Foolishness or Good News?
Series: Summer Sermons at MAPC
Category: Discipleship
Speaker: Christina Cosby
Tags: belief, discipleship, faith, freedom, the way
Riding in the car with my family as a child was an adventure. Whether I was riding with my parents or my grandparents the same thing would happen. As they drove down the familiar roads of our neighborhood and city, they would describe everything they saw.
“To the right there is a brown squirrel climbing a tree. Do you see it?”
“Do you see the water?” they asked on the way to the lake.
To these inquiries my response was always, “No. I do not see it.”
You see, being born legally blind, my parents knew that I could not see the items they observed. Their questions served as an effort for me to get to know the world I lived within. My eyesight and how I experienced the world around me was dependent on what others described to me.
In our passage from 2 Corinthians this morning, Paul is trying his best to refrain from boasting and suggests that his weakness shows God’s strength. Placing this pericope beside his call story on the Damascus road, we can assume that Paul’s vision of the man going to the third heave is his own life’s tale. He chooses to tell it in the third person, as a juxtaposition against super apostles. He tells this story which suggests he has every reason to boast, as this divine experience would grant him that authority. Yet, he chooses not to boast of his powerful visions, but of his weaknesses instead. For Paul, the weakness teaches him that it is not his own power he relies upon, but the power of God. It is indeed God’s graces that makes his weakness, life, and calling sufficient.
2 Corinthians reminds us all, “My [being God’s] grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
This is what the life of a disciple looks like. It is not accomplishments that make us worthy in the eyes of God. And these same accomplishments should not be what makes us worthy in each other’s eyes either. Discipleship, instead, is a dependence on the other. God’s realm is made of many variables—variables that are co-dependent.
This concept is especially hard for us to grasp as a society nearly 1700 years later. Paul is suggesting that we need to depend on the source that created us, the source that redeems us, and the source that sustains us—God—rather than our own abilities.
Through my personal experience, I have come to realize Paul’s point on a deeper level. One afternoon, at the age of three, I sat on the floor and sorted M&M’s while my family paid little mind. Unfortunately, I was sitting on top of a floor vent, and my perfectly sorted pile of green M&M’s fell through the cracks. I promptly cried out, “the green M&M’s are my favorite.”
As I sat in tears, my family rejoiced in the fact that I could see color. While they knew that I could see more than originally expected, the world I knew continued to largely depend on other’s interpretations. My vision remained limited and would for the rest of my life. My family prayed for me, and with me.
It is here that Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth is so valuable. Paul does not suggest that God gave him this limitation of the body. In fact, he states plainly that it was given to him by a messenger of Satan. Nor does Paul say that God needs for him to have this limitation. This weakness is for Paul’s benefit alone, as it aids him in knowing God’s grace more sufficiently. Nor does Paul suggest that prayer will make it always go away. As he has prayed three times for it to go away, already.
Does this sound familiar to our lives? We all have a weakness of one kind or another. These limitations are aspects of our lives, try as we may to hide them from others; they make us who we are. It is important to remember these limitations do not bind us nor do our accomplishments set us free. This is the foolishness that the people of Corinth are ascribing to Paul. It is the accomplishments that he finds binding, as it limits his dependence on God. Whereas, weakness causes one to depend on God’s grace more.
I remember distinctly, one night during my high school years, staying up late talking to my mom. She finished reading a novel, the biography of a man who is completely blind. In the book it noted that when one sense is weaker, the brain rewires itself, relying on other senses more. The man died from suicide. The biography continued on to reflect on the fact that 70% of individuals born legally blind [or with a sense of deficiency] who regained sight [or another sense] through surgery die from suicide due to the fact that the brain is overstimulated.[1]
Surgery was not an option for me, yet, my mom wondered if I had a choice if I would change it.
To her inquiry, I automatically answered, “No, being visually impaired has shaped me into who I am. I would not be the same otherwise. Not being able to see fully on my own taught me to rely on others and ultimately, God.”
Learning to rely on God was more valuable to me than having five perfect senses. This is the same idea that Paul is pointing to in the Epistle.
Similarly, our Gospel text from Mark today points to this same idea—the Good News is dependent on God and calls us into community. In other words, the Good News is codependent on its source, God, and its messengers, us. As Paul expressed pain and grief in earlier chapters of this letter to the Corinthians, from a community he loved.[2] So, too, Jesus experiences these human emotions.
Jesus goes to his hometown, Nazareth, after some time away, eager to see the community that has shaped him. He is traveling from lakeshores where he has healed three people and marveled at their unceasing faith.[3] Jesus now anxiously returns home to share the Good News with the people he loves most.
He finally arrives and starts to teach in the synagogue. It happens to be the Sabbath, a day of rest not meant for teaching. Jesus’ timing doesn’t seem to fit into the people’s expectations. In fact, nothing about Jesus fits into their expectations.
In their eyes, he is an illegitimate child, hints the reference to Mary being his mother over Joseph his father. The townspeople know that, in their culture, it is custom for the oldest son to tend to the needs of his mother after his father’s death.
But where had Jesus been all these years? Right, he has been off helping others in faraway towns?
Jesus is defying all social norms. He is a carpenter, which means the knowledge/wisdom he is expressing is also illegitimate [supposedly]. He should be making door frames and wooden structures. Carpentry was known to be a middle-class trade. They were not day laborers nor were they teachers of wisdom. Their work was to build pieces of a structure.
The townspeople continue on with their suspicions and accusations. They are amazed by Jesus. In a “bless your heart” (southern) manner. They do not mean that they are amazed, as in that they have insight into where these teachings and healings originate. Similarly, Jesus is amazed, or perplexed, at their lack of recognition.[4]
Imagine the pain, the rejection, and the confusion Jesus must be feeling. His whole family system is in transition from the people who raised him to the people he will soon send forth as active participants in God’s Kingdom.
Jesus chooses not to focus on the rejection and loneliness, but instead on God’s larger mission.
He calls the twelve disciples and sends them forth. Jesus is no longer making parts of a structure like he is supposed to, he is building the Kingdom of God.
He describes the life of discipleship as being on the move. No hometown. No personal possessions. They are to rely on God, each other, and the hospitality of strangers. He admits that this task will not be easy and suggests that they will be met with rejection. When that time comes, Jesus remarks, they should shake off the dust and start anew.
The disciples’ call and work are not independent from its source. Jesus calls them and sends them forth as agents of God. They are sent in pairs, and they are called to turn back to God.
Now what, we ask. Here was have two stories of rejection and call. These passages originally cause us to wonder what they have to teach us. At their onset, we simply see a reverse side of the Biblical figures we once thought we knew. They turn our notions upside down. They confuse us. But, isn’t this what discipleship looks like?
We find Jesus in his human form—rejected, disbelieved, questioned. We find Paul in the ordinary challenges of life, dealing with unspecified weaknesses of the flesh and a lofty calling. Their accomplishments and weaknesses are placed side by side. They are disrespected and made to be a fool. Paul’s calling is to a kingdom of Good News that doesn’t look so good. And Jesus heals and teaches many as he is greeted with much speculation.
This mid-summer, July, day we find the church in its season of ordinary time. In between the Day of Pentecost and All Saints. We saw the spirit of God descend like a dove upon the church and we are learning her call to be more of a challenge than a comfort. We want to be like the last three people Jesus healed, but, perhaps, we are more like his hometown—full of speculation. Or, like the super apostles who want to be independent agents of God.
We, as MAPC, feel our unique calling in the time of history. We have celebrated the triumphs of Jesus’ resurrection as our transitional search for a Senior Pastor ended bringing with it a personal glimpse of resurrection hope. We welcomed Jenny and we celebrate her calling in our unique context. Yet, as we settle into our new life together, we realize that relationship-building takes time, and we are uncertain of the future as we continue to ask, “God, where to next?”
We will not always find ourselves getting along and welcoming one another as we should. When Jesus is rejected by his family, he turns around, shaking the dust of his shoes, turning to those who choose to be participants in this new Kingdom.
When times and people are inhospitable to us, Jesus encourages us to shake the dust off our sandals. Not as an insult to the other, but as a way for ourselves to hit the restart button, as a commentator suggests. Shaking the dust off allows us to begin anew, clearing away the past, and letting us make space for a new calling.
We find our society in the midst of ordinary moments. Yet, we like to believe that ordinary means easy, when, in fact, God’s Good News intertwined with daily news reminds us that it is indeed the ordinary that challenges us the most. As we watch migrant families on our border, our hearts break. We feel weakened, not sure of how we can help. This weakened voice is the same voice God used in Paul to speak to the Corinthian community. This same voice God is using to continue to call us today.
This morning as I was reading the news, I came across the story of a migrant family. In particular, the story of Amelia. Amelia is a mother who crossed the U.S. Mexico border with her son. See, in their homeland, her son’s life was threatened. They had no choice but to leave, or perish. They chose to flee, taking nothing with them except a mere $28. Like Jesus, like the disciples, and like Paul, she traveled with little and depended on the hospitality of strangers to protect them along the way. In the land she knew promised freedom, she was greeted with separation from her son. Weakened, broken, and now truly having nothing she could let this voice be one of defeat. Instead, she has chosen to go to court and plead not guilty.
Amelia could have given up easily, but, instead, she used her weakened voice to speak out for injustice. God beckoned her forth, and, likewise, God beckons us forth to use foolish weakness to spread the Good News.
As our world is full of pain and grief, we continue to live into the mission of the church, calling and sending people to unfamiliar places, in order to restore a little hope and learn something new along the way.
This week, a delegation of seven people will travel from this congregation to the South Dakota-Iowa border, where they will engage with the Native American population, learn more about homelessness in urban and rural context, and strive to create lasting friendships, while sharing meals together. This is exactly what the early church was founded on. Relying on God to show the way, calling people to go forth together, and sharing the Good News with all those we encounter.
As we go this week, and, as you go, let these passages challenge us, change us and call us in a new way, to inspire us in the ordinary, painful human moments of life. They affirm that we will all face times when we are accused of being foolish [or even rejected] for our calling. But, as we go, rest assured that our weaknesses do not limit us, but free us to know God’s grace more fully.
Remember that Jesus, too, faced doubtful rejection. Let his example inspire us to expand our mission instead of giving into defeat. Most of all, Jesus’ life did not end in the pain and brokenness of the cross, but in new life promised to each of us through his resurrection.
Ordinary human moments are full of foolish Good News, but take heart knowing that we stand in a long line of prophets and saints who gather together through God’s call upon their lives.
In your life, where do you feel rejected, foolish, weakened? Where is God calling you to shake off the dust to make space for God’s Good news in a world that needs to hear a foolish voice?
Amen.
[1] Crashing Through: A True Story of Risk, Adventure, and the Man Who Dared to See by Robert Kurson
[2] 2 Corinthians 2
[3] Mark 5
[4] The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol XI