1 Corinthians 1:18-31
“I Want to Be Somebody”
I just want to “be somebody” cries the burned out, workaholic father who comes home so tired and frustrated each night he has little energy for his wife and kids.
I just want to “be somebody” bemoans the teenager who thinks that fame and celebrity will be the “ticket out” of her misery.
There is wisdom in this kind of thinking.
There is power in having folks look up to you.
There is wisdom and there is power…
There is God’s wisdom and there is human wisdom.
There is God’s power and there is human power.
And the two really are polar opposites.
The wisdom and power of humankind is a sort of form without substance.
It seeks power over others, and it exploits other people in order to get it.
Then, there is God’s way.
God’s wisdom is bewildering to those who “are being destroyed.”
Because God’s wisdom empowers those considered weak, useless, ugly and ignorant.
The power of God is made perfect in weakness.
It’s not competitive.
It’s not selfish.
It’s not driven by ego.
It is that which builds the Kingdom of God!!!
And the power and the wisdom of God is seen or has been made manifest in Jesus Christ!!!
For many, the scandal of the Cross is offensive, bewildering, foolish.
Jesus, was crucified; He emptied Himself of all status and power!
And yet—and this is key—what looked like death was really LIFE!!!
The Good News about Christ is all about God dying on a rubbish-heap at the wrong end of town.
It’s about God speaking, what seems to be nonsense, to a room full of philosophers.
It’s about the ONE TRUE GOD confronting a world which is posturing for power and prestige and overthrowing it in order to set up a Kingdom in which the weak and the foolish find themselves just as welcome as the so-called strong and wise.
Think back to Jesus Himself, and the people who were His closest companions.
Were they not the outcastes, the marginalized, the nobodies, the despised, the sinners, the weak?
Yes, in our Scripture Lesson for this evening, Paul writes, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are being destroyed. But it is the power of God for those of us who are being saved.”
How can that be?
There’s a sad story about a very successful politician, who, when he got to be in his late seventies, realizing he was becoming physically frail, decided to leave office.
But in a remark to a colleague, he showed his real fear…
… “Having been somebody,” he said,
“I shall now be nobody.”
Wow!
If that is how fleeting human and worldly accomplishments are…
…is it any wonder that Paul can so confidently write that “the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength”?
I suppose we could say that the world is full of “somebodies” and “nobodies,” but these titles or situations do neither of the groups much good!!!
Because every human being—man, woman and child bears the image and likeness of God…
…and therefore no one has more or less dignity than anyone else!!!
We are all of equal importance—whether some other people have heard of us, look up to us or think we are somehow more special than others.
But, the “cult of fame” has really reached some monstrous proportions, has it not?
It seems that everyone wants to be “somebody,” and very few folks really know what that means.
I mean, think of the absurd stuff that the media produces where many people are now famous for being famous!!!
We know their names, we recognize their faces, but we can’t remember whether they are sports stars, movie stars, rock stars, pop stars, super models or none of the above!!!
And what good is it?
Corinth was a proud Roman city.
It was the kind of place where people would look up to the “somebodies” and try their best to be like them.
And then, as is the case now, there were many of the obvious ways that people became famous.
There was political power, inherited wealth, and royal or noble birth.
And also, Corinth paid special attention to the people who could speak well.
They had their public orators…
…kind of like our “talking heads” we see daily on the news shows on CNN and Fox News—the spin-meisters…the king makers…the know-it-alls…the people who tell us how to think and vote.
The wise, the powerful, the noble: these were the “somebodies” in Corinth.
And Paul reminds the members of the Christian Church in Corinth that most of them were considered by the world to be “nobodies” when Paul first came to town and preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ as Lord, and they believed it.
Most of them were not among the “wise” whom society looked up to.
Most of them didn’t have any social power.
Most of them didn’t come from well-known, “noble” families.
“But God,” Paul says…
“But God,” has stepped in and done something to change this situation drastically!!!
… “But God…” chose these “nobodies,” God saved them through the message of the Cross…
As Paul writes in verses 27-28, “But God chose what the world considers foolish to shame the wise.
God chose what the world considers weak to shame the strong.
And God chose what the world considers low-class and low-life—what is considered to be nothing—to reduce what is considered to be something to nothing.”
God has revealed God’s wisdom and power through something which would appear to the world to be complete foolishness—a Man dying on a bloody Roman Cross!!!
But what seemed to be the end was just the beginning!!!
What seemed to be death was really the beginning of LIFE!!!
God’s power did something that no human power could ever do—God broke death’s sting!!!
God won the victory over that thing which no other person—no matter how rich, famous, wise, good looking…whatever…has ever been able to beat—the grave itself!!!
“In God’s wisdom, he determined that the world wouldn’t come to know him through its wisdom…
…Jews ask for signs, and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, which is a scandal to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.
But to those who are being called [or saved]—both Jews and Greeks—Christ is God’s power and God’s wisdom.”
As far as Paul is concerned…
…the so-called wise people of the world wouldn’t know real wisdom if it slapped them in the face!!!
In order to know real wisdom, they will have to look at the world with a special kind of eyesight.
Many Mainline Protestant Churches in America have often measured their effectiveness only by such things as the number of people in the pews, the kids in the youth groups, the dollars in the plates, and thus have come to the conclusion that they are dying.
This kind of thinking can lead to despair…paralyzing despair.
Among Presbyterians, for example, cynics started to predict, a few years ago, that in a few decades American Presbyterians would become the Amish of the 21st Century.
The folks who made these predictions thought they were being really clever.
In comparing the future of the Presbyterian Church to the Amish, they were saying that this once influential Protestant Denomination would become marginalized, as though they had become like horse and buggy people.
Then, in the Fall of 2006, Americans watched one particular Amish community in Pennsylvania respond to the slaughter, while at school, of a number of their children by some angry man from outside their fold.
And even in the midst of burying their children, these Amish people sent a delegation to reach out to, and support financially, the wife and children of the guy who did the murdering.
Through strength that was ultimately impossible, humanly speaking, this Amish community dealt with the tragedy through God’s kind of power.
They returned love for evil.
And by doing this, an amazed nation’s gaze was directed toward a light shining in the darkness that the darkness—try as it may—could not overcome!!!
Every Church should aspire to be so foolish!!!
When the people of Christ exhibit this kind of wisdom and power, what Paul is saying becomes more understandable, that “God chose what the world considers foolish to shame the wise. God chose what the world considers weak to shame the strong.”
“The message of the cross…is the power of God for those of us who are being saved.”
It is the power through which people discover, to their astonishment, that things can and do change!!!
Lives change.
Human hearts change.
Situations change.
New communities come into being, consisting of people who have been grasped by the message…
…believing it is true despite a world going in the opposite direction…
…thinking the opposite way about everything!!!
New communities are formed, and individuals are recreated, reborn, saved, changed, made completely new as they fall in love with the God Who is alive in Jesus Christ…
…as they give Jesus Christ their complete loyalty!!!
As they respond to the saving power of Jesus Christ Who chooses them.
And the result of it all, is of course, that those of us who are being saved have nothing to brag about.
We didn’t somehow figure this salvation out for ourselves.
We didn’t purchase it.
We didn’t earn it.
We were nothing, in that we didn’t deserve it…
…but it was given to us anyway…
…and therefore there is nothing for us to brag about!!!
As Paul proclaims, “It is because of God that you are in Christ Jesus.
He became wisdom from God for us.
This means that he made us righteous and holy, and he delivered us.
This is consistent with what is written: The one who brags should brag in the Lord!”
And isn’t that what that Amish community did?
Isn’t that true power and true wisdom in action!!!
Being “in Christ” means that we are called to live by God’s wisdom and power rather than by that of the world.
So that what is true of Jesus Christ is true of us!!!
If you are “in Christ,” a member of Jesus’ family, the wisdom, power, righteousness and holiness of God is yours.
And if that doesn’t make you “somebody”, nothing ever will!!!
Praise God!!!
Amen
