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"The Center" 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
January 29, 2017
A few of us here have spent some time at Camp Fowler. If you haven't been there, then you really ought to go. This wonderful church camp, nestled in the south-central region of the Adirondack Mountains, has been a place of ministry to young and old for more than sixty years. It lies along a beautiful little lake with the idyllic name “Sacandaga” (not to be confused with the large reservoir about 30 miles to the south). And on the grounds of the camp there are two cabin areas (one for the girls, the other for the boys), an athletic field, a labyrinth, a garden, a chapel, a beach, several hiking trails, and lodging for staff and guests. But there's more. The area where all of it comes together, and where everyone comes together, where you find the dining hall, the nature center, the athletics building, the nurse's station, the tetherball court, and the camp office, is what many call “the center of camp.” Which is kind of funny. Because the “center of camp” is not really, well, in the center of camp. Not physically. Not when marked off in feet and acres. It isn't in some geographically precise “middle.” And yet it is truly the center of camp, maps and surveys notwithstanding. Because it is the center of activity, the center of attention, the heart of where things happen, the place where everybody has a place, the point from which all in the camp go and to which they all return. Yet some might call the center of camp “The center of camp,” while at the same time feeling deeply in their hearts that another place is the center for them, their center, perhaps the Chapel, or the outdoor chapel, or the beach, or the porch of Lakeside Lodge. Which means, of course, that the center is about attitude. It's about perspective. Which means that it can shift. It can change. It's a matter of choice, and will, and desire. And that means that there might be many centers, depending on who and when and why. When we identify something as the center, our center, we mark its importance for us. We say that it molds our outlook and guides our behavior. We signal our desire to continue making it our center. That's the power of a center.
In the Bible passage I just read, the Apostle Paul makes very clear what is at the center for him. It's the cross of Jesus Christ. This was no easy thing. That's because, as Paul says, the cross of Jesus is a stumbling block to some and foolishness to others. The gospel, the “good news” of Jesus, offends. And what offends about it is the cross, the suffering and death of Jesus. The gospel focuses on that terrible event, and says of it, “Here is the meaning of life.” And about Jesus, who suffered and died there and then, it says, “Behold, your God.” The gospel makes the outrageous claim that in the cross, which by human standards appears to show both weakness and foolishness, we are shown the strength and wisdom of God. The cross, in other words, is the center: the center of all of God's interactions with us,It's the cross of Jesus that, for Paul, is at the heart of everything: inspiring every thought, guiding every act, impacting every motivation of those who desire to follow Jesus. Not all would agree with this. Paul knew this. He knew that to those who had no faith in Jesus this was nonsense. It made no sense to them that the one holy God would bless the death of this treasonous rabbi. But it was not only non-Christians who had trouble with the cross. Paul knew this, too. It was even other Christians who could not agree that the cross was the center. Sure, not all of them came right out and said that. But what their words and actions showed was that they really did not agree with Paul that the cross was the center. So Paul had to draw a distinction between what he was saying and what others were saying. He had to make clear that even though others want to talk about other matters, even though others feel that other things are more important, “We proclaim Christ crucified.” We see this struggle in the verses I read, along with those that come before and follow thereafter. We can see it quite a bit in most of Paul's letters. It was a struggle that did not end in Paul's time, but persisted and grew for many years. There remained among Christians this problem with the death of Jesus, as well as with his humanity, his hungering, his thirsting, his suffering -- all of it. Some would try to explain it away, claiming that he only appeared to be human, or that he only appeared to be divine, or that he did not really die, or that he did not really die (it was someone else on the cross besides Jesus!). All these evasions and denials arose out of a deep discomfort with the heart of the good news that Jesus, the Beloved Son of the Father, suffered death on a cross in order to save this world so loved by God.
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.
I believe that the same is true today. The message still is “Christ crucified.” It still is our message, what we must tell people. It still must be the attitude-forming and action-inspiring center of our lives. As important as other things are, and as appealing as it may be to speak about them rather than Jesus Christ and him crucified, they are not the core message. But it is also true today that many have difficulty with this. Many cannot accept this.
How could they? After all, to recall something a columnist in the New York Times wrote the other day, so many today “see[] everything ... as a struggle for dominance, in which you only win at somebody else's expense.” Even many Christians have trouble with the cross, with the confounding yet liberating truth that not in our best selves,but instead there, on the cross, we are decisively shown God's love for us and the means by which we are made whole. The cross is too simple, they think. The cross is just not enough, they suspect. There must be more ... that we can add on, that we can add on: some philosophy, To say no more would be unexciting. Boring. Insulting. The cross alone? By itself? Well that's just nonsense. Time and again, Christians have tried to get around the centrality of the cross. And we join them in removing the cross from the center, whenever we treat it as merely decoration, When we do this, we end up offering a gospel that falls far short of the real deal, proclaiming instead, in those great words of H. Richard Niebuhr:
“A God without wrath
What we must proclaim, the heart of our message, is not how nice we are, As nifty or even important as these might be, they are not themselves the gospel. They are not our message. They might truly be said in the light of the gospel. They might be implications of the gospel. But they are not themselves the gospel. They are not the heart of the Christian faith. That would be, instead, the simple and confounding message of Christ crucified. Yet we often show that we'd prefer for the cross of Jesus not to be at the center. In many ways, at many times, we try to avoid the message, or change the subject. Sometimes, we're just not sure it makes sense. In any case, we'd often rather talk about ourselves and the things we do. Sure, the cross is foolishness. But it is God's foolishness. And so it is greater than the highest forms of our intelligence. It is the foolishness by which we can be saved. “For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.” The cross, in all its bare and horrible simplicity, is really the center of it all, no matter what some say. No matter how we might behave. We want a happy faith that plays in the shallow pool of our own niceness. And Jesus offers a joyful faith, calling us to embrace the truth that we are sinners who are forgiven by God at great cost to God. Or we want a positive faith that exults in the power of positive thinking. And Jesus invites us to take up our own cross and follow him. Or, we want a muscular faith that is strong and dominant in the face of all enemies and adversities. And Jesus shows us the strength of God by enduring the pain of the cross and by dying for his flock. Or, we want a successful faith that comes out on top, above all other “losers,” because we've got no patience for “losers.” And Jesus goes to the cross. So often, we in the church craft and package our message as all sorts of things other than the saving death of Jesus. We talk about almost anything else besides that. We want to have the conversation be about us, our families, our nation, our politics, our transient and distracting culture wars. These are the things we want to hear in church, anything but what lies at the center: Jesus, dying so he could rise, Here's the thing: the cross of Jesus is not an embarrassing part of the message. It is the message. The Jesus who rose from the dead, well, he rose from the dead. The Jesus who was born and laid in a manger and the angels sang at his birth and the shepherds came to him in awe, well, he was born to enter into and take on our suffering and dying. The Jesus who taught grateful and astonished crowds, well, he taught a message so offensive that the powerful and connected, with the approval of the crowds, put him to death. With Jesus, all his roads, all he said and did, lead through his death. His death makes a difference for everything else we say about the gospel. Jesus, who suffered and died, Jesus, with his suffering and dying, must be at the center: the center of what we believe about God, In the cross of Jesus, we see the grace of God, The cross is the center. So it must be the center: for us, The cross of Jesus, at the center: this is who we must be. This is who we are.
My friends, may we all come to see the cross of Jesus at the center of our faith: reminding us of the death of Jesus, May we all, more and more, place the cross of Jesus at the center of our lives.
Footnotes
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