I was struck, again, by the text of today’s reading in the
French Prions en Eglise, which really
is very powerful, and also touched by one of the commentaries on it, which
seemed to me extremely perceptive. (I have retranslated the Pauline passage
from the French, because it comes across strongly that way, but not without
rechecking it against a few English versions and the Greek.)
“Brothers, Christ did not send me to baptise but to announce
the Gospel, and that without having recourse to the language of human wisdom,
which would make vain the cross of Christ. For the language of the cross is
folly to those who perish, but to those who are saved, to us, it is the power
of God. Indeed, the Scripture says, I
will make the wisdom of the wise to perish, and the intelligence of the
intelligent I will reject. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe?
Where is the rational man of earth? As for the wisdom of the world, has God not
made it folly? Indeed, since -- by a disposition of God’s wisdom -- the world, with
all its wisdom, was not able to recognise God, it has pleased God to save
those who believe by the folly that is the proclamation of the Gospel. While
the Jews demand miracles and the Greeks look for wisdom, we proclaim a Messiah crucified: a scandal for the Jews,
a folly for the pagans. But for those whom God calls, whether Jews or Greeks,
this Messiah, this Christ, is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the
folly of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1Corinthians 1: 17-25)
Commentary by
Roselyne Dupont-Roc, Hellenist and Bible scholar:
The text operates a series of reversals, from folly to a
higher wisdom, from weakness to a higher strength. This reversal Paul had
himself experienced on the road: an encounter had made the persecutor, sure of
his rights and of his power, into the passionate disciple of the Crucified,
announcing the Good News in the midst of the dangers and the sufferings of the
voyage.
How can one say, faced with the Cross, that object of horror and disgust, that the wisdom of God and his power are at work? Only, surely, by experiencing in our deepest self that His love comes to us and sustains us in our distress and anguish, and by bearing witness toward those who have not known this experience, through an attentive and loving accompaniment of their crucified lives.
How can one say, faced with the Cross, that object of horror and disgust, that the wisdom of God and his power are at work? Only, surely, by experiencing in our deepest self that His love comes to us and sustains us in our distress and anguish, and by bearing witness toward those who have not known this experience, through an attentive and loving accompaniment of their crucified lives.
Image: the Crucifixion, from the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald (ca. 1470-1528)
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