Jane Williams—Year A Epiphany 4

Anthony: Let’s dive into the lectionary text that we’ll be discussing for this month. Our first pericope is 1 Corinthians 1:18–31. I’ll be reading from the New Revised Standard Version, the updated edition. It is a Revised Common Lectionary passage for the Fourth Sunday after Epiphany, February 1.

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. ¹⁹ For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” ²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe. ²² For Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³ but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. ²⁶ Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸ God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, ²⁹ so that no one might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰ In contrast, God is why you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ³¹ in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Amen. Jane, if you were proclaiming this particular text to a congregation, what would be the focus of your proclamation?

Jane: It’s Paul being really quite rude about the people he’s writing to, isn’t it? It’s quite fun to notice that he’s gently undermining them constantly in what he says about them: “not many of you are wise.” But clearly, from what we read about the Corinthians, they did think they were wise. It is partly helping them turn their own judgments on their heads as it were.

But I think if I were to focus on one specific thing, I think it would be verse 30. God is why you are in “Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” All of those things are gifts from God. Clearly the Corinthians, like so many of us, so much of the time, think that the wisdom and the righteousness and the sanctification and the redemption are our own doing. We’ve earned it in some way.

And this is just putting it so clearly that they are gifts from God given to us as we are in Christ Jesus. The sort of sheer liberating generosity of God in that that allows us to put ourselves down, let go of all our hangups about ourselves, let go of our self-posturing and so on, and simply be grateful for the action of God. It is extraordinary, isn’t it, to think about Paul so early on in the proclamation of the Christian gospel talking about being in Christ — that identity that is completely given to us in the action of God in Christ.

Anthony: God makes the first move.

Jane: Yeah.

Anthony: And you talked about Paul’s undermining of the people, having a little fun with it. And so, I want to ask you — you’re a theologian, scholar, academic, you’re surrounded by theologians: So, how does this statement make you feel, that he’s chosen the foolish — and I’m being a bit facetious — but what is the good news there?

Jane: I think the good news certainly for me is that it is I am never going to be the one who shows people the full reality of God. And I am too stupid and I’m glad to be so. Any God that I would be capable of completely describing and demonstrating to others will be too small a God. And so, this is again, just a wonderful releasing statement. We don’t have to be the ones who tell what God is like. God is more than capable of showing God’s self to us and demonstrating God’s reality.

And so often that reality is counter-cultural and this foolishness of God that is actually the deep wisdom of the world, God as the One who gives God’s self constantly, who will do all that is needed to find us and bring us home, that extraordinary deep, deep wisdom that looks to us like foolishness because it’s so self-giving, so unselfish.

And so, in my own experience as an academic and a lecturer, I’m constantly humbled by my students. They ask me questions every year that I’ve never thought about. And every year they go on highlighting to me their willingness to offer their lives in the service of the gospel and for the love of God. And they teach me endlessly. I’m glad to be a foolish theologian.

Anthony: Ha, ha, is that on your business card, Jane? Is that what you hand out?

Jane: It should be, shouldn’t it.

Anthony: I love the idea of being a lifelong learner. And there’s always something to learn from others, even those that are not as seasoned, let’s say as you are. That’s a gift. I’m just so humbled and grateful that you see it that way with your students.

Jane: You should thank them, not me.

Anthony: You know what? That’s true. That is true.