When I was a teenager and in youth group, my, very scripture-heavy tradition, we would go and compete, sometimes twice a year in what was called a “Bible Bowl.” Now some of y’all probably did something very similar, a Sword Drill, or other names it is known by, but for us, it was a very intense thing. Here, we were asked a series of Bible questions based on one book of the Bible, and I was terrible at it, no matter how much I read or reread the assigned book of the Bible. What I do remember, however, is all the group T-shirts that we would wear. I remember one year, we had this lime-green colored one that simply said, “I am a fool for Christ” on the back, and at the time I didn’t quite get it.
In our Epistle lesson today, we continue to hear Paul’s preamble to the church at Corinth. Now, let me say something about Paul. Because one does not grow up in a church that goes to a Bible Bowl twice a year and not come away with some baggage about how Saint Paul, the author of the majority of our New Testament, has been interpreted and applied through the history of the church. In fact, it is later in 1st Corinthians that a verse about women being silent is often used to silence women in religious spaces, divorcing it from the context of the whole letter. I have a hard-won love for the writings of Saint Paul, as they were often used to subjugate, silence, or threaten me within churches that failed to love me as much as I loved them. There are some folks who choose to ignore Paul’s works because of the ways in which they have been used against them, but it is important to me, especially when I preach on them, to name that I did not come to this place easily, without intent, or without God’s unrelenting grace (about which Paul speaks beautifully of in Romans ch. 8).
Today, though, we hear Paul address the church at Corinth as they have started to have fractures within themselves. Alliances have started to pop up, and sides are starting to be taken. “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.” The folks in the church are shouting about who did their baptism, and probably why their baptism is better than another’s, and Paul writes to them, imploring them to united and for there to be no divisions. And if we aren’t careful, especially in our current age, there is a risk to hear Paul saying that we should all be a homogonous blend. That we should all dull down our prickly bits or stifle what makes us unique, or maybe even that we should at all agree about everything without disagreement.
But that is not what Paul is saying or what is desirable about a faith community, nor is it remotely possible with other human beings. What Paul is saying here is that there is one goal for the church at Corinth, and thus for St. John’s, Corbin, St. Mary’s, Middlesboro, and Christ Church, Harlan, and that is that the gathering of differently abled and gifted individuals called to community works toward one common goal, and the rest work in support of that main goal. That main goal is simply the foolishness of the cross. Paul says, “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
The power of God. Let me tell you something. I’ve done a lot of reflecting on the foolishness of the cross in the past few days. I’ve thought about Jonathon Merrick Daniels, an Episcopal seminarian who answered Martin Luther King, Jr’s call for students and clergy to come join the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. He was so convicted by this week of work and prayer, that he delayed his seminary studies to work full time for equal rights in Alabama and in the United States. That summer, he was killed in plain sight, as he pushed Ruby Sales, 17 at the time, out of the line of a rifle aimed directly at her. He was killed instantly. King said of Daniels, it was “one of the most heroic Christian deeds of which I have heard in my entire ministry.” Daniels was a fool for Christ.
And I’ve been thinking about the power of God and the foolishness of the cross, and Bishop Craig Loya and my friends in the Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota. Bishop Loya put out a call for clergy to come, if they could come safely, to be with those who needed peace watchers in Minneapolis. They guarded, protected, and delivered food, and walked with people to daycare in their city. Last night, Bishop Loya put out a statement in light of yet another federal agent shooting a protestor. It started, “My fellow Americans. Things are as bad as they seem.” He goes on to describe the horrors happening on the streets in Minneapolis, the difficulty of showing up to bring light to darkness, and the gratitude for the way in which the clergy around the diocese, the Episcopal Church and other traditions have responded. And he ends his statement by saying,
“The greatest danger we face right now is not the very real threat to our safety. It is not even the erosion of democracy. The greatest threat we face as a nation is the assault being waged on hope. We must not give in to despair. We must not be consumed by the very justified anger we feel. The only way hatred can be effectively resisted is doubling down on love. The only way darkness can be defeated is light. The only way the forces of death can be overcome is by embracing every moment of every day. God’s unstoppable life.”1
Bishop Loya is a fool for Christ.
Our gospel lesson today refers to a prophecy from Isaiah, that “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” My friends, as we continue in this life, embracing each day as fools for Christ, leaning on the power of God, my encouragement is that we do not fear the darkness. Not because it is not something to fear, because it certainly is, but because we, to those on the outside, we are fools for Christ. We are not afraid, not because we know what to do or because we know it will turn out okay, but because we believe wholly and fully in the unrelenting hope of the resurrection, of the foolishness of the cross, and of the power of God. Amen.
A sermon delivered by Zoom to the people of the Southern Tier Faith Communities of the Diocese of Lexington (St. Johns, Corbin; St. Mary’s, Middlesboro; Christ Church, Harlan) on 1 Corinthians 1:10-18 for Epiphany 3A on January 25, 2026
Becca Kello 