I
Corinthians 1:18-31
Last week I
was a little stiff and sore after shoveling for the forty-ninth time in two
days (okay, that’s a slight exaggeration) and decided that I was not up to
cooking supper but after being out in the cold I wanted a hot meal, so I did
the logical thing. I dragged myself to a
Chinese restaurant. It was one of those
small, family operations where there’s a little girl in the corner doing her
homework while her Paw-Paw (which I’m told is, in one dialect, the word for
“grandmother”) takes the stems off stringbeans.
So there I
was, sipping my tea and gorging myself on noodles, feeling all the muscles in
my shoulders begin to relax and thinking basically of nothing, the peace was
broken by a group of somewhere around ten people who came in, stamping their
feet and talking very loudly to one another.
It was a small room and there were only a handful of other people there,
so it was impossible not to hear everything they were talking about.
I don’t know
which church they were from, but there was no question that this was some kind
of church staff who were hosting guests.
The conversation was filled with all kinds of church-talk and the Bible
references were flying left and right.
It seemed like nobody could say anything without giving chapter and
verse. It also felt – and let me say
that I didn’t know them and may be totally wrong on this, in which case I ask
forgiveness – like they were all trying to impress one another. It was all about who had been on what mission
trip or how many people they had seen come to Christ or how they had just
developed a new app for evangelism.
It scares me to think that when I and my clergy
friends get together we may sound like that, or some version of it.How many
people were at Bible study last week?
How much did the UMW raise for the Heifer Project last year? How’s the capital campaign going? (I am proud of those things, by the
way.) At the time, though, I wasn’t
thinking about what I may sound like. All I could think was what would happen when
their fortune cookies came. I just knew
that one of them would start talking about how fortune cookies should offer a
verse of scripture instead of some random comment. Then I pictured the loudest among them opening
his fortune cookie and reading aloud for all to hear,
“Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” [I Corinthians 4:31]
Paul’s
letter was written to a community that had lined up in factions that were
trying to go one up on each other all the time, competing for the title of the
most spiritually advanced. Paul knew how
to play that game, and he could hold his own against any of them. At one point, he reminded them of all that he
had gone through in his days to spread the good news:
“Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and
a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger
from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the
city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and
sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and
thirsty, often without food, cold and naked.” [II Corinthians 11:25-27]
Then he went on to point out that if they wanted to compete
about being closer to the Lord, he could outdo them, speaking in the third
person to add a little touch of humility.
“It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be
gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a person in Christ who fourteen
years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the
body I do not know; God knows. And
I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know;
God knows— was caught up into
Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted
to repeat. On behalf of such a
one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my
weaknesses. But if I wish to boast, I
will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so
that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional
character of the revelations.” [II Corinthians 12:1-7]
The whole point of this
was to point out exactly how foolish it is.
Look, if you will, at Jesus. No one could ever have had a closer walk with
God than his Son. No one could ever have
known the inner workings and the power of the Holy Spirit than him. Did he brag?
For that matter, did he even give a thought to what might look like
success to the world? Certainly not, if
you want to measure success by the usual standards. One of his followers sold him to his enemies
for some cash. Then he was hastily
hauled up before a court that may or may not have had proper jurisdiction,
handed over to Roman soldiers who decided to have some fun by torturing him
before nailing him up and leaving him to die by the side of the road. The message that Paul shared wasn’t about
himself, it was about this man whose moment of truest success came when he was a
lifeless corpse.
“We
proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to
Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power
of God and the wisdom of God.” [I Corinthians
1:23-24]
By any standard other
than God’s, that sounds totally upside-down.
By any standard other than God’s, it is.
If we have anything to boast about, though, it’s the ability
not to be judged by anyone other than God.
I don’t have to compete against you in my spiritual life, or in my
finances, or in my education, or in my athletic ability, or in anything. You do not have to compete against me in any
way. None of us have to measure our
lives against anybody else’s. The only
person whose evaluation matters is God’s, and when I look and see that he would
give his own life to gather me to him, that he would go to the cross itself,
then I know that there is love enough to guarantee mercy for my shortcomings
and my sins. If I boast of anything,
it’s that.
We are all on the same level before God. There’s a story about Mother Teresa that
tells how when Prince Charles was on a visit to Calcutta in 1980, he went to
meet her. She said she wanted to
introduce him to someone, then what she did was to take a newborn baby who had
been abandoned but had been found and brought to the sisters, and she put the
baby into his arms and then the three of them went into the chapel for about
ten minutes and prayed together. Maybe
that is a good image to keep in mind.
The Prince of Wales, heir to the throne, presumptive leader of the
British Commonwealth; a Nobel-prize winning Albanian nun who lived in voluntary
poverty; and a tiny, Indian baby who could not do much of anything at all: each
of them sharing in the presence of God, who loves each alike and without
reserve.
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