Foolish Faith Trusts - I Corinthians 1: 26-31 - October 19, 2008 - Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

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Not too long ago, I sat down and calculated what my retirement income might be if I retired in ten years, at the age of 66. I confidently said to Sharon, "You know. I think we'd be alright. That might be a good age for me to shoot for:' Then a couple weeks back, I read some of the financial headlines in the news, and I thought to myself, "Hmmm. That could affect me. Maybe I'll end up preaching a couple years longer than I thought:' Then a couple days later, the news got a little worse, and I thought, "Maybe even a couple years longer." And of course, even in the last week, things have gotten more shaky on Wall Street. I now anticipate retiring at the age of 102.

Actually, the pension plan that you all provide, and for which I and my colleagues are very grateful, is doing fine. But aren't we all feeling a little less secure than we did a month ago? Analysts differ on just how to define or to assess the future impact of what our economy is going through right now, but most of them agree that something has profoundly changed. Most agree that the sky isn't falling; we're not going down the tubes. Things will bounce back. But they also say there are some things that are probably affected forever. The age of bottomless borrowing we've gotten used to may be over. (Did you know that the average American household now has 13 credit cards, and balances on 40% of them? That will have to change, say economists.) Government will not be able to run on an endless stream of borrowed cash. The U.S. economy will be viewed differently now by the rest of the world, we're told. And, at least if our state attorney general has anything to say about it, some corporate executives won't be taking quite so many expensive junkets and trips on the corporate dime - which, after the recent government buy-out measures, might very well be your dime and mine.

I don't think all those are bad changes. A little more Spend As You Go, and a little less Borrow Whenever You Want, is a good change for all of us. A little more restraint on the part of the very wealthy might be a good reality check. A little more humility by our nation in working with other nations has probably been needed for a while. And, as we saw in the government's response to the Wall Street crisis, a lot more cooperation in Washington to get things done may be a good change.

Now, I'm no expert on this economic stuff - I'm just Joe the Preacher - but there's a sermon dying to be preached here. And it flows right out of this morning's scripture lesson. As you may know, the theme for this group of sermons is "Foolish Faith," the key teacher about that is the apostle Paul, and the key scripture is I Corinthians 1, where Paul writes these words to us this morning: "Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human 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 chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus....."

When I hear those words, the question that cries out is, "Who do you trust?" We talk about security a lot these days - social security, national security, personal security - and that's a good thing to talk about. But it's an important thing to keep in perspective, because our attitudes about security have changed a lot just in the lifespan of many of us here today. In some ways, security has become a god that we worship.

Consider a recent article by a man named Robb Moretti - this will make some of us cringe, but that's because of the way our attitudes have changed. Some of what he talks about would be considered a modern parent's nightmare. He says that his generation was the last one to grow up without a 'childproof safety net.' He was born in 1954, he writes, and brought home from the hospital in the middle of a violent rainstorm - there were no seat belts, no carseats. His mother held him in the front seat in her arms. Today that would be unthinkable. As a child he slept in a crib with no padded bumpers, and there is a snapshot of him happily standing in the crib with his head between the bars. He wore non-flame-retardant pajamas. His mother used to laugh and tell the story of how he learned about electricity by sticking a toy in an open light socket. The family car was a big Chrysler with a big back window ledge, and at five or six years old he loved to ride on the ledge. He writes, "1 was a projectile object waiting to happen!" It's not like there were no safety measures. When Mom or Dad slammed on the brakes, they automatically threw their right arm across the passenger's seat. He writes about being left in the car while his mother went in the store - doors unlocked and keys in the ignition. He roamed freely around his neighborhood, his parents enjoyed the silence not knowing where he was. No bike helmets, no crossing guards, hard, dangerous monkey bars with exposed bolts and nuts on the playground. Moretti's list goes on and on. He often came home at might with bruises and scratches.

He acknowledges that there were probably good reasons to change all that. But he also writes, a little sadly... we were the last generation to live on the edge and, I believe, to have fun." We know that safety and security are essential things, whether you're talking about parenting, or life in general. It certainly makes sense to cover as many bases as possible.

What happens though, is that security becomes a god. And anything becoming a god is trouble - but especially if it's an illusion. We seem to strive for a bubble-wrapped life. Robb Moretti brings up the first problem with that - and that is that it might be no fun. We could take every conceivable danger out of our lives, and then discover that there's not much worthwhile left to protect.

But the other problem is that we can't do it. Total security is an illusion. It's like the man who bought a wristwatch, and his friend said, "Where's your new watch?" The man said, "I threw it away." His friend said, "What'd you throw it away for? 1 thought it was rustproof, waterproof, dustproof, and shockproof." And the man said, "It was. But it caught on fire." No matter how many -proofs we invest in, we can't totally secure our lives. We might trust in our defenses, but 9-11 still happened. We might trust in our surveillance system, but it still got it wrong on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And we might trust in an economic philosophy - but eventually it will come up short. These are all great institutions, and many times they will seem to reward our trust. But they are all human creations, and what Paul called, in the accepted non-inclusive language of his time, the 'foolishness of man.' And again - these things prove foolish not because there is no value or reason in them; they prove foolish because we come to believe that they are foolproof, and will always protect us from harm.

There is not a single earthly entity that can fulfill that claim. But there is security.

And this is where biblical faith is such a powerful guide. The people of every biblical age knew that life is precarious. They saw the same tendencies we see - to rely on economic, government, or military systems. And they saw those systems fall. Those folks witnessed the downfall of systems that had stood centuries longer than anything you and I are familiar with. They understood how precarious life and anything around us is.

But they found security - and the security was in faith. They understood the difference between being safe and being secure. Their lives were not safe. They were beset by many dangers. But they were secure in their faith, and so they could live in freedom and security. Some call them foolish, but they knew where to put their trust.

I was looking at pictures of early Christian drawings. Quite often, there are depictions of persecution and danger. There are pictures of people burning at the stake, or facing wild animals. And there may be some exceptions to this, but again and again you see the expression on the faces of these victims of vicious persecution - and they are not expressions of torment or fear. They are expressions of serenity and trust. These people didn't expect safety - in fact, they knew their faith would put them in unsafe situations. But they were secure because they trusted that God was more powerful than any human entity. They had foolish faith, and that meant that they trusted what the apostle Paul taught - this is my paraphrase of I Corinthians 1: 27: that God would use what appeared foolish to show the truth about what is taken to be worldly wisdom. That God would take what appears weak in the world to show what is false about earthly strength.

In the same way, we're called to trust God in uncertain times. It's a time to make wise decisions; for most of us, it's a time to pull in a little. But it is not a time for fear; God is strong and faith can see us through this and every storm. In our individual lives, in our church, in our families - God provides. Not without some sweat and worry on our parts; not without some hard times. But God is our security system - and, in the end, we are in good hands.

Just one more thing 1'd like to share - some advice that someone sent to me: "Do not ride in automobiles: they cause 20% of all fatal accidents. Do not stay home: 17% of all accidents occur there. Do not walk on the streets or sidewalks: 14% of all accidents happen to pedestrians. Do not travel by air, rail, or water: 16% of all accidents happen on these. Only .001 % of all fatalities occur in worship services at church, and these are almost always related to previous physical disorders. Hence, the safest place for you to be at any time is church."  I'll see you next Sunday.