Choosing Nothing. wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. 20 Where is

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Choosing Nothing. wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. 20 Where is"

Poppy Brown
5 years ago
Views:

1 Casey Carlson, Youth and Family Minister Advent Lutheran Church, Morgan Hill, CA January 30, Corinthians 1:18-31 Choosing Nothing 18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. 20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God s weakness is stronger than human strength. 26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 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; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God. 30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and

2 redemption, 31 in order that, as it is written, Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.

3 Choosing Nothing by Casey Carlson God chose things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are. There is nothing I can say to you right now that hasn t already been said. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Genesis, John, and Colossians) And it is now, in this very moment, that we are held together by Christ. This Christ meets us in our fragility, our emptiness, our inability to comprehend. There is a lie shaping our world today. This lie calls us to war against nothingness. This lie teaches us to fill the empty places of our lives with things, people, and sounds. Silence is uncomfortable. Turn the fields into strip malls, fill your bellies full of food and drink, experience all of your wishes and dreams, learn all that you wish to learn, know all that you can know. Make something of yourself. To live a full life is a lie. It says nothing about living, but everything about product, power, and control. The problem is that true living has nothing to do with proper goal setting. In fact, living has absolutely nothing to do with what we do; but rather, what we release. We need to release our hold onto the lie which tells us that some day we can have complete control and understanding. We need to release our hold on the lie that tells us if only we had the right sign we could make the perfect choice without the consequences of whether we did the right thing or not because it was meant to be. Paul writes to a people very much like us. Similar to the Stoics of the first centuries, we seem to believe that our world is held together in balance by cause and effect. Things happen as they are supposed to happen and everything happens for a reason. I also hear a lot of people throwing around an idea of karma as it alludes to this vague understanding of cosmic balance. But to say our world, as we know it, is how it is supposed to be is to also say that we are fine with it as it is, in all of its hierarchical constructs which feed off of the powerless so that the powerful may be fed. We continue the lie that leads us to overconsumption of all that we need, or think we need, so that we can tell ourselves that we are living a good, full life. So this full life that we see around us is actually life that can only be created at the expense of life. We continue the war against nothingness.

4 It is to our Creator God that Paul re-introduces us. A Creator God that does not create at the expense of life but creates at will, in the darkest, most hopeless places of nothing. All of those things that make up what we think of as a good, full life wisdom, power, status, ability, even blessings, and spiritual gifts all of these things are pure gifts from God. These cannot be attributed to ourselves for our own glory or because we worked hard for it because the fact that they exist at all is from God. These things come from God simply because it pleases God, because God chooses to give in these ways, because God acts without reliance on our own actions. Paul reminds the Corinthians of their own call when he writes, Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. God chose them anyway because it pleased God to do so. It pleases God to bring meaning to the meaningless, creation from nothing, life from death. And because it is God s choosing, we are met at our most vulnerable places in life, at our weakest, and even at our own body and mind s end so that we may be saved, redeemed, justified, and new. Artists know the beauty of white space. Writers know that one of the strongest ways to make a point is fashioned by what is left unsaid. Musicians know the power of a perfectly timed rest. The Creator God knows the wisdom of nothing. No matter how formless the void, no matter how covered by darkness, the breath of God creates. We must release our hold onto the lies we keep so that in the emptiness that is left, the Spirit of God may create within us the life of Christ. This life is made complete in those intersecting places where our failures to know and failures to see are put to death on the cross in the person of the Christ. Stupid enough to die, weak enough to let the cross hold him to death, left for three days in the ultimate nothing of death, but born from death into a new life only from that same Creator God who is no matter how dead and empty a place, no matter how much we get it or don t. All of creation is held together by the life of Christ. This is a life which seeks out the low, the humble, the meek those who have tried and failed to make it on their own, those who can say no more than that they do not know, those who are left alone in the forgotten, lonely, and ugly places of our world. This life of Christ within us removes our need for reason and control. Living in Christ opens us up to accept those things that are without reason, those things that make absolutely no sense because we know that Christ is despite ourselves. There is one reason for everything and that one reason is Christ crucified. We can release our white-washed response to the chaos of the world which says there s a reason for everything and instead say with boldness, Christ is here. This clear statement rightly reclaims all places and things as Christ s, attributing the gift of life that we live to its rightful creator.

5 This is life changing. The only thing left is to go from this place and into our lives, living the resurrected life of Christ to all people and all places, trusting in our God who is in all and through all, continually breathing new life and drawing all things together in Christ.

The Message of the Cross 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

The Message of the Cross 1 Corinthians 1:18-31 1. The message of the cross seems foolish to the world 1. The message of the cross seems foolish to the world 1 Corinthians 1:18-19 (HCSB) - 18 For the message