O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
"For consider your call, brothers and sisters, 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 the things that are..."
Consider your call. Consider who you were - who you are - and what God has promised to do for you and through you.
And consider too these words
"The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.... For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe."
What God has chosen is a confounding thing. A thing which overturns the wisdom of the world. A thing which overturns all social expectation, all scientifically determined truths, all human strength and power - And establishes in its place the inexplicable.
Blessed are the poor in Spirit - Blessed are they that mourn - Blessed are the meek. - Blessed are they who are persecuted because of righteousness. - Blessed are you when people insult you and say all manner of evil against you falsely because of me...
That which God has chosen - that which God blesses - is not what the world would choose or what the world would bless - and God states that straight up front when he says: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."
God has chosen you
- you with your worries and anxieties about the future
- you with your grade school education
- you with your bad back and your aching neck and feet -
- you with your private thoughts - and your secret past -
- you with your desperate needs and your hidden fears,
just as he chose so long ago Peter with his bull headed stubborn bravado
- and Matthew with his unsavoury background as a tax-collector,
- Simon, with his reputation as a Zealot
- and James and John, two fishermen with a strange ambition to somehow be first in the Kingdom they thought Jesus was going to establish somewhere in the middle of the Roman Empire.
The Lord chose nobodies to be the first to know his teaching, the first to witness his miracles, and the first to spread the good news - the good news concerning the message of the cross. - the good news that God has acted to bring salvation to the world and that all we have to do is to believe and trust in him.
God chose nobodies to be the first to know and to spread the good news that eventually would change the world.
We all look my friends, for salvation - for wholeness.
But some look, not to God, but to other things they look not to faith in Christ Jesus and in the message of the cross, but to programs and blueprints and clever items of organization to doctors and lawyers and those wise in the ways of science and technology.
They look for better jobs, bigger pay cheques, more interesting hobbies, different marriage partners, and while all these things have an appearance of wisdom, while they all, in turn, may indeed be very good and even very necessary things they do not save anyone - often they do not even make us very happy...
In Corinth the church was divided in various factions and groups as the people there became captivated by one or another viewpoint concerning what was good and what was true and what was of saving benefit.
As we heard last week some boasted of how they followed Apollos, how he had the better way - and indeed Apollos was an eloquent and persuasive person, a person who planted many seeds of faith in the lives of others.
Others thought the way the message was preached by Peter was best that heeding him was the only thing to do - that because he was one of the twelve he should be heeded before all others - and so it went.
There was a group of people who insisted that all moral codes were irrelevant because the written law had been superseded by the spiritual law of freedom and of life, and others who were incredibly strict about what a person could or could not do - for the exactly same reason, and they argued back and forth incessantly about who was right and who was wrong and whether or not it affected one's status in the eyes of God, whether or not it affected one's salvation or the salvation of the entire community.
In our day and age and after close to 2000 years of faith in Christ Jesus you might think that we are exempt from such disputes - from such misunderstandings about what is important and what is helpful to us before God - but sadly we are not.
There are still those who believe that all the problems that they have and all the problems that our church and our community and indeed our city has can be solved by following one person instead of another; that they can be solved by changing one's minister or mayor - or by promoting one kind of theology or promoting one particular way of doing things over another.
There are still those who believe that if they could only change the programs that are offered, if they could only do things in a modern manner - or if they could only do them in the old fashioned way - or if they could only do them in the way that they are personally comfortable with then everything would be fine in the church or in their lodge or club - or even in their families...
I do not know, my friends, if the message of the cross is modern or old fashioned. But I do know that it isn't always comfortable.
It isn't always comfortable because it tells us that we are a people in desperate need - that we are a people who easily descend to acts of rejection - and ultimately to violence - to silence the voices we do not like to hear.
The message of the cross isn't always comfortable because it tells us not just that we are forgiven by God, but because it tells us well that we need forgiving in the first place.
And because it tells us that salvation is not something that we can win or earn, but rather that it is something free and gracious and ultimately only available to those who humble enough and hungry enough, to accept it.
Some people don't like that.
They think that they are pretty good, that they have good ideas, and that while they are not perfect, they still have a valuable contribution to make, one that will help set things straight - and well they might; but as long as you think that it is from you or from so other human agency or effort that the goodness comes - that healing power comes, you are missing the good news concerning the cross of Jesus Christ - you are missing all the marvellous freedom that comes when you embrace the truth concerning God's love.
Consider your calling my brothers and sisters.
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 the things that are..."
These words do not mean that God does not use people of status and stature as well.
"He does - but only, remarkably enough, when they have learned that their usefulness does not derive from their position or their abilities, but rather from his presence in their lives."
It is God's presence that makes the difference. And it is to God that we should turn when we have a problem, or when we are looking to promote healing and wholeness in ourselves and in those around us.
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who was for many years an outstanding pastor in London, England, says this:
"We Christians often quote 'not by might nor by power, but by my spirit saith the Lord,' and yet in practice we seem to rely upon the mighty dollar and the power of the press and advertising. We seem to think that our influence will depend on our technique and the program we can put forward and that it would be the numbers, the largeness, the bigness that would prove effective. We seem to have forgotten that God has done most of his deeds in the church throughout its history through remnants. We seem to have forgotten the great story of Gideon, for instance, and how God insisted on reducing the 32,000 men down to 300 before he would make use of them. We have become fascinated by the idea of bigness, and we are quite convinced that if we can only stage, yes, that's the word, stage something really big before the world, we will shake it and produce a mighty religious awakening. That seems to be the modern conception of authority."
There are many different things that we turn to for salvation - many different things that we seek out as a means of solving our problems - both those that are personal - and those that linked to our life together as church or a community.
"I find people everywhere who seem to think that it takes money to do God's work, that nothing can happen unless you get money first - "If we could only get so much money, then we could begin a great ministry." It seems to me that is a reversal of the whole position of scripture, for in scripture you do not begin with money, you begin with ministry. Anybody can be a minister of God. That is the glory of the Church, because God has put us all in the ministry. If you begin to do what God wants you to do, right where you are, and God begins to work through you, all the money that is ever necessary, will come.
God has chosen what seems foolishness and weak to save the world. He has chosen to use the way of faith and of trust to bless the world. And he calls us to rely upon him, and his Spirit, his presence in our lives, for everything.
He calls us to understand that
- no programs and devices,
- no surveys and samples
- no methods of government or organization
- no raw use of power
- or clever use of technology
- no fund raising nor system of taxation
- no single leader or person
can gain us what we need, what we all need.
What the Lord requires - what we require - is that we act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
Believe my friends
- believe that God can help
- believe that only God can help
- and believe that God does help
and ask him to do so - ask him, and seek to follow the in the way of Christ - in the way of justice and mercy and salvation will come to you - and to your household - and indeed to the church and the world.
Blessed Be God, Day by Day, Amen
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