Fools For Christ
SERMON PREACHED FEBRUARY 1, 2026
FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER THE EPIPHANY
MICAH 6: 1-8; 1 CORINTHIANS 1:18-31; MATTHEW 5:1-12
From 1 Corinthians: 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.
Now that the whole world has heard of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, it may take some imagination to place ourselves in the time of Jesus preaching the Beatitudes, and Paul writing to the Church in Corinth. But in those times, the Gospel was fresh news, and news that was at least perplexing, and at most nonsensical. Or, as Paul frankly states, foolishness.
So are we fools? Yes, fools as the world counts. Fools for Christ. Because the Gospel, though not rational, is the power of God.
Christianity was at heart a scandal – a scandal, I say — intellectually, socially, and politically, from the 1st through the 3rd centuries. A crucified messiah and a world system that exalts the poor and humbles the rich, were simply incomprehensible and unacceptable to Greco-Roman and Jewish thought systems:
- Greek philosophyprized rational order, harmony, and upward ascent of the soul.
- Roman cultureprized honor, strength, victory, and visible power.
- Second Temple Judaismexpected a Messiah who would defeat Israel’s enemies and restore national sovereignty.
Let’s consider the crucified messiah. When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the crowds received him as a king (though he was seated humbly on a donkey, according to prophesy). They shouted Hosannah! Hosannah! Save us! Save us! The Jewish crowds wanted their messiah – wanted Jesus of Nazareth – to overthrow the imperial power that held them under its boot. They wanted the Romans out of Israel.
Gathered together to celebrate the intensely holy season of Passover, the Jews were joyful in their recollection of ancestors being rescued by God from slavery in Egypt. Maybe this would be the new rescue! Jesus certainly had demonstrated divine power in healing and teaching and miracles. This must be the One! Hosannah! Hosannah! Hosannah!
But this messiah, if that’s what he was, met death in the most cruel and debasing manner that Rome meted out. Crucifixion was reserved for slaves and rebels and the lowest kind of criminal. This was just ridiculous, and followers of Christ struggled, to reconcile themselves to the crucifixion. Outsiders openly mocked the very notion of a crucified God. There is the famous Alexamenos graffito from the 2nd century, which shows a man worshiping a donkey-headed figure on a cross. The label reads: “Alexamenos worships his god.”
But the cross became for the Church the place where:
- Human violence is exposed
- False power is unmasked
- God’s love proves stronger than death
So the Church did not soften the cross. It reinterpreted it as the axis of history, and celebrates it every time the great sacrament of Holy Communion is conducted: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!
Now let’s consider the other part of the scandal, a new system – the Kingdom of God — that exalts the poor and humbles the rich. Think of Luke’s “Magnificat,” sung by Mary the mother of Christ: My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior…for he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich empty away.
In the world and as a national society we suffer under the opposite ranking: the wealthy wield the power, and the poor are in great need.
When I did my international economic development work, I was always cognizant of the distribution of wealth and income in the countries that I served. Most had a vicious maldistribution, in which a tiny percentage of the population sat on and controlled the vast proportion of the nation’s resources.
This is critical, because economic development depends on a robust middle class, educated and free and personally invested in the success of the country. These countries had a small and weak middle class, and my projects strove to improve that situation.
The picture I describe may sound familiar to you, because – lo and behold! – the United States now has a maldistribution of wealth and income, and a struggling middle class. And we are not talking just about money, but also about middle class power and opportunity.
What would it look like to have wealth and income well distributed in America, with a thriving middle class? It will take people who live in the Kingdom of God to accomplish this. The Kingdom may seem invisible, but it is here in reality. Jesus brought in the Kingdom of God with his life, death and resurrection. He will fulfill it when he comes again in glory.
Here’s a wonderful example of living in the Kingdom of God – it concerns a child of 1950s America. Linda Brown was a third-grader in an all-Black elementary school in Topeka, Kansas. Every day, Linda had to walk past an all-White school to attend an inferior Black school. After trying unsuccessfully to enroll his daughter in the White school, Linda’s father sued the school system. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court on the point of law previously settled by Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): separate but equal. In a unanimous decision the court overturned Plessy, and Linda continued her education in the previously Whites-only school.
This was the case of Brown v. the Board of Education, and it had the power to launch the civil rights movement, which continues to this day. It stemmed from a child’s daily injustice, and toppled an entrenched national system. Truly, the Kingdom of God has come near.
We here at St. Francis celebrate the crucified messiah, and by the grace of God we live in God’s kingdom. We are grateful for our ancestors in ages past, who fought these battles so that we can grow in faith, and carry the cross with joy. It is for us, now, today, to look for places where the Kingdom of God is breaking in, and to help with the breaking.
THANKS BE TO GOD. Amen.