Even as I write, I can hear in my mind, Patsy Cline singing, “Crazy, I’m crazy for loving you.” Willie Nelson wrote the song. Patsy Cline was the first to record it in 1961. Since then it has been covered by at least 83 other singers. Patsy Cline was singing about being crazy for loving a man.
Our epistle lesson for last Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent, was from 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21. In verse 13, Paul writes, “For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you (ESV).” The NEB translates, “If these are mad words, take them as addressed to God; if sound sense, as addressed to you.”
The second word Paul uses to describe “in our right mind” is opposite the word translated in the ESV as “beside ourselves.” We are probably warranted in seeing in this sentence a charge brought by his opponents that he is quite crazy. What makes him crazy is his love for Christ, which leads him to proclaim the Gospel in any and all situations, no matter what the danger so that, “as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God.” (4:15) In chapter 11 he begs them not to regard him as a fool, but if they must, then do so while listening to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Paul was not going to let his “craziness” and “foolishness” stand in the way of carrying out his mission to bring Christ to the nations. After all, In Mark 3:21 Jesus family heard about the frenzy that was involved in Jesus ministry. “And when his family hear it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, ‘He is out of his mind.’”
The question for us is, as any one called us a fool for Christ or accused us of being crazy for loving Christ?
Lord, God almighty, thank you for sending your Son into this crazy world. He risked being called crazy himself so that he might, through the foolishness of the cross, bring God’s sanity to reign on earth again. Thank you for sending other crazy people, like St. Paul, out into the world with the good news of your salvation. Thus the message has come to us and we are saved through faith in the foolishness of the cross.
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