February 5, 2012
"Strength in Weakness"
Jason Crosby, preaching
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1 Corinthians 9:16-22
In the land of liberty, it can be heresy to state that absolute freedom is a myth. But, none of us is an island. Our actions affect others and the actions of others affect us. Our freedom to do as we please is always limited to some degree.
Love limits. Love sets boundaries on us. The love we have for a – spouse, friend, parent, child, neighbor – curtails our behavior in some way. When we love someone or something, that someone or something assumes a place of utmost importance in our lives. We, then, attempt to conduct ourselves in such a manner that is congruent with what we proclaim to hold so dear and we may forgo certain liberties for the sake of expressing our love. Love from and for Christ operates no differently. Those who know Christ’s love and seek to share it will find that sometimes their options are limited.
The overarching theme of Paul’s thoughts that we encountered last week in 1 Corinthians 8 spills over into chapter 9. In these chapters Paul reflects on the extent and limits of his Christian freedom. First, Paul deals with whether or not those in the know in Corinth were free to eat meat offered to idols. Paul concludes that to do so would create a stumbling block for others to know God’s love. Paul states that although he and others are otherwise free to do so, that he would not eat meat sacrificed to idols so that he might better be able to share God’s love with others.
Paul continues to divulge his understanding of the limits of his freedom in chapter 9. For Paul, the limitations he felt placed upon him went far beyond the food he ate. The limitations he sensed put upon him extended to every fiber of his being. Leading up to verse 16, Paul explains that it is right and just for a laborer to be compensated for his efforts. Paul states, “For it is written in the Law of Moses: ‘Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.’[b] Is it about oxen that God is concerned? 10 Surely God says this for us, doesn’t God? Yes, this was written for us, because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest.” This is logical. It is biblically justified. Workers should expect to be justly compensated for their efforts. It is also justifiable that workers not reasonably paid may withhold services until fair compensation comes their way. Paul does not feel as if he has this option. Paul does not feel as if he has a choice when it comes to proclaiming the gospel. Paul’s burning desire to share God’s love made it impossible for him to go on strike. When it comes to proclaiming the gospel, Paul does not feel free to operate according to even fair trade principles. God’s economy functions completely differently. Those who know the love of God are called to share it and proclaim it freely, without entering into contract negotiations or wrangling over speaker’s fees first. He felt called to preach it and then whatever happened, happened.
Paul digs deeper still. Not only does Paul feel that he should refrain from eating certain foods and refrain from making his preaching services contingent upon a prearranged payment plan, Paul takes things a step further. Paul is enslaved to everyone by love. Paul feels compelled to genuinely and sincerely empathize and identify with all others, whoever they may be. Be they Jew or Gentile, Paul feels he has little choice but to try to see the world through the eyes of others.
In their book Living Without Enemies: Being Present in the Midst of Violence, Samuel Wells and Marcia Owens describe four ways of being in relationship with another. For Wells and Owens, the other are those entrapped in the cycle of gang violence in Durham, NC. The four ways of engagement they describe, however, are applicable to anyone who may be an other for us. Wells and Owens say that we can engage an other by working for, working with, being for, or being with the other. Working for the other means engaging in a task that assists another. Spending a day working on a Habitat House is working for another. Working with another entails partnering with others for a common objective. Joining with others in this neighbor to serve the underserved through United Crescent Hill Ministries is working with another. Being for another entails advocating for another group of people. Standing up for human rights for a group of oppressed people in Burma is being for another. Obviously, working for, working with, and being for another may be valuable and helpful ways of engaging another. A lot of good can come from working for, working with, and being for another.
For Paul, however, these modes of engagement were insufficient. These modes of engagement all keep the other at a distance. While working for, working with, or being for an other we can keep the other at arm’s length. Rather, the only choice Paul feels he possesses to be with the other – fully and completely. Paul does not feel as if he can elect to keep the other at a safe distance. Paul feels so compelled to intimately empathize and identify with the other they he must practically become the other.
I had a conversation with someone this week who told me that recently he was studying justice in Cape Town, South Africa. The view from the campus, which sits up high on a mountain, was extraordinary. If he looked in one direction he saw Table Bay and Table Mountain. If he looked in the other direction, however, he saw row after row after row of shanties. One day, he told me, he could no longer fight off an urge to go live with the people in the shantytowns of South Africa. He could no longer study justice from on high. He had to go be with the disenfranchised and the poor, and that’s just what he did.
Who are our others? Who are those different from you that you perceive to be a nuisance or threat? Maybe your other is a family member with whom you just cannot seem to get along. Maybe your other is a co-worker with whom you are in perpetual conflict. Maybe your others are conservatives. Maybe your others are liberals. Perhaps your other is the poor. Or, perhaps your other are those called terrorists. From time to time in our better moments we probably can find the wherewithal to work for, work with, or even be for those different than us. Paul, however, felt the urge to be in relationship with others, to fully eradicate his sensations of fear or suspicion raised within him by those different from him.
Paul felt he had little choice but to be with others, to see the world through their eyes, to walk a mile in their shoes, because being with others is the ultimate expression of love for others. Whereas working for, working with, or being for others can keep people at a safe distance from one another, being with others does not. In being with others, their perspectives become our perspectives. Their concerns become our concerns. In being with others, we may fully express unconditional love. Being with others is not about reaching a particular goal, its about recognizing and respecting the inherent goodness of the other. Paul felt he had little other choice but to relate to others in this way. Paul did so not necessarily for others to become Christians, but so that others would win, or gain, something good from encountering the love of God that so completely and fully enveloped Paul.
Each of these restrictions Paul feels placed upon him put Paul in a vulnerable place. Those who argued for the ability to eat the meat were the intellectual and financial elite of the Corinthian community. Out of a concern for the less fortunate, Paul limits himself. Paul would have been justified in asking for payment up front for his preaching and consultation services. Yet, Paul did not, and he made himself vulnerable by relying on the charity of others. Paul could have kept others at arm’s length and maintained a greater sense of security. Paul, however, sought to identify fully with the other, the Jew and Gentile, and the weak.
Christianity is an exercise in paradoxical thinking and being. Yes, Christ sets us free and there is no set of rules that we must follow to discover God’s love in our hearts. Yet, those who live in accordance with Christ’s love will feel limitations upon them. These limitations often lead us to vulnerable places. In a world that celebrates the accumulation of power and advocates for security by flexing ones muscles and keeping others at bay and demonizing the other, this way of thinking and being appears insane and fruitless. However, it is in vulnerability and weakness that we gain our strength. It is from places of vulnerability and weakness in the eyes of the world that the love of God becomes more fully known in this realm and we are find ourselves free to live as God created to live.
In a conversation with another friend, I was recently reminded that is the young, vulnerable weak looking tree, not the older stately looking ones, that really possesses strength. Older trees grow rigid and inflexible over time. When the winds blow and older trees are put under pressure, their limbs are more likely to snap and the tree is more likely to be uprooted. Younger trees, that appear more vulnerable and weak, however, much more easily bend when strong winds blow. What may appear to be weakness to the eyes of the world is oftentimes where the greatest strength resides.
The table is one of the best expressions of where we may find strength in apparent weakness. Gathering around a table to communion with God and others, to eat a simple meal, may at first glance not seem to possess the power to change the world. It is here, however, where we strive to be with God and be with one another that we find strength in what is an apparently powerless endeavor. Here, we come to know and experience God’s love with others. It is through this paradoxical exercise however, that we unleash the might and force of God’s love into our world and nothing, I believe, is more powerful than that. Come and partake.