Some years ago, while in seminary, I entered a professor’s office for a chat. Plastered on the wall of her office was a sticker that said, “Keep church weird.” What did that mean? I wondered rather smugly. I considered whether weird church was just weirdness for the sake of novelty, like when the Day of Pentecost attracts fire eaters standing before congregations, and when Palm Sunday becomes a donkey petting zoo. But if weird church means that living as a Christian is inherently strange vis-à-vis the world, then I can get on board with that.
Let’s be honest. Christianity has always been weird, and I pray that it will always be weird, in some sense—not weirdness for the sake of itself, but weirdness as a way of affirming a new creation that subverts the horrors of the old. We who are gathered in this church today are strange. While many sleep in and have a late morning brunch, we rise early before the work week begins, in celebration of a bizarre event that occurred two thousand years ago, and we worship a God who took on human flesh. We come, not primarily to fraternize or for a social hour but to adore a God we claim is living and yet whom we cannot see. We sing hymns in a culture where singing in public is viewed with some degree of shame. We intentionally share with one another a gesture of peace that we know we can’t understand and that doesn’t belong to us. But outside the church, people spew venomous words at one another, use the threat of gun violence as a hoax to spread fear, and choose division over reconciliation. We come forward to the Communion rail believing that a tiny morsel of stale bread and a brief sip of wine somehow draw us mystically together with God, all the company of heaven, and one another. And on top of that, we claim that this meager meal is enough and will feed us forever. Indeed, it will give us eternal life. This is very strange.
It is perhaps a testament to how complacent and comfortable Christianity has become that we might not immediately discern the strangeness of what we do here at Mass. These days, in many quarters, Christianity has become a type of conformist state religion, upholding the sinful status quo. The strangeness of putting God at the center of our lives—of literally shaping our lives around God is anathema.
But there have always been oddballs in the history of the church who have called her back to her strange roots. And they still exist. One of the most famous examples was St. Simeon the Holy Fool, from the sixth century. He would randomly extinguish the candles during the Eucharist and throw nuts at people. He performed all kinds of bizarre acts around the village, and people wrote him off as deranged. But he also healed people, assisted the poor, and fed those in need. His weirdness was not intended to make church weird, nor was it some theatrical spectacle as an end in and of itself. His weirdness was a strange ploy to call himself and the larger Christian community back to humility and to distract people’s attention from the goodness of his life.[1] Simeon’s acts of charity and healing could have become the spectacle. But Simeon knew that to be a fool for the sake of Christ is the call of everyone who purports to be a Christian. To be a fool for Christ means that Christ gets all the attention.
St. Paul’s words to the church in Corinth are easy to misinterpret. At first glance, Paul could be seen to be complimenting the Corinthians. Read by the average denizen of our backwards world, Paul seems to be flattering the rather unruly lot in Corinth. They are strong, he is weak. They are held in honor, he in disrepute. But soon enough, it becomes clear that Paul is using sarcasm. The Corinthians’ honor and strength were only such in the eyes of a skewed world, where few people thought twice about trampling on the poor and valorizing power. In such a misshapen world, Paul and his companions were akin to rubbish, the dregs of all things.
It would be a severe mistake to think that Paul is urging us to self-flagellate or take on suffering for suffering’s sake. Quite the contrary. Paul is reminding us that if we have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, then we have not climbed up the world’s ladder of success but rather down it. We have traveled down the ladder to be with the poor, the suffering, the outcast, and the needy. We have signed up for a life that doesn’t promise easy success or glib happiness but instead for a way of living that rubs harshly against the self-obsessed ways of this world.
And this is why so many of the Church’s apostles who died for their faith have become a spectacle to the world. It’s why someone like Bartholomew, whom we commemorate today, is celebrated as holy. We know very little about Bartholomew’s life, but tradition tells us he died as a martyr, a word that means “witness.” For the early Church, to die as a martyr was to be born into new life. Martyrdom was the beginning of life. And this is truly strange. That is, quite simply, weird church.
St. Paul in his letter was addressing a church that had failed to be weird in its witness. It was a church in conflict that was puffed up with pride. It was a church full of members eager to climb up the ladder of worldly esteem through grand philosophical arguments, wealth, and status. In short, it was a church that hardly looked different from its surrounding culture.
St. Paul’s letter could very well be addressed to the Church today. We have indeed become a spectacle to the world, but often not in a good way. Her members are continually in schism because of pride and stubbornness. Her leaders have neglected the vulnerable and abused and exploited them. Her ranks are still full of persons whose lives are centered on self rather than on God.
And this makes the rigors of Christian discipleship seem bizarre, strange, weird, even unnecessary. It is weird to make worship the center of our lives and to let all our other activities and commitments revolve around it. It is weird to tithe and give sacrificially when everyone tells us we need to save for our future. It is weird that people who have endured unspeakable hardships persist in worshipping and trusting in a God who they believe is faithful.
But St. Paul does not eschew weirdness. When you are reviled, you should bless instead, he says. When you are persecuted and when things get rough, you should not give up; you must endure. When someone slanders you, you return their vitriol with kind words. St. Paul is simply rephrasing the words of our Lord. You have heard it said to you, but I say to you. . .
The cross of Jesus turns the world upside down. It’s what the early opponents said of the first Christians. They’re turning the world upside down. And because the cross turns the world upside down, to worship, adore, and follow Christ means that our ways will always be strange. We will climb down the ladder of success, not up it. We will sit not at the head of the table, but at the bottom. We will be a spectacle to the world not through physical strength and exploitation but through kindness, meekness, and humility.
In St. Paul’s day, a military parade organized by a conquering general would feature the winners at the front and those who were humiliated and defeated at the back. It was a spectacle of shame, for all to see.[2] And that’s why the apostles and martyrs like Bartholomew were deemed last of all, as a spectacle to the world. They were at the end of the parade, a visual climax of shame. And if we are truly following Christ, we will also be at the back of the line, a spectacle and witness to the weirdness of the cross.
But there is yet one more thing that is perhaps the weirdest of all. It is, quite bizarrely, good news. Climbing down the ladder into the dregs of the earth is not some perverse love of suffering and humiliation. It is a holy relinquishment of all worldly things that would drag us away from the perfect love offered to us on the cross. The foolishness of the cross is the means of true life. Jesus reigned from the cross to draw all the world to the Father. He still reigns in our midst, among principalities and powers that make a perverted spectacle of the vulnerable. Jesus reigns, and Jesus has won the victory. And if we are willing to climb down the ladder and up the cross and take our place at the back of the line, we will find ourselves walking right into the arms of God.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Feast of St. Bartholomew
August 24, 2025
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simeon_the_Holy_Fool
[2] Richard Hays, First Corinthians, Interpretation Commentary Series (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 71.