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Sermon delivered at the Congregational Church

Plainfield, New Jersey

January 16, 1966

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart.”

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For consider your call, brethren; not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; 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, God what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption; therefore, as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:18–31)

For us in the United States, with our high standard of living, possessions absorb a good deal of our attention. We are always buying them, using them, servicing them, replacing them and improving them. But this is no peculiarly American preoccupation. Not only the New Testament, but Jesus himself speaks repeatedly of wealth and poverty, and a good deal of the morality which our Lord teaches refers to this question of possessions.

I

Let us begin with our own experience. What are possessions to us? We must say two things: they are a great burden but a greater blessing. We can sum up their way of burdening us in two words: care and responsibilities.

Possessions of every kind are a care. There is the problem of securing and paying for them which in our credit-happy society can go on and on and on. There is the further problem of keeping them useful, keeping them in repair. The refrigerator refuses to work. The house needs another paint job. In the car motor there is an ominous plunk, plunk. Our possessions cause us so much care, so much worry and thought and time.

In addition, possessions are a serious responsibility. A person who has things cannot be indifferent to his neighbors. Whatever wealth he has imposes on him the task of using it well, not only for himself, but for his neighbors.

This is the basic law of every society, whether that of the pigmies of Africa or the ancient Chinese. An Indian has received his wealth from an environment and land, a situation which properly belongs to all the people of his tribe or nation. It is his private property only in a temporary and relative and minor sense. And if it means the preservation of the life of the people as a whole, his society will take his so-called property away from him without a moment’s hesitation. The pigmy with his hut on a hill that is needed for observing possible enemy attacks loses his hut. The American businessman with his factory along the approved route of a superhighway loses his factory. The reason behind this practice is clear in every human society throughout history: in the last and final analysis, possessions are to help and nourish the common life in which each individual shares.

Therefore, a person with possessions not only feels care, he also feels responsibility. With his $50,000 house and three cars and swimming pool, he cannot be indifferent to the hungry and the destitute. His wealth imposes a special obligation on him. As we have found out from the experience of the peace corps, when rich parents do not feel this responsibility, their children do. And we know how the feeling of guilt over the way their families have been with their wealth has driven many a young man or woman into the peace corps.

These, then, are the burdens. Yet however severe they may be at times, everyone seems to agree that it is better to have possessions than not to have them. In other words, wealth is a blessing, and whatever anxieties and torments and responsibilities and guilt wealth may bring, at least it keeps us from a worse evil, the evil of poverty.

Behind the experience of all men with their possessions stands this fear of poverty. Why? Why are men afraid of it? The answer’s obvious: frustration, fear and shame. To be poor means to be incapable of getting what you want. You don’t have the means to realize your will, to achieve your values. Poverty means frustration, and it means all those diseases of the soul which arise from frustration—spite and envy against others who are more fortunate, self-pity towards oneself.

To be poor also means to be helpless in the face of threatening circumstances. It means to be unable to pay a taxi and get to work during a transit strike. It means to be unable to hire a lawyer to sue to recover damages from someone who has cheated you. It means to be unable to travel to Nevada for a divorce, or to Texas for that special heart operation needed to save your life. Poverty means fear, not momentary fear now and then, but the constant dread of knowing that there are no resources to fall back on, no financial cushion to claim the help of experts, knowing that with the least shift of circumstances you will go under and drown.

To be poor means, finally, to have nothing of benefit for others. It means not to be wanted or needed by other people. Who needs a poor man? Wherever he goes, he sees hostility and distress in the eyes of those who meet him. He begs from them, and they are confused, or sympathetic, or scornful. As long as he is not working, or at least trying to work, as long as he is not trying to be rich like everybody else, people put a wall between him and themselves. And he is utterly unable to do anything for them so as to claim their respect.

Poverty means shame, that dreadful shame which arises from a failure that cannot be concealed from others. These are the three dreadful faces of poverty: frustration, fear and shame. And whatever cares or responsibilities wealth may bring, to most people it seems like a picnic compared to poverty.

It can be said, therefore, that men love their possessions. But that is not really accurate. For it is not so much the positive goodness which lies in things that makes people cling to their possessions. It is rather the power of wealth to keep the evils of poverty away.

Wealth saves us—that is what we know. Therefore when we pray, O Lord, Deliver us from evil [Matthew 6:13], we probably mean, O Lord, give us the right possession to keep evil away. Give us money in the savings account when the accident occurs. Give us a fire extinguisher in the basement when the fire breaks out. Give us the right drug when our loved ones are sick. O Lord, give us that which will deliver us from the evil and helplessness of being poor.

I have been speaking mainly of physical possessions. But all of this is even more true of spiritual possessions—of the virtue we may have or knowledge, or integrity, or vivacity. These, too, must be maintained with care and involve responsibilities. But these, too, keep us from an even more dreadful poverty than a lack of physical possessions.

II

Let us now look at the New Testament, to see what light it throws on the problem of possessions and poverty.

We can begin with the passage by Paul read as our morning lesson. Paul is speaking about the cross, about the fact that Christians celebrate Jesus’s gruesome crucifixion as if it were a victory, an event of power and joy.

Paul observes that this makes no sense to the wor1d, which cannot imagine why people should celebrate a death, and a death by being victimized.

“Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” [1 Corinthians 1:20, RSV]. Human values and human wisdom simply collapse in the face of the horror and scandal of Jesus’s death.

Paul’s point is clear. The world judges everything according as it enhances man, or assists man, or improves man, or appreciates man. That is the wisdom of the world. And what are we confronted with in the cross of Jesus? No enhancement of man, no giving assistance to man, no improvement of man, no appreciation of man.

Do not imagine the cross as some kind of moral exercise by Jesus, where he exercises his virtues and displays his human goodness. Jesus died—he died all the way; he was not playing moral games. And because he died, it is impossible to look upon the cross as some new display of human possibility. And that, Paul says, is what shocks the world: that in the crucifixion, Christians should celebrate not Christ’s virtue, not his forebearance on his enemies, not his courage, but his death, which shows that all these virtures went for nothing.

Then Paul turns to the people to whom he writes and reminds them that they, too, in their own experience repeat just what is found in the cross. “Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth” (1 Corinthians 1:26).1 In short, not many were rich. “For,” Paul continues,

God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (1 Corinthians 1:27–29, RSV)

Note carefully, Paul does not say, God shamed the wise and the strong and the real2 by giving his followers more wisdom, more strength and more reality, so that they could meet the world on its own terms and beat the world all [hollow ?]. Just like the crucified Christ, the Christians were and still are foolish and weak and, as it were, nothings in the world’s terms. They were, and they remain poor.

In this passage, of course, Paul is really elaborating a theme in Jesus’s own teaching. Here is the account from Mark 10:17–27:

And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have observed from my youth.” And Jesus looking upon him loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” At that saying his countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.