On the foolishness we are called to

This week, we did something a little different: we actually met in our classroom at the CEA Global Campus. This gave us an opportunity to explore Paul's first letter to the Corinthians in a little more depth than we are able to do on site visits.

One theme that we spent some time on, however is the contrast between worldly wisdom and divine wisdom, worldly power and divine power:

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 Cor 1:22-25)

Rome is such a wonderful place to consider human wisdom and power and its divine counterparts. It is also a strange place to do so. What changes when the Pantheon (originally built to honor all the Roman gods) is rededicated as Santa Maria ad Martyres? The two most tempting answers are "everything" and "nothing but a name," I think. The latter is far too cynical. The Roman gods, once called upon to protect Rome, bless her armies, and keep the city and the empire safe through a very "worldly" sort of power are far different from Mary and the martyrs, whose only real power is in their faith and their willingness to say yes to God regardless of the cost. And yet it is also true that many throughout the history of the Church and the empire have prayed and have acted precisely as though Christian saints and martyrs might intercede in exactly this way: blessing armies and swords with an extra dose of worldly power and might.

The foolishness of God, it seems to me, was to become human not as some powerful king or emperor, but as a low-born carpenter-turned-rabbi whose greatest power lay in his submission to the will of the Father, and to those who would execute him. Sorting through, however, what then counts as foolishness or wisdom for those who would follow him is no easier nor harder today than 19 centuries ago, nor in Rome than in Providence.