I Corinthians 1:22-25 "The Weakness of God??"
We like winners. Our culture, our country, our society are caught up with the idea of winning. Winning, succeeding, getting ahead, overcoming great obstacles these are the ideals, these are the goals that society places on all people. We can see this as evidence by our pre-occupation with sports. We like to see our team win. We like to follow a winner. I get caught up in that mentality each basketball season as I watch closely the progress of the Iowa Hawkeyes on the their road to the final four. I cheer when they win and I become sober, down cast when they loose.
Not only in sports, but through out all of life, we like to see and know about people who have succeeded. We like to read, or watch stories on TV of people who have overcome great mental or physical obstacles, then making a success of their lives. In the Reader’s Digest, I get caught up in the stories, "Drama in Real Life" as someone overcomes great odds to succeed. We like to see the underdog get ahead and become a winner.
In 1982 a story appeared in the Des Moines Register about a high school basketball player who hurt himself while weight lifting, and how he had broken and strained something in his back to a point where the doctors didn’t know if he would walk again. But the feeling in his legs returned, and now the boy is at the gym trying to learn to run and shoot baskets again. The article talked about his winning attitude, about the way he has overcome his accident, how he was making himself a winner again.
I wonder if they would have printed the article, if this boy had remained paralyzed from the neck down and then had to live the every day unglamorous struggle of having someone feed him, dress him, help him in the toilet. I wonder if they would have printed this article showing the frustration, the hurt, the helplessness that someone who is paralyzed feels. I wonder if they would have told about the pain of isolation, the hurt of rejection, the feeling that society doesn’t like loosers only winners? I wonder they we only hear about those who make it back, and not about those who are daily struggling with the brokenness of life?? There are many people who live lives of quiet brokenness and frustration, sensing, feeling the strong cultural preoccupation with winning, getting ahead and knowing they have given their all, they have tried, but cannot break out of their individual brokenness and have to live day in and day out with the consequences of this struggle.
I have felt this quiet brokenness in my life as I now live with the consequences of post-polio syndrome which has left me without the strength, the stamina, and the endurance I once had. Now I live day to day wondering if I will be able to get out of bed, whether I will be able to care for myself, whether I will be able to help around the house a little as my wife goes off to work and I am at home in my wheelchair trying to make the best of this lousy situation. After serving the Lord as a parish pastor for over 11 years, the inactivity, the inability of physically being able to be as active as I once was, is difficult to take emotionally and spiritually.
I tried the parish for a year in a wheelchair and found myself becoming increasingly exhausted and stressed out. I couldn’t do it even though I gave it my best shot!! I tried!! I really did. But I too get caught up in our culture of wanting to win, of wanting to beat this thing, and pushing myself beyond the limits my body would take. I wanted to succeed so bad that I ignored the warning signs of my body until it was too late.
And now, I dream, I wonder about if I could really still do it, if I could functionally walk again if I only tired harder, if I could become a parish pastor again, if I only tired harder, yet my rational mind knows better. However, I am caught up in the mentality of my culture which says one should never stop trying. Each time I push, each time I make the adrenaline push my body beyond its limits, I pay for it with exhaustion, with muscle pain, with twitching muscles, with the frustration of being defeated again. I know now that each time I push, I loose a little more muscle tone and I become weaker for it.
I live with the quiet frustration of wanting something more for myself and knowing that no matter how much I try, I cannot ever achieve it. I live with the unglamorous live of not succeeding as society would have me, of not having that "miracle cure" that "instant healing" that some of my brothers and sisters in Christ have wanted for me, but did not happen. Some blame my faith as lacking for his non-miracle because surely God would want you whole, so you could continue in His work as a parish pastor.
Yes, we want winners. We want glamour, we went to see power, strength and courage. We want success!!
There was a group of people living about 2000 years ago that were in the same boat as you and I, they wanted only winners. They could not accept, or understand a looser, so they rejected this looser, they felt he didn’t measure up to their expectations, they felt he hadn’t achieved enough. They wanted a winner. I am talking about the Jewish people who Paul is addressing in our lesson from I Corinthians. The Jews were expecting someone who would be a great victorious leader, someone who would conquer the world, someone who would drive out the Romans.
But what Paul says instead, is the Christ died on a cross and rose on Easter morning. God worked not through the means that most people expected, an army, a political ruler, but God worked through a simple carpenter’s son, twelve simple men and a cross to bring salvation and deliverance to the world.
For you see God’s plan was more than what the Jews were looking for. God’s plan was salvation for the whole world. Salvation not just for the Jews against the Romans, but salvation for everyone, Jew and Gentile. Salvation not from an earthly ruler, but salvation from sin and the devil.
In our weakness, in our cry to God that we cannot achieve salvation on our own, then God comes through Jesus and says, I paid your price, I gained salvation for you. Just believe and trust me.
Grace is freely given, not earned and God keeps on giving and giving.
A closing story puts it well:
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
"The tree gives the little boy her apples to pick and her branches to climb The boy and the tree love each other and are happy in their life together. As the boy grows older, however, his interest in the tree becomes less. The tree is very lonely until one day the boy returns as a young man. The tree offers her apples and branches, but the boy claims that he is too old to climb and play. He is more interested in money.
’Can’t you give me some money?’ he asks the tree.
The tree has no money, but she does have apples. Why doesn’t the boy pick the apples and sell them then he will be happy. The boy picks the apples and sells them, then he will be happy. The boy does this and the tree is happy. But then the boy stays away an even longer time and the tree is sad.
Years later the boy returns. The tree is overwhelmed with joy as she invite the boy to swing from her branches. But the boy is too busy to play. What he really wants is his own family and a house to keep him warm.
Can the tree give him a house? No, but the boy can cut her branches and build a house with them, suggests the tree; then he will be happy. The boy does this and the tree is happy.
Many years pass before the boy, now middle-aged returns. The tree, overjoyed, invites the boy to play. But now the boy is too old to play. All he wants is a boat which will take him far away.’Can you give me a boat?’ The tree invites the boy to cut down her trunk and make a boat so he can be happy. The boy does this, and the tree is happy--but not really, for now only a bare stump remains.
When, years late, the boy returns, he is hunched-over, old man. The tree apologizes for having nothing to offer any longer, no more apples to eat or branches to climb, only an old stump.
But the old man says his teeth are too weak for apples, and he is too old to climb. All he needs is a quiet place to sit and rest for he is very tired.
’Well,’ says the tree, straightening herself up as much as she can, ’an old stump is good for sitting and resting. Come, boy sit down, sit down and rest.’ And the boy does. The tree is very happy."
The tree of the cross keeps giving and giving and giving.
Amen
