Please read the Scripture passage before the homily.
God’s foolishness and weakness are stronger than human wisdom and strength. This is what the Corinthian people had to learn because they were unable to digest spiritual wisdom, just as newborn babies cannot digest solid food, but need milk. The factions and divisions among the Corinthians were signs of this.
In their worldly wisdom, some Corinthians had tried to pit Paul against Apollo, but Paul and Apollo knew how to work together. Paul was content to plant and allow Apollo to nourish the plant so that God could give the Corinthian Church growth. If we see them in opposition to each other, then we have the spirit of the world in us; if we see them as working together in mutual cooperation, then we have the Spirit of God in us.
Perhaps we have to see our Protestant Christians as partners with us in spreading the gospel. When a baptized Christian comes to us for reception into the Catholic Church, we do not rebaptize as though their earlier baptismal ceremony were null and void, nor do we congratulate them as though they were first coming to know Christ. Rather, we receive them in welcome and express our gratitude that their other Christian church had brought them to their first knowledge of Christ. We do this as we bring them in full union with the Church.
God foolishly calls us humans to work for God’s kingdom. God foolishly pours out divine wisdom on people to advance the growth of the kingdom. This, however, is the only way the kingdom will work out.
It is worldly wisdom, which is really stupidity, that wants us to disparage or put down people who do not agree with our opinions. It is God’s foolishness, which is really true wisdom, to work together in cooperation for the good of all. This divine wisdom is how we should be dealing with others on the personal level and on local, state, national and international levels.
When God created us, God made us co-workers in the divine plans. True wisdom sets us to this task.