Nov. 3, 2024 - Paradoxical Wisdom

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1: 18-31                              

Jesus is a radical; he teaches us to love our enemies and practice grace and forgiveness. His radical nature is clear in the many paradoxes in the Bible: the contradictory statements that are also true about Jesus that we see throughout his life and that are reflected by Paul in our Corinthians’ passage today.

Paul himself was paradoxical - a Pharisee who persecuted Christians who turns around and not only becomes a Christain but starts converting others as well. How did his radical transformation happen? Through an experience with Jesus, a meeting with the risen Christ that changed Paul.

While we may not have the chance to meet Christ in the same way Paul did, we can invite Christ in by opening our minds to God’s paradoxical wisdom rather than just relying on the wisdom of the world, as Paul reminds us.  

Paul tells us that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. What is the message of the Cross? For outsiders, it would look like Jesus lost - he was murdered on a cross. However, Jesus went willingly not because the cross meant death but because it meant life, hope, redemption, and resurrection. That is certainly a paradox - that one has to die to live but God does not function the way our world does. We have to let go of or maybe even die to some of the world’s stresses, pressures, divisions, and distractions to embrace the way of Jesus.

And letting go is harder the more stuff you have whether that be physical stuff, power or titles. The more we believe in ourselves to the exclusion of God, the more we fight to keep what we have and to exclude others who might also want what we have. It becomes in the minds of those focused on the stuff of this world, a zero sum game: “in order for someone else to gain, I must lose,’ they think. However, God’s paradoxical wisdom does not work that way. God’s love is available to all equally and Jesus’ life demonstrated that. Jesus, God’s son, could have been born an earthly King or at least the son of a nobleman or church leader, but he was born the son of a carpenter and became one himself: a humble laborer. He was crucified as an enemy of the state, but in dying he was resurrected and our hope beyond this world was resurrected as well.

The majority of Paul’s converts in Corinth and other places were not the rich and powerful, although a few were. Instead, the poor and uneducated were the first to listen to Paul, just as they often were to listen to Jesus. Why is that? Maybe it is because they do not have so much “stuff” getting in the way of their ability to believe, or maybe that they do not feel like they will have to give something up in order to believe. As Paul says, “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.” Instead, we are reminded, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

It all comes down to humility. Only in humbling ourselves can we acknowledge that God’s power is greater than ours. It is a letting go of power and control. It invites a sharing of resources rather than a personal accumulation of it. It doesn’t mean we have to give everything we have away to be closer to God. But what it does mean is that we cannot be all about stuff, all about power. We have to look inward and let go a little bit. We have to let go of the stress of war, struggle, and elections and know that no matter what happens, God is with us and that we cannot control everything. There is some peace in letting go, in acknowledging that the power is in God’s hands and not ours. We need to do our part here on earth, being kind and caring for and to all of God’s creation: making ourselves part of the Trinitarian flow of God’s love. We need to stop regularly when we become overwhelmed by the stresses of this world and our lives in it and remember to breathe in God’s love and breathe out and act out God’s peace. 

Thirty-two year old Austrian Marlene Engelthorn showed humility when she decided to redistribute the majority of her $27 million inheritance. Her inheritance comes from being a descendant of Friedrich Engelhorn, the founder of German chemical and pharmaceutical company, BASF.

In a BBC article on the subject she said, "I have inherited a fortune, and therefore power, without having done anything for it. And the state doesn't even want taxes on it." Austria abolished inheritance tax in 2008.

Engelthorn has protested that there should be more taxes on the wealthy and decided that if the state would not redistribute her wealth, she would.

In order to give 90% of her inheritance away, this January she sent out 10,000 letters to randomly selected Austrians inviting them to apply to be part of a 50-member group who would decide where that wealth would go. The selected group, called the Good Council for Redistribution, ranged in age from 16 to 85. They met several times, without Engelthorn’s involvement as she wanted to give them full control. Ultimately they chose 77 organizations that would share the $27 million.

According to an article in Time Magazine, “The largest distribution of cash went to the Austrian society for nature conservation, which received the equivalent of $1.7 million. The second largest distribution of $1.6 million went to an organization called Neunerhaus, which offers aid to homeless people. Other organizations that received money included climate charities, the left-wing think tank Momentum Institute, and religious organizations.”

Giving away the bulk of your wealth is both paradoxical and radical, Engelthorn noted that although she had retained a small amount of her inheritance, it was not enough to support her, so she was determining her next steps career-wise.

While we do not all have the wealth to be Engelthorn’s kind of radical, we can be a different kind of radical: those who have faith and live Christ’s message of inclusive love for all. We do not have to be rich or of noble birth to have faith. We just have to answer the call to live like Jesus: God’s paradoxical gift of wisdom to the world. Jesus taught us the wisdom of kindness, inclusion and humility. Jesus taught us to love those who love us and those who hate us. Jesus taught us to invite everyone to the table, to break bread across classes, political parties, races and lifestyles. Jesus taught us most of all to love.

Let’s all learn to lean into the paradox and live and love radically just as Jesus did. Amen.


Pastor Michelle Fountain

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