Sermon: God's wisdom is foolishness to the world
Sunday 29th July 2018. Theme: “God’s wisdom is foolishness to the world.” Sermon by Manuel Sieunarine.
Hymns: #677 “My Faith Looks Up To Thee”; #231 “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross”; #672 “Jesus Calls Us O’er The Tumult”; #650: “He Leadeth Me”
---------------------------------------------------------
Proverbs 9:1-12 Invitations of Wisdom and Folly
9 Wisdom has built her house;
she has set up its seven pillars.
2 She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;
she has also set her table.
3 She has sent out her servants, and she calls
from the highest point of the city,
4 “Let all who are simple come to my house!”
To those who have no sense she says,
5 “Come, eat my food
and drink the wine I have mixed.
6 Leave your simple ways and you will live;
walk in the way of insight.”
7 Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults;
whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse.
8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you;
rebuke the wise and they will love you.
9 Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still;
teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.
10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
11 For through wisdom your days will be many,
and years will be added to your life.
12 If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you;
if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer.
---------------------------------------------------------
1 Corinthians 1:17-31 Christ Crucified Is God’s Power and Wisdom
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel-not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
---------------------------------------------------------
Good morning. Today’s theme is, “God’s wisdom is foolishness to the world.” Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable to You, O Christ, our Strength and our Redeemer, amen. The New Testament reading today is from Paul, who wrote the first letter to the Corinthians when he found out things were going wrong in that church. The church was divided on the matter of leadership, for example. The first thing Paul points out is that the church follows Christ; the church does not follow anyone or anything else. The church does not follow a set of teachings; the church does not follow a guiding principle, and the church certainly does not follow the times; the church only follows Jesus. We are the church. We preach that Jesus is Lord and we obey Him alone. We therefore must interpret the entirety of human existence through the fact that Jesus is Lord. Let us explore what this means.
To begin with, the Old Testament reading from Proverbs was written in a time where foolishness and wisdom were not merely states of mind but a matter of moral principle. It was immoral to be foolish back then and moral to be wise. In Proverbs chapter 9, wisdom and foolishness are personified as two women, two hosts who each invites everyone into their homes for a meal. The outcome is that those who dine with wisdom are rewarded and those who dine with foolishness suffer.
The complete opposite appears to be happening in the world today. It seems that the most foolish people get their way and the wisest people are generally ignored. This is because Jesus does not yet rule over the Earth. His time, His reign has not yet come. Thankfully, the truth does not change because God does not change; Jesus is the truth, and He is the same yesterday, today and forever. The reading from Proverbs warns us that there is no true satisfaction to be found in whatever rewards this world gives you. You may achieve great things, you may conquer nations and elicit praise from the highest echelons of power, but you won’t be satisfied because this world is not the ultimate reality. The reading says that being obedient to the Lord is true wisdom, and knowing Him is true understanding. If wisdom is its own reward, then our relationship with God is our reward, and it is the only real satisfaction we can attain. So then, how do we enter into a relationship with a deity? How can we, a sinful people, possibly find common ground with a holy being?
The New Testament reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians outlines clearly how it is possible to reconcile ourselves with God: it is Christ the Son who brings us back to God the Father. We can do nothing but believe in Jesus. Paul said that we have no power, no authority, no leverage in this relationship whatsoever; we only have the Cross. We only have grace. The Cross and Christ crucified are God’s wisdom because they reconcile humanity with God the Father. It is the wisdom of a parent, the head of the family looking after their children.
The world sees the Cross and divine grace as foolishness. No rational thought, no logical conclusion can ever arrive at the Cross. The world does not wish to be crucified because the world does not want to suffer and the world does not want to die, because the world believes that this life is all there is, and that death is the end. The world does not wish to receive grace because the world believes that actions should have consequences. The world would see the guilty punished for their crimes.
The only thing that brings people to the Cross is love. I support rational thinking and logical connections, but there are limits to science. No invention of the human mind can convince me to embrace the Cross as my salvation. No scientific approach can calculate the means by which I receive grace. These are powerful symbols of love. Love is divine, and nothing in the created order can comprehend it. We can only feel it, and express it in limited ways to others.
This is why the teachings of Jesus are radical. These teachings got Him into so much trouble with the Law that He was sentenced to death and executed. After three days He rose again to prove that His kingdom is a place where life can exist without dying. One of the stumbling blocks, as Paul said, is that people cannot rationalise a universe where there is no death. All of our accumulated data over the millennia suggests that death is necessary to balance the harmony of life. This is not what Christ represents. Jesus, by His ministry, crucifixion and resurrection, outright rejects the notion that death is necessary. Obviously, He is not of this world, but He is human. He cast His lot with us. He joined us here on Earth as a man who was born into a family, who grew up, felt emotions, made friends, rebelled against corrupt authority, suffered and died. Even though he was born a human being, death was not the end of His story, therefore death is not the end of our history.
We are inextricably connected to Christ. When we first rejected God, He could have wiped the slate clean and started over. Instead, He humbled Himself, descending from the Throne of Heaven to where we are on Earth because He wants us back. He did not reject our human condition; He embraced it forever; a human man now sits at God the Father’s right hand. In Jesus, the holiness of the Trinity and human nature are perfectly reconciled through His perfect obedience to God the Father. This is why we must interpret the totality of human existence through Christ; He is the manifest truth of our relationship with God. To interpret this life in other ways is unsatisfying. We think the human spirit - our intellect, emotions, fears, passions, and creativity - is so noble and good, but great men and women are satisfied with comforting lies. The human spirit is a dark mirror to the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from God the Father and His Son, who cannot be satisfied with delusions. How, then, do we go about removing falsehood and pointing ourselves and others to the truth embodied in Christ?
Continuing the New Testament reading, Paul admonishes the church at Corinth to consider their calling. First, he points out that the congregation is not especially gifted in the ways of the world - they do not possess superior intelligence, political power or wealth - but God the Father gave them to His Son Jesus for a specific purpose: to use the weakest, most marginalised people to proclaim the coming of His Kingdom, which will replace all the kingdoms of the Earth. There is poetry in God’s decision to use the weak to nullify the strong, for it proves - as the reading also says - that God’s weakness is greater than the world’s strength. Weak people who have the Holy Spirit are far more powerful than anything the sinful world can muster. These weak people have proclaimed the coming of God’s Kingdom for almost two thousand years, and it is our calling, too. We must, in every way, proclaim the coming of God’s Kingdom to anyone who will listen. We must not just use words, we must also take action.
Christ calls us to reach out to the marginalised; the disenfranchised; the people nobody wants. When the rest of the world sees us gathering up the outcasts, they will call us foolish. They will wonder why we are exposing ourselves to such dangerous people who will surely destroy us. They will sneer that the weak cannot help us, they cannot even help themselves. The reason we witness Christ to the dregs of the Earth is because the world rejected them! If the world rejected these people, whom shall they turn to but God? After all, Jesus is - as Paul says - “our righteousness, holiness and redemption”; we are not saved by our own merits, but by the grace of God. We do not look for our salvation on Earth, but there are millions of people who still search the Earth in vain for salvation every day. We must instead point them toward Jesus, who is Lord. Our righteousness is already in Heaven, therefore we can do anything God calls us to do in this world.
Caring for the least important people - the ‘lowborn’ - is the same as caring for Jesus, the King of kings. In Matthew 25:40, Jesus says, “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ The outcasts, the criminals, the unwanted, the physically and mentally disabled persons of this world need our care. When we move among them, we find Jesus already there, in their souls and in their lives. The world cannot understand this; it obeys the rule of survival of the fittest, while in God’s kingdom the opposite will happen. In Matthew 20:16 Jesus says, “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.”
When the church gains political, economic and social power in this world, is that correct? When people join the church because they hope to gain something materialistic or further extend their influence in this world, is that correct?
I do not know what calling you have received, dear brothers and sisters in Christ. I do not know what path God chose for you, but rest assured He will hold your hand in His every step of the journey. You must also hold His hand in yours, because you cannot do anything without Him. Have faith - that is, have trust and hope - in your Lord. He will calm your troubled sea. Whatever bumps and potholes you meet along your journey, you will always feel His love guiding you ever onward to the lost people of the world, whether they live here or in another country. Your calling will get you into trouble, whether with the Law or with the rulers of this world, but Jesus is, and always will be, Lord.
If you think that getting into legal trouble for Christ’s sake is a sin, consider this: in Trinidad and Tobago, we celebrate Emancipation Day on the 1st of August. Slavery was protected under the law for thousands of years. Innumerable people who fought for the basic human right of freedom were condemned in courts of law. Think about that.
Jesus is the ultimate reality, the flower of creation who began everything and will end everything. Place your trust in Him, and Him alone.
I would like to conclude with a story that many of you already know - the story of a painting auction entitled, “Who will take the son?”
A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often sit together and admire the great works of art.
When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war. He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.
About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the door. A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands.
He said, "Sir, you don't know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly. He often talked about you, and your love for art.”
The young man held out his package. "I know this isn't much. I'm not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this."
The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the personality of his son in the painting. The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own eyes welled up with tears.
He thanked the young man and offered to pay him for the picture. "Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. It's a gift."
The father hung the portrait over his mantle. Every time visitors came to his home he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected.
The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction of his paintings. Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection. On the platform sat the painting of the son.
The auctioneer pounded his gavel. "We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?"
There was silence. Then a voice in the back of the room shouted, "We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one."
But the auctioneer persisted, "Will someone bid for this painting? Who will start the bidding? $100, $200?"
Another voice shouted angrily, "We didn't come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Goghs, the Rembrandts. Get on with the real bids!"
But still the auctioneer continued, "The son! The son! Who will take the son?"
Finally, a voice came from the very back of the room. It was the longtime gardener of the man and his son. "I'll give $10 for the painting." Being a poor man, it was all he could afford.
"We have $10, who will bid $20?"
"Give it to him for $10. Let's see the masters."
"$10 is the bid, won't someone bid $20?"
The crowd was becoming angry. They didn't want the picture of the son. They wanted the more worthy investments for their collections. The auctioneer pounded the gavel. "Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!”
A man sitting on the second row shouted, "Now let's get on with the collection!"
The auctioneer laid down his gavel, "I'm sorry, the auction is over."
"What about the paintings?"
"I am sorry. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will. I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this time. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings. The man who took the son gets everything!"
Amen. Let us pray. God our Father, give us the grace to take your Son Jesus Christ into our hearts. Give us your peace when the world calls us fools for witnessing Him to others. Let us always seek Your wisdom, Your ways, and Your hand in ours. Amen.
Hymns: #677 “My Faith Looks Up To Thee”; #231 “When I Survey The Wondrous Cross”; #672 “Jesus Calls Us O’er The Tumult”; #650: “He Leadeth Me”
---------------------------------------------------------
Proverbs 9:1-12 Invitations of Wisdom and Folly
9 Wisdom has built her house;
she has set up its seven pillars.
2 She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;
she has also set her table.
3 She has sent out her servants, and she calls
from the highest point of the city,
4 “Let all who are simple come to my house!”
To those who have no sense she says,
5 “Come, eat my food
and drink the wine I have mixed.
6 Leave your simple ways and you will live;
walk in the way of insight.”
7 Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults;
whoever rebukes the wicked incurs abuse.
8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you;
rebuke the wise and they will love you.
9 Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still;
teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.
10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
11 For through wisdom your days will be many,
and years will be added to your life.
12 If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you;
if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer.
---------------------------------------------------------
1 Corinthians 1:17-31 Christ Crucified Is God’s Power and Wisdom
17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel-not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”
---------------------------------------------------------
Good morning. Today’s theme is, “God’s wisdom is foolishness to the world.” Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable to You, O Christ, our Strength and our Redeemer, amen. The New Testament reading today is from Paul, who wrote the first letter to the Corinthians when he found out things were going wrong in that church. The church was divided on the matter of leadership, for example. The first thing Paul points out is that the church follows Christ; the church does not follow anyone or anything else. The church does not follow a set of teachings; the church does not follow a guiding principle, and the church certainly does not follow the times; the church only follows Jesus. We are the church. We preach that Jesus is Lord and we obey Him alone. We therefore must interpret the entirety of human existence through the fact that Jesus is Lord. Let us explore what this means.
To begin with, the Old Testament reading from Proverbs was written in a time where foolishness and wisdom were not merely states of mind but a matter of moral principle. It was immoral to be foolish back then and moral to be wise. In Proverbs chapter 9, wisdom and foolishness are personified as two women, two hosts who each invites everyone into their homes for a meal. The outcome is that those who dine with wisdom are rewarded and those who dine with foolishness suffer.
The complete opposite appears to be happening in the world today. It seems that the most foolish people get their way and the wisest people are generally ignored. This is because Jesus does not yet rule over the Earth. His time, His reign has not yet come. Thankfully, the truth does not change because God does not change; Jesus is the truth, and He is the same yesterday, today and forever. The reading from Proverbs warns us that there is no true satisfaction to be found in whatever rewards this world gives you. You may achieve great things, you may conquer nations and elicit praise from the highest echelons of power, but you won’t be satisfied because this world is not the ultimate reality. The reading says that being obedient to the Lord is true wisdom, and knowing Him is true understanding. If wisdom is its own reward, then our relationship with God is our reward, and it is the only real satisfaction we can attain. So then, how do we enter into a relationship with a deity? How can we, a sinful people, possibly find common ground with a holy being?
The New Testament reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians outlines clearly how it is possible to reconcile ourselves with God: it is Christ the Son who brings us back to God the Father. We can do nothing but believe in Jesus. Paul said that we have no power, no authority, no leverage in this relationship whatsoever; we only have the Cross. We only have grace. The Cross and Christ crucified are God’s wisdom because they reconcile humanity with God the Father. It is the wisdom of a parent, the head of the family looking after their children.
The world sees the Cross and divine grace as foolishness. No rational thought, no logical conclusion can ever arrive at the Cross. The world does not wish to be crucified because the world does not want to suffer and the world does not want to die, because the world believes that this life is all there is, and that death is the end. The world does not wish to receive grace because the world believes that actions should have consequences. The world would see the guilty punished for their crimes.
The only thing that brings people to the Cross is love. I support rational thinking and logical connections, but there are limits to science. No invention of the human mind can convince me to embrace the Cross as my salvation. No scientific approach can calculate the means by which I receive grace. These are powerful symbols of love. Love is divine, and nothing in the created order can comprehend it. We can only feel it, and express it in limited ways to others.
This is why the teachings of Jesus are radical. These teachings got Him into so much trouble with the Law that He was sentenced to death and executed. After three days He rose again to prove that His kingdom is a place where life can exist without dying. One of the stumbling blocks, as Paul said, is that people cannot rationalise a universe where there is no death. All of our accumulated data over the millennia suggests that death is necessary to balance the harmony of life. This is not what Christ represents. Jesus, by His ministry, crucifixion and resurrection, outright rejects the notion that death is necessary. Obviously, He is not of this world, but He is human. He cast His lot with us. He joined us here on Earth as a man who was born into a family, who grew up, felt emotions, made friends, rebelled against corrupt authority, suffered and died. Even though he was born a human being, death was not the end of His story, therefore death is not the end of our history.
We are inextricably connected to Christ. When we first rejected God, He could have wiped the slate clean and started over. Instead, He humbled Himself, descending from the Throne of Heaven to where we are on Earth because He wants us back. He did not reject our human condition; He embraced it forever; a human man now sits at God the Father’s right hand. In Jesus, the holiness of the Trinity and human nature are perfectly reconciled through His perfect obedience to God the Father. This is why we must interpret the totality of human existence through Christ; He is the manifest truth of our relationship with God. To interpret this life in other ways is unsatisfying. We think the human spirit - our intellect, emotions, fears, passions, and creativity - is so noble and good, but great men and women are satisfied with comforting lies. The human spirit is a dark mirror to the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from God the Father and His Son, who cannot be satisfied with delusions. How, then, do we go about removing falsehood and pointing ourselves and others to the truth embodied in Christ?
Continuing the New Testament reading, Paul admonishes the church at Corinth to consider their calling. First, he points out that the congregation is not especially gifted in the ways of the world - they do not possess superior intelligence, political power or wealth - but God the Father gave them to His Son Jesus for a specific purpose: to use the weakest, most marginalised people to proclaim the coming of His Kingdom, which will replace all the kingdoms of the Earth. There is poetry in God’s decision to use the weak to nullify the strong, for it proves - as the reading also says - that God’s weakness is greater than the world’s strength. Weak people who have the Holy Spirit are far more powerful than anything the sinful world can muster. These weak people have proclaimed the coming of God’s Kingdom for almost two thousand years, and it is our calling, too. We must, in every way, proclaim the coming of God’s Kingdom to anyone who will listen. We must not just use words, we must also take action.
Christ calls us to reach out to the marginalised; the disenfranchised; the people nobody wants. When the rest of the world sees us gathering up the outcasts, they will call us foolish. They will wonder why we are exposing ourselves to such dangerous people who will surely destroy us. They will sneer that the weak cannot help us, they cannot even help themselves. The reason we witness Christ to the dregs of the Earth is because the world rejected them! If the world rejected these people, whom shall they turn to but God? After all, Jesus is - as Paul says - “our righteousness, holiness and redemption”; we are not saved by our own merits, but by the grace of God. We do not look for our salvation on Earth, but there are millions of people who still search the Earth in vain for salvation every day. We must instead point them toward Jesus, who is Lord. Our righteousness is already in Heaven, therefore we can do anything God calls us to do in this world.
Caring for the least important people - the ‘lowborn’ - is the same as caring for Jesus, the King of kings. In Matthew 25:40, Jesus says, “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ The outcasts, the criminals, the unwanted, the physically and mentally disabled persons of this world need our care. When we move among them, we find Jesus already there, in their souls and in their lives. The world cannot understand this; it obeys the rule of survival of the fittest, while in God’s kingdom the opposite will happen. In Matthew 20:16 Jesus says, “So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.”
When the church gains political, economic and social power in this world, is that correct? When people join the church because they hope to gain something materialistic or further extend their influence in this world, is that correct?
I do not know what calling you have received, dear brothers and sisters in Christ. I do not know what path God chose for you, but rest assured He will hold your hand in His every step of the journey. You must also hold His hand in yours, because you cannot do anything without Him. Have faith - that is, have trust and hope - in your Lord. He will calm your troubled sea. Whatever bumps and potholes you meet along your journey, you will always feel His love guiding you ever onward to the lost people of the world, whether they live here or in another country. Your calling will get you into trouble, whether with the Law or with the rulers of this world, but Jesus is, and always will be, Lord.
If you think that getting into legal trouble for Christ’s sake is a sin, consider this: in Trinidad and Tobago, we celebrate Emancipation Day on the 1st of August. Slavery was protected under the law for thousands of years. Innumerable people who fought for the basic human right of freedom were condemned in courts of law. Think about that.
Jesus is the ultimate reality, the flower of creation who began everything and will end everything. Place your trust in Him, and Him alone.
I would like to conclude with a story that many of you already know - the story of a painting auction entitled, “Who will take the son?”
A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often sit together and admire the great works of art.
When the Vietnam conflict broke out, the son went to war. He was very courageous and died in battle while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply for his only son.
About a month later, just before Christmas, there was a knock at the door. A young man stood at the door with a large package in his hands.
He said, "Sir, you don't know me, but I am the soldier for whom your son gave his life. He saved many lives that day, and he was carrying me to safety when a bullet struck him in the heart and he died instantly. He often talked about you, and your love for art.”
The young man held out his package. "I know this isn't much. I'm not really a great artist, but I think your son would have wanted you to have this."
The father opened the package. It was a portrait of his son, painted by the young man. He stared in awe at the way the soldier had captured the personality of his son in the painting. The father was so drawn to the eyes that his own eyes welled up with tears.
He thanked the young man and offered to pay him for the picture. "Oh, no sir, I could never repay what your son did for me. It's a gift."
The father hung the portrait over his mantle. Every time visitors came to his home he took them to see the portrait of his son before he showed them any of the other great works he had collected.
The man died a few months later. There was to be a great auction of his paintings. Many influential people gathered, excited over seeing the great paintings and having an opportunity to purchase one for their collection. On the platform sat the painting of the son.
The auctioneer pounded his gavel. "We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?"
There was silence. Then a voice in the back of the room shouted, "We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one."
But the auctioneer persisted, "Will someone bid for this painting? Who will start the bidding? $100, $200?"
Another voice shouted angrily, "We didn't come to see this painting. We came to see the Van Goghs, the Rembrandts. Get on with the real bids!"
But still the auctioneer continued, "The son! The son! Who will take the son?"
Finally, a voice came from the very back of the room. It was the longtime gardener of the man and his son. "I'll give $10 for the painting." Being a poor man, it was all he could afford.
"We have $10, who will bid $20?"
"Give it to him for $10. Let's see the masters."
"$10 is the bid, won't someone bid $20?"
The crowd was becoming angry. They didn't want the picture of the son. They wanted the more worthy investments for their collections. The auctioneer pounded the gavel. "Going once, twice, SOLD for $10!”
A man sitting on the second row shouted, "Now let's get on with the collection!"
The auctioneer laid down his gavel, "I'm sorry, the auction is over."
"What about the paintings?"
"I am sorry. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will. I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until this time. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings. The man who took the son gets everything!"
Amen. Let us pray. God our Father, give us the grace to take your Son Jesus Christ into our hearts. Give us your peace when the world calls us fools for witnessing Him to others. Let us always seek Your wisdom, Your ways, and Your hand in ours. Amen.