Word to the Wise
Friday, August 30, 2024 - Friday in the 21th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Cor 1:17-25 and Matt 25:1-13]The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who being saved it is the power of God....For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. [1 Corinthians]
Imagine going into a community that has never heard of Christ or the Bible and that lives by a polytheistic faith with multiple "Gods" or none at all. (The "none at all" would be extremely rare!) That would have been the task facing St. Paul and his collaborators at the beginning of post-resurrection missionary efforts. To get an example of the task, one can go to the Acts of the Apostles in which St. Luke (one of the collaborators) gives us a sample of St. Paul's preaching in such an environment. [Acts 17:22-34]. In that preaching, he cleverly builds on the "altar to an unknown God" in Athens, as being the altar to the true and only God. "What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you!" Life in Corinth was pretty much an "anything goes" situation since it was a port city. It took a long time for the Christian community to develop there in the face of traditional Greek polytheism along with imported cults from other places in the Roman empire.
The evangelical task is really no different in our time. Either we preach to a non-believing secular culture or to Christians who are Christians only by virtue of baptism but not of real faith. One might call such folks "cultural Christians" or Christians in name only. Our "secular" culture actually has many "gods" which include wealth, sex, substances. To such a culture, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus are "foolishness," even if Jesus' ethical teaching might receive a superficial acceptance or admiration. The Letters to the Corinthian community are worth reading again and again to learn how big the evangelical task can be. We are also called to that same evangelical task wherever we are and in our individual circumstances. What we proclaim is "the power of God and the wisdom of God." AMEN