1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Epiphany 4 - Year A

1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Those with Power claim they has wisdom on their side. How else would they have been “entrusted” with the power they have, if they did not represent the wisest possible way to go. We hear that expressed in one way or another by every winner of a power position. Power and meekness or power and humility do live well together.

At play is a large movement from the nothingness of chaos to everything being vain. We live between and do what we can to hold briefness lightly and with all the gravity we can muster. It is this heavily invested and laughably usable moment that makes a difference.

Paul would equate this with his language of a cross that measures the meaning of creation and re-creation. Paul’s cross image stands to show up power, of whatever ilk. It stands as a bookend to belovedness which lifts up the powerless. And we stand in this moment between a so-solid melting before our eyes and a yet ephemeral future casting a faint path, one less travelled, one day to be recognized as an avenue we all need to tread. And we make a difference.

A conversation with death reminds us how frail is our sense of power and how far from wisdom we yet are. This throws us back on how we choose to live. Our choices will be noted by their grounding. Will we live in light of such qualities beyond the collusion of perceived power and accepted wisdom as the following?

poverty
mourning
meekness
desire
mercy
purity
peacemaking
persecuted
reviled
justice
kindness
humility

The ancients say, “Aye”, The present says, “As soon as we can, but not until we have surety our wisdom is safely in charge”, the future says, “Yea”. This movement can help us stand prophetically in the present whether from Paul’s vision of “Cross” or another creation-centered or eschaton-engaged perspective.