I have this guitar at home. It is a
nice guitar and has this flat finish. Meaning, the wood is not all glossy. It
looks a little plain and like no big deal. There were two of this type guitar
at the store and when I was purchasing it, the salesman held the two up and
asked which one I wanted. HE showed me this nice one that didn’t seem to have a
speck on it. Then he showed me, same model, but this one has a noticeable knot
in the wood, the grain of the wood arched around this knot. So, I had a
decision to make.
In our second reading, we find Paul,
the letter’s author, in the middle of a very important statement. This
statement that he is making is about failure and faith. It doesn’t seem that
these two words would go together, but they do and Paul is in the middle of
showing how they go together. It is the sense of failure of the cultural world.
Corinth is a busy and happening place. There are all kinds of people coming in
and out, trade going in and out; they get all the new cultural things that will
change society.
We know what happens in changing
societies. Something that was considered new and fascinating one day is gone
the next. We know that from our own experiences. People say and do things to
keep up with the times; vocabulary changes, mannerisms change, and people
change. In this time that Paul writes, any number of things are changing or in
flux.
In Paul’s society it is the society
itself that defines what is good, bad, or indifferent. It is the culture of the
day and the people who keep adapting that decide the people who are “in” and
who is “out.” With businesses in Corinth, people have to promote themselves and
their business because it is a competitive world out there. They gotta be
better and get as much business as possible.
And amid all this there is Paul.
Paul in the eyes of the Corinthian people may not be such a good businessman.
He is a tent maker, but he is no longer around. Paul might even be considered a
really bad business person because he is not promoting himself or the tents he
made. Instead of promoting his business, he is actually walking around talking
and writing about Jesus! The people in Corinth might call him more than a bad
businessman, they might call him a failure; because he is not doing anything to
forward his tents but is talking about something else entirely!
Paul doesn’t shy away from that. IN
fact, Paul acknowledges that he is not focusing on the business side of what he
does. He doesn’t look for the newest fad, doesn’t need to keep up with the
trends of Corinth. He is not going to let that society judge who he is. He
proclaims himself broken, afflicted, persecuted, and struck down. HE throws all
these words out there to show that society can judge him all that it wants.
But Paul does not allow that to
define him. Just as he uses those words, he also uses their opposites:
Afflicted but not crushed, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not
destroyed. Paul is using this to illustrate the very clear point that his focus
is not on the morals or culture of the town of Corinth. He is not allowing
society to define him because Paul is showing us that he and the followers of
Christ are part of a different community.
It
is a community that is not defined by the societal and social mores of a town.
It is a community that sees God in the world doing amazing things; healing sick
people, raising the dead, sitting down to eat with people that non-believers or
society has judged unclean, immoral, and plain outcasts. This community doesn’t
seek personal advancement in stature, status, or righteousness. It is a
community that embraces the grace of God in the world.
The
community is the one that witnesses God through the Word and actions of God’s
only Son, Jesus Christ. Paul puts the people who believe in Jesus and follow
Jesus into the community…God’s community where status doesn’t matter. It is not
any focus. Self-promotion is not needed; why? Because God already loves you.
God loves them already; loves them enough for God’s son to be sacrificed for
the brokenness, the mistakes, and the hurtful things that people in this
community do. AND because of that, Paul proclaims that the communities faith
grows strong and proclaims the Good News of God and the actions of Jesus.
Paul
states that this thing called faith is strengthened knowing that they are part
of the believing community that holds that God has done wonderful things for
them no matter how broken or undesirable they MAY THINK THEY ARE!
I
don’t know about you, but it sounds like a freeing community. Being free from
the power of sin and death. Not having to wonder which trend that you will have
to adopt this day or that day simply to keep up. It could be freeing knowing
that as many mistakes as we all make that there is room and a PROMISE of
forgiveness? Brothers and Sisters in Christ, this IS the community that we are
called to and a part of.
We
are part of a community where we are who we are. We aren’t all made the same!
We have different ideas, opinions, styles of clothes, music, etc. We are part
of the community that knows being struck down but not destroyed, persecuted but
not forsaken, perplexed but not driven to despair. We are part of the Holy
Community because we have faith that Jesus Christ is the son of the living God.
We have faith because of Jesus teaching us how to love our neighbor through
healing and sharing meals…and going to the cross for our sake…the forgiveness
of our sin.
We
could call ourselves failures, just like Paul. We have the imperfections…the
knot in the wood, by the way I did purchase the guitar with the knot in the
wood, but it is not those knots that God sees. Because of our faith in Jesus
Christ, we are not judge based on societal standards. We are called to give all
that we are to God because we have faith that God frees us from the burdens of
having to keep up with society, having to say and do the things that take us
away from God, just to try and fit into the crowd. We are called into the
community that shares God’s love with everyone we meet and proclaim our faith
in God.
Today,
Lily Elizabeth Haines, will be the newest member of God’s community. She comes
as she is. She will make mistakes in her life and that is okay; because she is
not expected to be perfect. She will have some knots, hit some bumps in the
road, and have great joys. The best part of that is that we ALL will get to
share with her, help her, and hopefully, guide her in a faith in a God that is
not worried about the latest and greatest things; but wants her to know how
loved and precious she is to her immediate family and her family of the body of
Christ: AMEN!
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