told the people who do such things are the powerful ones because they decide who lives and dies. They can satisfy all of their selfish cravings. They make more money in a day than our families will make in ten generations.
That’s what strength looks like–or so they would have us believe.
Oh, may we never be so foolish as to fall for such nonsense.
Because remember, “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you.”
And if that’s true, if our proclamation is from God, then there’s a power at work that those who’ve given themselves over to violence, greed, and depravity can never possess.
If the real power is in Jesus and his love, then all these arrogant displays that surround us are but signs of fragile egos and the manifestation of sin’s weakness—“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.”
Jesus said, “Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”
For that reason, I don’t think it’s ever a bad idea for Christians to give some thought and prayer to maintaining and upholding the basic essentials and foundations of our Faith.
Such efforts have been at the root of every genuine revival and godly reform history has even known.
Even so, I don’t find it particularly useful to compare our present situation to those faced by Christians in the past—as if it somehow matters that another generation faced so many more challenges than ours, or seemingly had it so much easier.
What does matter, however, is the quality of the foundation on which we’re building our lives and the witness that we bring to this moment–to our moment.
God’s foolishness is timeless like that.
“[For] God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”
There’s a promise that’s implicit in Jesus’ teaching. It’s the promise that he offers to his listeners a foundation on which to build their lives that is strong, durable, and able to withstand the proverbial storms of life.
Will we be foolish enough to tell them that Jesus loves them, too?
Will we know the power of the cross, find strength in love, and experience grace in the hope that overcomes our imperfections and weakness?
Will we build our lives on this sure foundation?
I pray that we will–that we will know Jesus, share Jesus, and love like Jesus today and forever.
Image: Holzmeister, Clemens, 1886-1983. Crucifixion, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.
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