I.
I had a friend in college who was interested in becoming a Christian. He already had his medical degree and was working on his Ph.D. He was intelligent and he was seeking intellectual answers to his questions about Christianity.
He wanted every question answered to his satisfaction before he would commit himself to joining.
I tried to answer his questions as best as I could. Since I was studying religion, I had some good answers to give him. But eventually I stopped him in mid question.
“You realize,” I said, “that the Christian faith is not meant just for smart people. It’s meant for everyday people.”
I picked up the Book of Common Prayer and turned to the Te Deum. I read him the first few lines:
“We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting.”
You see? You don’t have to be very smart to have faith. You just have to praise God. Anyone can understand the two lines I’ve just read to you.
He smiled, leaned back, and had nothing more to say. A few weeks later I stood with him as the waters of baptism were poured over him and he professed his faith in Jesus Christ.
II.
Today’s reading from 1 Corinthians tells a similar story.
Paul writes:
“And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”
Apparently, Paul was not a very good speaker and what he spoke about was not considered very sophisticated.
But that lack of sophistication made what he said more credible, not less.
Paul continues:
“And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”
Paul’s logic works like this. “If I had convinced you to believe in Jesus with clever arguments, then someone cleverer than I might unconvince you with even more clever arguments. Fortunately for you, your faith rests on God, not what clever people say about God.”
And so, we can have some assurance that our faith is true, and worth believing in, even if clever people say otherwise.
III.
Now, some people might object and say that ignorance, especially in religion, leads to disaster. It leads to outdated ways of thinking and of treating people.
Instead, we need to trust the “wisdom this age” as it is mediated to us by the “rulers of this age.”
But Paul warns us against this. He tells us that the rulers of this age are being destroyed, and their wisdom along with them.
Instead, Paul says, believers have access to a hidden mystery “which God decreed before the ages for our glory and which none of the rulers of this age understood.”
Because this decree is not made by any human ruler or government, it will not fail when those rulers and governments fail.
It seems to me that we are living in a time when our rulers and governments are failing. What then of their knowledge and sophistication? Is our hope in a more sophisticated (perhaps artificial) intelligence to come?
IV.
My hope is in God’s eternal decree, in His choice for me rather than in my choice for Him. Nothing can ever really go wrong if I put my trust in His choice.
Time and history are comprised of the sum of all our choices, yet time and history do not determine anything.
This is why I have no trouble accepting what biology can tell us about the organization and the evolution of life while also believing what the Bible says about creation.
Our choices never determine God’s outcomes, even the choice of our first parents to defy Him in the Garden of Eden did not determine our fate.
When Adam fell, he fell on Christ.
When I fall, I fall on Christ.
When my children fell, I picked them up.
You don’t have to be very intelligent to understand this.
You don’t have to know very much at all to know that you have faith.
That brings me a great deal of assurance.
V.
Isaiah asks his kin in today’s reading, “Why do you fast?”
The sophisticated answer is because they eagerly sought to know all they could about God and to keep His ways. All of the hidden things that God chose not to reveal — that is what they wanted to know. That is what they paid a premium to find out from seers and prophets and holy men.
Today, we still pay such people to initiate us into their secret wisdom.
Instead, Isaiah says what any simpleton can understand. That is because God has revealed his wisdom to the simple.[1]
“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”
Jesus asks us in today’s gospel why has our salt has lost its saltiness.
The sophisticated answer is because we say the Law and the Prophets no longer apply to us.
The simple answer is that “until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.”
What God wants us to believe and do He reveals to us in the simplest of terms.
Jesus says:
“Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”
Jesus asks us to give glory to the One who has already decreed that we shall be glorious.
All we’re asked to do is to give to God what He has freely given us.
You don’t have to be very wise or smart to do that. You don’t even have to be very strong.
Having faith isn’t that hard.
Oh, and here’s another thing about faith. It’s another one of those gifts from God. All He’s asking you to do is place it back in Him. Amen.
Preached at St. Peter’s Lithgow, on February 5, 2023.
Epiphany 5, Year A
Isaiah 58:1-12; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16; Matthew 5:13-20