Is our Christian faith a matter of evidence? A matter of learned analysis? In his discourse on wisdom in 1st Corinthians, Paul suggests otherwise. Paul depicts the faith expectations of his time as driven by signs and wisdom – “Jews require signs and Greeks seek wisdom.” This challenges us in our time to consider our own faith journeys. Do we condition our faith on signs and wonders, praying for miraculous healing, for miraculous victories on the battlefield or the sports field? For miraculous transformations of people through ministry and fellowship? Perhaps there is merit in embracing those miracles. But is that all there is to our faith? Miraculous intervention?
Or are we more like the Hellenic societies of Paul’s day – emphasizing the abstract erudition of great thinkers and philosophers, conditioning belief on the persuasive logic of words and preachers? Is our faith dependent on intellectual justification – do we rely on the systematic theology of the great Karl Barth or the abstract connections between Jesus’ teachings and the philosophical traditions of liberal humanism, or even the complex post-modern suppositions of today’s cutting-edge theologians? Perhaps there is merit is this as well. But is that all there is to it? Is our faith dependent on intellectual analysis?
If not signs and wisdom, on what then do we rest our faith? Paul points to the way of the cross, to the foolishness of the cross – a stumbling block for some, folly for others. Today’s reading from the Beatitudes suggests that faith lies in our response to the invitation to that foolishness. Jesus does not impose a set of formal rules whose violation brings punishment, but rather offers hope through invitation. Blessed are the humble, those who mourn, those who are meek, or hungry, or merciful, who are pure in heart, peacemakers, persecuted and reviled. All the outsiders, the “fools” of the world are invited to come to faith and be blessed. While the temporal and religious authorities of the day would condemn those who did not conform, Jesus blessed the excluded and the marginalized.
Herein lies the hope of our faith – not driven by evidence of miracles or the erudition of the wise, but the hope that all of us invited into the company of the blessed, as we accept the foolish invitation of Christ crucified. Because God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Let us too be foolish and weak, and so accept the invitation to salvation that Jesus offers.