Readings:
First Reading: Matthew 4: 23-25 (The Message)
From there he went all over Galilee. He used synagogues for meeting places and taught people the truth of God. God's kingdom was his theme—that beginning right now they were under God's government, a good government! He also healed people of their diseases and of the negative effects of their past. Word got around the entire Roman province of Syria. People brought anybody with an ailment, whether mental, emotional, or physical. Jesus healed them, one and all. More and more people came, the momentum gathering. Besides those from Galilee, crowds came from the "Ten Towns" across the lake, others up from Jerusalem and Judea, still others from across the Jordan.
Second Reaading: I Corinthians 1: 23-26 (The Inclusive Bible)
Consider your calling, sisters and brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were influential, and surely not many were well-born. God chose those whom the world considers foolish to shame the wise, and singled out the weak of this world to shame the strong. The world’s lowborn and despised, those who count for nothing, were chosen by God to reduce to nothing those who were something. In this way no one should boast before God. God has given you life in Christ Jesus and has made Jesus our wisdom, our justice, our sanctification and our redemption. This is just as it is written, “Let the one who would boast, boast in our God.”
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our strength, our source, and our redeemer. Amen.
“Consider your calling, sisters and brothers!” Woohoo! We are sitting pretty, God has called us, and we have answered and responded with a resounding ‘yes’! But before we get ourselves puffed up about what God has called us to do, Paul zaps us with a little truth, Paul-style. “Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were influential, and surely not many were well-born.“ Well, I’ll be…this is not exactly what we are expecting to hear. We are expecting to hear that God is proud of us for doing what we do, for working hard, and for forging ahead. Paul, a little tough in his love for the baby church in Corinth, tells us to slow down and get our priorities in order. Was that a pronoun slip? Not really, as I believe that this brand new, out of the womb church, has much to learn from Paul’s teachings written to the early church not so long after the resurrection.
But first, let’s take a good look at our gospel passage. Some of you, perhaps most of you, I hope, have wondered what our church’s ministries will look like in the years to come. I chose this particular passage in Matthew because it describes what Jesus did after he called his disciples and gives us the best diagram for designing the ministries of this church that I can imagine. This is what Jesus did: “He used synagogues for meeting places and taught people the truth of God. God's kingdom was his theme—that beginning right now they were under God's government, a good government! He also healed people of their diseases and of the negative effects of their past…People brought anybody with an ailment, whether mental, emotional, or physical. Jesus healed them, one and all. More and more people came, the momentum gathering.” It does not take much of a leap for this to sound familiar. Let’s break it down a bit; there is foundation and there is doing. First—the foundation—Jesus taught people the truth of God—and that truth was that God’s reign of justice was and is underway right now. Every act of ministry or evangelism, outreach or teaching came encircled and embedded in that foundational truth—God’s reign is here NOW! And there is the doing…thoroughly grounded in the foundation, feet planted firmly in the belief of the in-breaking of God’s justice and reign of peace. Jesus “healed people of their diseases and of the negative effects of their past. Jesus healed them and us of all our ailments, whether “mental, emotional, or physical”. This, my friends, is the only blueprint that we need to begin the joyful task of planning for the future of this church. We will, over the next few months, be engaged in the process of strategic planning for Open Circle MCC. We will be seeking input from all of you and hard work from some of you to help us plan the directions we will go, the ministries we will provide, and the paths we will open in our following of the ministry of Jesus. Won’t you pray, this day, that God will show you your place in all of this? And as you pray, think of our passage from I Corinthians. “Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were influential, and surely not many were well-born. God chose those whom the world considers foolish…” I will tell you that this proclamation from Paul gives me great comfort AND scares me to death. Comfort in knowing that God can use even me and trepidation, because GOD CAN USE EVEN ME! And so, my excuses, and your excuses, my friends, go right out the window opened wide by Paul’s words.
Just as Jesus’ life and ministry gives us the blueprint for ministry, Paul’s words tell us who will do the work—all of us, especially those of us, who the world has thought foolish, those who were not well-born, who had no real influence, and not even very wise by human standards. God uses those of us who take the world by surprise with our competence, our passion, and our commitment. We are the folks who the world didn’t see coming…can it get any more exciting than that?
Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is all about contrasting the wisdom of the world with divine or God’s wisdom. God’s wisdom is not about becoming powerful, making either a name or fortune for oneself. God uses the powerless of the world to surprise and impact those who pay no attention to those without power. The kingdom of God, lived out in the world, is not conformed to this world. But, rather, it transforms this world and us at the same time. And this in-breaking kingdom must inform the way we do both ministry and business in the church—so we begin with a commitment to being surprised!
There is a story that has drifted on the internet for years, and yet, I had forgotten about the profound truth that it tells—that is until one of you sent it to me this week. I even looked it up, making sure that the story was true or at least close to true. And I found, that with a few e-embellishments, it is remarkably close to the actual story. Here is it:
In the early 1900’s, a little girl, Hattie Mae Wiatt, by name, came from a poor family in Philadephia. She wanted to go to Sunday School but was often turned away because it was so crowded. One day the pastor noticed her hesitation to enter into Sunday School and carried her in himself. He promised her that one day, there would always be enough room for all the children to attend Sunday School. Two years later, little Hattie took ill and died. Her mother brought the pastor a collection of coins that Hattie had laid aside telling her mother that it was to build a big Sunday School building. The pastor told the congregation and, very long story short, the church raised enough money to not only build a new church and Sunday School but also Temple University in Philadelphia. The historians of the church say that it was Hattie Mae Wiatt, a little girl with nothing to offer, who didn’t even live long enough to amount to anything in the world’s eyes, who inspired a congregation to give in ways they formerly thought impossible and build one of the great churches and universities in the country.
You have to know that Paul would have loved the Hattie Mae story. It illustrates some of what Paul wants us to understand. And yet, Paul goes much deeper than this. Corinth was a bustling, significant port city which also controlled major land routes from the Corinth into central Greece. One cannot underestimate the importance of this town both industrially and culturally. A center for the arts, it would have had a very important elite class, so the hearers of this letter would have understood what Paul was suggesting in light of their own position in society. The early churches were not unlike the churches of today. They argued, mostly about what was most important and what should take priority in their ministries. Paul puts an end to it. God turned the world and the church in the world upside down. God chose the foolish, the weak, those who seemed to have no value at all. God chose people like us—people who had been told “you are not welcome here”, and out of it all, God creates salvation. No grounds for boasting here except in and through the cross of Jesus Christ.
We will do well to remember this brief passage from Paul to the Corinthians as we proceed down the path to which God continues to call us. For Paul shows us where our eyes must stay focused, where our hearts must stay grounded. God has given us life in Jesus Christ and has made Jesus the foundation of our personal and communal ministry by being our justice—our sense of what is right, our sanctification—our spiritual growth and formation, and our redemption—our re-created selves in God’s image. Therefore, let us boast, when we boast, only in the Lord.
This, then is my prayer for us: May our love for each other and the world be simple—inspired by and infused with God’s love for us. May our knowledge, that which we know that we know, be based on the wisdom that comes from our hearts and the heart of God. And may our righteousness be found in doing justice, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God. Amen and amen.
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