some of you, the conventional and very imposing labels that have been given them. But behind the labels there are defensive works behind which in turn we want to hide and protect ourselves from the scares of life.
There is the cosmological argument; we live in a cosmos, an ordered universe so complete and connected that we cannot but believe that it was put together by an infinite mind, which planned and still controls its beautifully integrated parts. Really? Yes, the solar system works pretty well; it has worked with mathematical regularity throughout my lifetime, and will, no doubt, manage to work a few years yet for the benefit of you younger people. But what do I care about the solar system? Like Sherlock Holmes, I don’t much care whether the earth goes around the sun or the sun around the earth; it comes to much the same thing either way. I want a different order than that, and of all the contradictions of order that I see is not the Cross the greatest?
The same thing goes for the teleological argument. Everything contributes to the great goal and has a purpose; and there must be one who forms the goal and works towards the purpose. The higher you move through the forces of life, the harder it is to see the purpose. Suffering of any kind is contradiction enough, but the suffering, the crucifixion of the innocent will knock the stuffings out of any kind of purpose.
And the moral argument—the poor relation because the adjective was only two syllables instead of five or six? This suffers most of all. For the moral argument means there is a voice, a voice of conscience, that cries within me “I ought”; and the Cross means for me and my fellows that the voice cries, “I ought, but I jolly well won’t”; I won’t deny myself, won’t give up my pleasures and ambitions for the likes of him. But we are coming to the positive side of what Paul says. He determines, as he brings the Gospel, to strange, heathen, idolatrous, immoral Corinth to know nothing except Christ crucified.
CHRIST CRUCIFIED
A theme in two words; but each of them must be worked out. They are our own themes today. Christ—Paul does not say Jesus, and this I think is no accident. No one can understand the message of Christ, Messiah crucified, unless someone tells him something about the Old Testament, about a God who has been ceaselessly at work in history. He called one man, Abraham, made him promises, offered him an inheritance, and Abraham took him at his word, trusted him, believed him, and God said “That’s what I want, I want a person who will trust me. That’s what’s right.” Abraham isn’t perfect, he is going to do some odd things, passing his wife off as his sister, and so on; but this is the kind of man I can work with. And the story went on.
God active in history, God when humans often destroyed and defiled, often misunderstood, often forgotten but just occasionally really trusted, really looked to for pardon and for guidance. And he made his plan of putting together all his purposes for his people through this people, to the whole of humanity, in a unique person who would make him known to all the world—his Christ. God, not content with the obscurities of nature, not working in history with men and women who grasped little pieces of the truth, and with some successes and many failures lived them out.
And, says Paul, this is the man I am talking about. He has come. “Fine,” says the crowd, “and has he won his victories? Are you telling me that he is on his way from the beach at Corinth with his troops?” “No, as a matter of fact he is dead.” “What, the whole thing a failure?” “No, as a matter of fact he is alive.” The whole story is there, and you will not expect us to tell it in all its details. The suffering and death of the innocent is no new problem; human beings have wrestled with it as long as there has been a moral conscience in the world. How can God allow such things, we ask if we are religious people and we are right to ask it if we are to take seriously our belief in the love of God. But there is a harder question here. For this is a suffering, a death, that God did not merely allow, he caused it, he willed it.
•
“WISDOM”—1 Corinthians 2.6
[Preached twice, once on 8/31/03 at Bishop Auckland, and once at Elvet 5/29/05]
Wisdom is a very important biblical concept, so important in the Old Testament that I hardly dare to speak about it here where your minister knows so much more about the Old Testament than I do. The word is important not only in the Old Testament itself but in the Ancient Near East at large, among all those nations by which Israel was surrounded. We can start there, because there Wisdom is something we can understand. I don’t think I am modernizing too much if I say that it serves as a kind of guide to the Civil Service Examinations. How do you get into the Civil Service? And having got in, how do you get on and climb up the ladder until you emerge somewhere near or at the top? Wisdom belongs to the court, because the King is the fount of Wisdom. There is a touch of religion here, for the King has it because he is at least a semi-divine person. But he needs advisers who are on the same wavelength.
This was something that the Jewish court could take over, and it did, so that you will find pieces of advice in Proverbs that have parallels elsewhere. No worse for that, they are only common sense, but there is not much wrong with common sense. Thus—you should keep good company. “My son if sinners entice thee, heed these not. If they say ‘Come with us, let us lay in wait for blood’ . . . walk not thou in the way with them.” “Pay your debt promptly. Say not to your neighbor ‘Go and come again and tomorrow I will give’” (3.28). “Work hard. Go to the ant there, sluggard. Consider her ways and be wise” (5.6). “Above all, avoid the lures of the wicked woman. Let not your heart incline to her ways . . . her house is the way to the grave” (7.25–27).
There is much value in this simple moral wisdom, public figures would do well to give heed to it today. An Old Testament book may properly reproduce it. But Proverbs will do more. The supreme King is God, and people must enter his service. Common sense may still be applied. “A good man shall obtain favor of the Lord. But a man of wicked desires he will condemn” (12.20). And so on. There is no time for more of this, for this is only the introduction. My first question is what happens when wisdom fails?
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WISDOM FAILS?
What happens when you follow all the rules and do not get to the top of the tree? Or worse still, you get to the top of the tree, and the branch on which you are sitting breaks? The higher you have climbed, the harder the bump when you come down to earth. We can all think of examples, but the classic picture is in the Old Testament itself.
Job was the greatest of all the children of the East. Fantastically rich, not of course in pounds and pence (or even euros), he had 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 1,000 oxen, 500 she-asses. He also had a large and happy family—seven sons, three daughters. And the sons took it in turns to give the whole family a pleasant night out. What more could anyone want? This was the top of the tree. Then as you know the fall from the topmost branch.
The Sabeans have taken the oxen and asses. The fire of God consumed the sheep. The Chaldeans had taken the camels. A great wind has destroyed the house where the sons and daughters were eating and drinking, and it has killed the sons and daughters. What more? This: Job himself is stricken with a horrid disease. He has boils all over his body. There are no antibiotics and he is reduced to scraping himself with a potsherd. What price wisdom here? A wisdom that will cope with all the questions in the exam paper or at the interview is one thing. This situation requires something more. Where can you find such wisdom? This is where I should like to read you one of the most wonderful pieces of English literature. This is time only for bits of it.
There is a mine for silver and a place where gold is refined.Iron is taken from the earth,and copper is smelted from ore . . .The earth, from which food comes,is transformed below as by fire . . .No bird of prey knows that hidden path,no falcon’s eye has seen it.But where can wisdom be found?Where does understanding dwell?No mortal comprehends its worth;it cannot be found in the land of the living. . ..Destruction and Death say,“Only a rumor of it has reached our ears”.
