Looking Ahead to February 5, 2023 -- 5th Sunday After Epiphany

 This being the first Sunday of February we will be celebrating the sacrament of Communion.

This week we continue our exploration of the first few chapters of Paul's letter to the church in Corinth as we read all of 1 Corinthians 2.

The Sermon title is Hidden Wisdom

Early Thoughts: At the end of Chapter 1 Paul talked about the foolishness of the Christian message. In Chapter 2 he starts to talk about wisdom (indeed in the NRSVue most of the chapter is under a heading "The True Wisdom of God").

I have come to believe that the deepest, truest wisdom in life is usually a little bit hidden. It has to be sought out, explored. It doesn't just fall into our laps.

I have come to believe that the deepest, truest wisdom in life often challenges "what we all know". It comes with a different look at things. It makes us question the way things are, the way things "have always been".

So it is with the wisdom of God, the wisdom of Christ. It comes through different paths than "common sense". [And as mentioned last week it often is not common sense when it does arrive.] It comes from opening ourselves to the movement of the Holy Spirit. It comes when we are open to other possibilities than worldly/fleshy/human wisdom.

I truly believe that this true, deep wisdom is life-transforming -- maybe even world transforming -- in ways that worldly/fleshy/human wisdom is not.  That is why we seek it out, because we want to be transformed. It is, as Narnia's Aslan might say, Deep Magic from the depths of time. It may get applied in different ways in different eras and contexts but the wisdom runs deeper than any particular example (all good wisdom does, I think).

Will we search for the true, deep, transformative wisdom of God?
--Gord