TEXT: 1 Corinthians 1:18-31
Foolishly Right
You
may think it odd, but one of my favorite passages in scripture is in the 7th
chapter of Deuteronomy. In the midst of
all the law-giving and story-telling comes a memory that begins like this: "It was not because you were more
numerous than any other nation that the Lord cared for you and chose you, for
you were the smallest of all nations; it was because the Lord loved you and
stood by his oath to your forefathers, that he brought you out with his strong
hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king
of Egypt."
It
was an idea that God seems to like.
Picking the powerless to do great spiritual jobs is a recurring
phenomenon in the Bible. Think for a
moment about:
1.
Moses: picked by God even though he was a 'poor
speaker, slow and hesitant'
2.
David, the younger
brother out tending the sheep instead of fighting battles with his older
brothers, chosen to be king.
3.
Jeremiah: chosen as a prophet even though he didn't
'know how to speak' and was 'too young.'
4.
Gideon: called to lead his nation even though he was
from the 'weakest' clan of the tribe of Manasseh and the 'least important
member' of his own family."
And
it didn't get any more sensible in the New Testament.
There
the story gets started with a bizarre birth in an unlikely place, to an
unacceptable couple who lived in a laughable town. And if that's not bad enough, everything that
follows in the New Testament stems from what has been known through the
centuries since, as the ultimate absurdity:
the notion that God's son was crucified on a cross - a victim of that
culture's equivalent of the electric chair.
God's son, a convicted, humiliated, executed criminal.
William
Willimon once recounted the story of a priest at a North Carolina Catholic
church who placed his usual array of Lenten crosses, draped all in black for
Good Friday, out in front of his little church.
Soon Father Ed received a call from the North Myrtle Beach Chamber of
Commerce: 'Look preacher, we've been
getting complaints about those crosses out in your churchyard. Now inside the church, who cares? But out front, where everybody can see them,
they are offensive. The retired people
here don't like them - find them depressing.
The tourists will not like it either.
It will be bad for business.
People come down here to get happy, not depressed." (The Christian
Century,
Depressing. Embarrassing.
Perhaps like in
Maybe
so, but the Corinthians weren't too sure; or had at least forgotten that good
side of the story.
And
at one level, Paul might agree. The cross of Christ had in fact been for him a
stumbling block. For a zealous Jew like
he had been in his former life, the Christian message that a man executed by
the Romans was in fact God's Messiah sounded like utter blasphemy. What he had been forced to come to
spiritually and intellectually was a completely, radically new understanding of
God's way of working; what, as a Jew, he could have known all along - that
God's ways are not our ways; that God achieves God’s purposes not through
might, but through weakness, that the messiah is not powerful king, but
suffering servant.
But
at least he had learned it. The
Corinthians - and the thinkers who were perhaps moving them - had not. And so Paul proceeds to educate them about
wisdom. "Look at yourselves,"
he begins; "not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not
many were powerful, not many were of noble birth; but God chose what is foolish
in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame
the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that
are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might
boast in the presence of God."
It's
not a very flattering line of argument, I'll have to admit, but it underscores
rather personally the point at hand: God
uses raw materials of improbable value to accomplish high purposes - people who
had trouble speaking to speak for God; a crucified criminal to communicate
salvation; ordinary, if not lowly, human beings to proclaim that salvific
word. It is the power of God bringing
God's purposes out of unpromising materials.
I think of Paul's affirmation to the Romans that in all things God works
for the good with those who love him. In
all things. In grief; in separation; in
pain - things just as unpromisi ng as anything we might think of, until we
think of the cross. Until we think of
the disciples, or the people in Corinth.
Unpromising raw materials.
For
Paul and the Corinthians, it took a radical reinterpretation of life and the
God who creates it. I think it will take
a change of thinking no less radical for us.
We in America are not famous for our appreciation of power in
weakness. In fact, since the settlement
days of New England, through the ethnic gangs of New York, through the two
world wars and military actions since, we haven’t found much good whatsoever
that could be said about weakness.
When
it comes to the cross we have rightfully interpreted it as a triumphant
instrument of God's power, but we had lost most sense of the suffering it
represented until Mel Gibson ground it into us last year in his movie, The Passion of the Christ. At least give him credit for reminding
us. But the crucifixion is likewise a
symbol of suffering – not simply that Jesus no doubt agonized while upon it;
but the larger truth that it was suffering itself that demonstrated God's
presence and power.
The
current mindset in the church, given horsepower by the foolishness on popular
and televised religion, is that if you are suffering; if everything is not
honey and sugar in your life - if your business is struggling, if you've lost
your job or your business is not going well, if you suffer from an illness, it
is because you are out of sync with God.
If things are going bad for you it is because something is wrong with
your relationship with God; if you pray hard enough and live right enough, God
will turn it all around for you, because God wants success, prosperity, and
comfort. Always comfort.
Don't
let this shock you, but I don't think that’s God’s business. What God cares about is whether in the midst
of it you seek God's strength; whether in the midst of it you remain obedient;
and whether in the midst of it you continue to love. The implication in the former notion is that
hard times, weakness, and suffering are by definition bad and perhaps even the
work of Satan in your life. Paul
wouldn't believe it. He, I think, would
agree with Soren Kierkegaard, the 19th century Danish theologian, who asserts
in his book The Gospel of Sufferings,
that there is joy in knowing that "the way is not narrow; rather
narrowness is the way." Paul knew
that God is most present in such times, not most absent.
In
another letter to this church, he put it like this: "...I begged the Lord to rid me of my
pain, but his answer was: 'My grace is
all you need; power comes to its full strength in weakness.' I shall therefore prefer to find my joy and pride
in the very things that are my weakness; and then the power of Christ will come
and rest upon me. Hence I am well
content, for Christ's sake, with weakness, contempt, persecution, hardship, and
frustration; for when I am weak, then I am strong."
In
other words, it is through moments of weakness and suffering that God changes us,
and changes the world - like through the cross; like through people such as the
Corinthians, and the sufferings through which they bear. And like ourselves. Look around you in the pews. We are a group of respectable, solid
citizens; average, perhaps a little above.
Good people, but hardly a collection that you would look at and label
"world changers." We certainly
have our influential people, but identify who you would want to in this city as
the ones who make the decisions; that list would not equal this
congregation.
And
yet God uses us, I believe; and has for well over 100 years. People's lives have been changed within these
walls, and outside these walls by the people and ministries that take root
inside them. God has changed this
community and its people - even if ever so slightly - through this church; not
through our powerful credentials, but the power of God working through us.
We
aren’t as strong as we once were; aren’t as large and wealthy. But those sound like the very circumstances in
which God likes to work – and through which to change to world. Who knows what God might do through the likes
of us?
Prayers
of the People
We're here, O God, to see eternal things and
to hear heavenly pleading in our hearts.
We're here to get some rest from vain desires and false living. Put us in love with serious thought. May we feel the presence of eternal matters
within us and feel the strength of your spirit.
We want to say thank you for testimonies to
life in the midst of winter - warming sun and sustaining rain; for the warm
embrace of friends, the support of those
sitting around us, for minds that think, for emotions that feel, for hearts
that are sensitive.
We don't know how to say thank you for pain,
for tears of a realized failure, for truth broken, for a love not
returned. We'd rather say "Take
back that gift." We wish only for
the dance of life, not the dreary part.
Yet, we acknowledge deep down, that we meet you in the dark places, and
know your mercy and support when we are dependent and despondent.
Here our prayers this day on behalf of each
other:
...uphold all of us who must answer
"no" to so much in the world in order to answer "yes" to
you.
...increase in us the kind of faith that
overcomes fear, in order that our answer be one of confident security in who we
are as your people;
...strengthen us that our love might echo your
love, our willingness your willingness;
...comfort those in our lives and around the
world who struggle this day with illness or limitation, and bring them
wholeness by your grace.
Hear our prayers, O Lord, for we offer them in
Christ's name. Amen.