The foolishness of God

By Tyler Tankersley

Recently, on an episode of The View, Joy Behar caused quite a stir. Vice President Mike Pence had made the comment that when he makes consequential decisions he talks to Jesus and he also said that he sometimes hears responses from Christ. Behar mocked Pence and likened hearing from Jesus to "mental illness."

Behar's comments were insensitive and ignorant. However, what caught most of my attention, was the utter outrage I witnessed coming from people of faith. My social media pages were filled with Christians who seemed shocked and offended at Joy Behar's comments. They somehow seemed surprised that prayer was being mocked. Should this really have surprised us?

In his first letter to the Corinthian Christians, the Apostle Paul wrote: "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" (1 Corinthians 1:18). The citizens of Corinth were known to be people who highly valued honor, power, wealth, and social prestige. To devote one's life to the shamed, humble, poor, and crucified Jesus of Nazareth would have seemed to them to be a futile waste of time.

Paul was encouraging the church in Corinth to remember that their faith is not meant to make any rational sense of the world. Therefore, Christians ought not to be caught off guard when their faith and practices are met with ridicule and criticism.

In fact, what can concern me with the modern Church today is the attempt to someone gain political or social prestige in our world. Some Christians think what they are called to do is to attempt to thrust Christian people, morals, and policies into the governmental and social institutions of our world. I understand that impulse, but I think Paul's words can be instructive for us.

The call to follow the crucified Savior, in my estimation, means that we should care less about whether prayer is mocked and instead focus our attention on actually seeking God's will through prayer. It means that we should care less about having our religious perspective forced on children at public schools and instead focus on our kids seeing us allowing our faith to shape us into better neighbors. It means that we should care less about a political candidate's shallow faith and instead focus on our own path of discipleship as we seek "to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8).

Mike Pence's spiritual practice of prayer made no sense to Joy Behar. And why should it? Perhaps instead of spending our time expelling anger on moral outrage, people of faith should have just shrugged their shoulders, smirked, and kept bringing out the kingdom of God. Because, after all, "God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength" (1 Corinthians 1:25).