I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.
1 Corinthians 1:19
This passage from First Corinthians sounds like a policy statement from our sitting president, but is attributed to none other than God. In fact, as we read the bible, God as God and in the human form of Jesus makes a habit of speaking in ways that contradict our sense of logic and reason. Yet, we shouldn’t be surprised by this as our lives are filled with paradoxes and seeming contradictions.
In Nicaragua in the 1980s, armed soldiers in uniform were present everywhere I went as the country was at war. Yet when I spoke with soldiers, though they knew that my government was sponsoring the military force against whom they fought, they not only treated me kindly, but asked me to tell people at home that they wanted peace.
On the other hand, I will never forget the shy, innocent-seeming teen-aged young woman whom, over time, I learned had stood vigil at night, protecting the village’s crops from being set ablaze by Contra soldiers, and firing the AK47 rifle which she carried at would-be arsonists when necessary.
Those trained to fight sought peace; those whom seem innocent were trained to fight.
Few would argue with the bravery of soldiers in combat, or the bravery of a teen-aged girl charged with protecting her village’s food supply against armed intruders in the dead of night, for that matter. The question of whether violence ever makes us safer is less clear-cut. If we don’t respond to protect the targets of violence, are we passively participating in a form of violence ourselves? Is pacifism a luxury which only those who feel no real threat to themselves can proclaim? Yet how can responding to violence with violence lead to anything but more violence? As someone who advocates non-violence, these questions are a continual cause for discernment. Life is full of paradoxes.
Later in First Corinthians 1 we’re told that God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength, and that 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.
And in this lies our hope: While there’s a lot we will never understand and will remain forever a paradox to us, God’s ways are not our own, and God’s wisdom, beyond our comprehension, is immeasurably greater than ours. If we are to find a “safe space,” it will be found in giving up our desire for safety, and trusting that God’s justice has already been won. It is in embracing this paradox that we will be set free from our fears, safe in the midst of present danger.
Henri Nouwen said it better than I can:
In Christ, human suffering and pain have already been accepted and suffered; in him our broken humanity has been reconciled and led into the intimacy of the relationship between the Father [sic] and the Son. Our action, therefore, must be understood as a discipline by which we make visible what has already been accomplished. Such action is based on the faith that we walk on solid ground even when we are surrounded by chaos, confusion, violence, and hatred.
From Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life, 1983.
Dear God, may we be brave enough to give up our safety, secure that we are safe in the victory you have already won. Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms…