Approximately Billions

1 Corinthians 1
3-7-21 Pastor Bill Mosley
Bernard Madoff confessed to taking fifty
billion dollars. Madoff was once the Chair of
the Nasdaq Stock Market and had been a
“force on Wall Street” for fifty years. Which
for those keeping score means he was
already a force on Wall Street when he was
twenty.
The Wall Street Journal said, “In a
separate criminal complaint, Federal Bureau
of Investigation agent Theodore Cacioppi
said Mr. Madoff’s investment advisory
business had ‘deceived investors by
operating a securities business in which he
traded and lost investor money, and then
paid certain investors purported returns on
investment with the principal received from
other, different investors, which resulted in
losses of approximately billions of dollars.’”
What a phrase! “losses of approximately
billions of dollars”. Sounds like they tracked
billions of dollars the way I track quarters in
an old coffee mug. I know there are some in
there, but don’t press me too hard on how
many…
In December 2008, the Elie Wiesel
Foundation for Humanity issued a press
release stating that nearly all of the
foundation’s assets (approximately $15.2
million USD) were lost through Bernard
Madoff’s investment firm. “We gave him
everything, we thought he was God, we
trusted everything in his hands,” Wiesel
said. Wiesel and his wife Marion, lost all of
their life savings as well.
Approximately Billions. No one seems to
know how much Madoff conned people out
of, or how many people he scammed over 3
decades. Most of them, like Elie Wiesel lost
everything.
What is wise? And What is foolish?
Well, most of the time, we don’t know.
Maybe the best we can do is say,
“approximately billions.” Most of us don’t
understand what a billion is, so to add
“approximately” just says we don’t really
know. We’re just guessing.
Today we look at the buying and selling of
salvation, different ladders by which people
think they can climb their way to heaven,
hearing and obeying God, and believing and
being saved.
The Gospel reading is Jesus driving the
moneychangers from the temple. The
moneychangers were necessary, because
they changed the Roman coins to temple
shekels. The Roman money had a graven
image on it, making it unsuitable for bringing
to God. The point of the passage is that
Jesus replaces the temple, his sacrifice
replaces the sacrifice of animals, and
anyone who tries to buy God makes of his
temple a house of trade. God and man
come together in the body of Jesus. That is
the best temple.
The nation of Israel was subjected to
slavery in Egypt, due to a wicked Pharoah
who did not remember Joseph and his
wisdom and power under God. A new
Joseph has arisen from among the
Israelites, the prince Moses, who himself
suffered exile from his people and his throne
to become a wandering shepherd. God
directs Moses to bring plagues on Egypt
until Pharaoh would let the people go. He
finally does, and then the nation wanders in
the Wilderness, to all appearances lost, but
these 40 years serve to weld the people
together into one nation. Then he gives
them his law.
St. Paul writes from Ephesus to Corinth, a
church where he spent 18 months. The
problem in the church is disunity and right
here in the first chapter he pinpoints the
reason for their disunity, that people by their
own power seek their own proofs. God’s
wisdom is an obstacle to those who half
understand it, and foolishness to those who
believe in their own powers of intellect, but
we see his wisdom at last when we look to
the cross of Christ.
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What is wise? And what is foolish?
Sounds sophomoric. The word
“Sophomore” is the classic oxymoron, a
contradiction in terms. It comes from
combining the Greek words for “wise” and
“foolish.” Sophomoric applies to someone
who is overconfident but poorly informed. If
you’ve had a little school you might think you
know a lot, but you don’t yet have any idea
of how much you don’t know, so we apply
the term somewhat ironically to the second
year of school.
The most valuable thing I learned in school
is how much I don’t know.
Where is Bernie Madoff now? Well, on
paper he looks like he was worth 823 million
dollars, with two yachts (one he kept in
France), 22 million dollars worth of real
estate at the end of 2008, including a seven
million $ Manhattan apartment. But he
pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud, perjury,
money laundering and theft. Incarcerated at
Butner Federal Correctional Institution. And
is scheduled for Release: Nov 14, 2139. Or
2137, reduced for good behavior. When
he’s 199 years old.
He’s $823 million wise & 150 years foolish.
What about those people who fell for the
scam? Elie Wiesel said, “We thought he
was God.” He promised them money. Must
have looked good.
They wanted to be a winner. They wanted
someone who would make them feel good
about themselves, someone who would be
their leader.
Paul writes to the Corinthians about just
such people. Jews demand signs & Greeks
seek wisdom, but what does Paul offer
them?
Jesus of Nazareth. They rejected him
because in Jesus they saw one who was
meek & lowly, one who deliberately avoided
the spectacular, one who served. And he
ended on a Cross — and that seemed to
them an impossible picture of the Chosen
one of God.
He didn’t have two yachts. He hardly had
two sandals. What he had was a scandal.
That’s the same word as “stumbling block”
in Greek.
If you’ve seen any movie, or in fact any
depiction of the Crucifixion, you know that
Jesus doesn’t look like a Savior, a Messiah,
or anything like a God.
He looks like a fraud.
To Paul’s readers, to most people, the
Cross is a barrier to the belief that Jesus is
the Son of God.
Paul says, “the foolishness of God is wiser
than men, and the weakness of God is
stronger than men.” What may seem foolish
to our eyes is indeed wisdom to God, what
might seem like weakness in our eyes, is
really strength in the eyes of God.
But it actually makes perfect sense.
Because of sin, a death is required. The
wages of sin is death. Whose death?
Someone who is blameless.
Not mine, I’m sinful. Not yours. You’re
sinful. But God is blameless. And he sends
us his son.
Paul says, instead [of us] Christ died on a
cross and rose on Easter morning. God
worked not through the means that most
people expected, an army, a political ruler,
but God worked through a simple
carpenter’s son, twelve simple men and a
cross to bring salvation and deliverance to
the world.
Where are the wise of this world? Hard to
know. Some get caught; some lose
everything.
Where is the wisdom of God? Dying on a
cross. For what? Approximately billions.
And we are wise to realize how much we
don’t know. But we do know to follow him.
Some material from Timothy Zingale Madoff & Wiesel info from Yahoo News.
Lord, make us wise in your way, saying
no to whatever makes it more difficult to
say yes to you.