I Corinthians: Reflections on Chapter 2

“And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling…”

At the beginning of Fall semester this year, as part of the Bonner leadership program, I spent a night and a morning at the House of Charity homeless shelter.  That morning, we had devotional in which we read meditatively one of the psalms, and there was a woman there whom we had talked to the night before, under the freeway. She had confessed to having schizophrenia, multiple personality disorder, and a host of other mental problems (and had joked about everything her boyfriend had to put up with- he met this with a shrug and a wry smile). Sitting there that morning, she confessed with equal honesty her doubts about God. But there was a part in the psalm we read about God caring for the weak, using the weak, and while we were talking about it she eventually spoke up and said: “This gives me hope. If God loves the foolish, then maybe I have a chance.”
I echo her sentiment, and would claim her hope as my own as well, and maybe Paul would join us too. I am at a point right now where I have been trying to serve God, walk in his footsteps, live a life of love, but have become increasingly aware of my weakness. I find myself in dificult times. And I must admit that I overestimated my strength, enthusiastically taking on too great a burden without having a sufficient spiritual foundation. In all that I took on, I expected perfection of myself, or at least excellence. In this, I was as foolish as Peter, asking to be second to Christ in the kingdom but having no idea what that means. But Christ still used Peter, and he still uses a fool like me. He speaks comfort. He says, “I love you.”
I don’t know if I understand God’s love yet, or what he has prepared for me along with the others who love him, but I pray that his Spirit would be born in me, and search my heart, and teach me the fullness of the love that is in the crucified Christ.

1 Corinthians: Reflection on Chapter 1

“Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

26For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”"

1 Corinthians 1:20-30

I am weak, but Christ is strong. Can I confess this? My salvation does not come from my own strength and understanding. It is a hard thing, to need help. This is the place where something in me dies. This is where I am freed, and begin to live. In open confession of brokenness, in return to the open arms of God, something new is sparked within me, and I begin to mature in Christ. In the words of Paul, I am “being saved”. I am one of the saints, the “set apart”. What does that mean? Right now, I can tell you that it means pain. It hurts to die to oneself. It hurts to constantly have to relearn what true wisdom, strength, and power are. But I also rejoice. As God has worked in me, I have come to see the wisdom of his foolishness, the greatness of that different way in which he works. I have experienced it in my life. Though stubborn, I welcome the outpouring of his grace, even though it brings discomfort, even though it brings the unexpected.
However, that doesn’t mean that it still doesn’t look like foolishness sometimes. I take joy that Christ would use a broken person like me, but often lose heart at the brokenness of the church, of the many mistakes the “saints” have made throughout history.  God is saving the world through a man who died, a “rebellious people”, and an old book? Often, I feel inclined to trust instead in what I understand, what I can touch: modern sensibilities, American pragmatism, the wisdom of the universities, the march of technology, the comfort of middle-class suburban life.