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HEY, FOOLISH THING! I Corinthians 1:26-31 January 30, 2011 Have you ever noticed that some bright people can say really dumb things' My favorite example is singer Mariah Carey. It was from her lips that we heard these sensitive words: “Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.” Some bright people can say dumb things. When the American baseball player Bill Gullickson signed a phenomenal contract to play baseball in Japan, he was asked what daily life was like in Japan. He replied that the language was the most difficult and different feature. “It’s crazy,” he said. “The only American words I saw were Sony and Mitsubishi.” (1) Well, I guess those are American words. There is no limit to the foolish things people do and say--particularly our legislators. A few years back a man named Robert W. Pelton did some research on laws that have been passed with regard to behavior in churches. Some of them are quite interesting. For example, young girls are never allowed to walk a tightrope in Wheeler, Mississippi, unless it’s in a church. I’m sure there’s a good reason why this law was put on the books. I simply can’t imagine what it could be. In Blackwater, Kentucky, tickling a woman under her chin with a feather duster while she’s in church service carries a penalty of $10.00 and one day in jail. In Honey Creek, Iowa, no one is permitted to carry a slingshot to church except police. (Obviously the NRA has not heard about Honey Creek or they would be carrying assault rifles.) No citizen in Leecreek, Arkansas, is allowed to attend church in any red-colored garment. Swinging a yo-yo in church or anywhere in public on the Sabbath is prohibited in Studley, Virginia. And, finally, turtle races are not permitted within 100 yards of a local church at any time in Slaughter, Louisiana. (2) There is a lot of foolishness in the world—and that foolishness includes you and me. That’s right. St. Paul calls us foolish. He writes in I Corinthians 1: 26-29, “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” He’s talking about us. We are the foolish things he’s referring to. He’s talking about people who make up the church. Let me read it again, “Brothers think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world . . .” Paul is saying, “Look, God hasn’t chosen celebrities or rocket scientists to proclaim His word. He’s chosen people like us--farmers, fishermen, tax-collectors, housewives . . .” Today we might say, “God’s chosen electricians and plumbers and sales people and teachers . . .” That’s who God depends on. God uses everyday people to do His work. We worship celebrities in our culture. Actor David Niven once told a wonderful story about actress Loretta Young. Some of you will remember Loretta best from her television show, at least those of you who remember black-and-white television. When she was young, Loretta Young was quite pretty. It was her looks, says Niven, not her talent that got her cast in film after film. Cecil B. DeMille was once directing Loretta Young in a movie titled, “The Crusades.” She was doing a scene urging Richard the LionHearted to fight on behalf of the Christian nations in the crusades. Loretta read the line: “Richard, you gotta save Christianity!” She wasn’t very convincing. So DeMille took Loretta aside and asked her to put some AWE into her line. They reshot the scene, and Loretta Young said: “Aw, Richard, you gotta save Christianity!” (3) We are a culture that worships celebrities. But it is not celebrities that God is depending on to change the world . . . or rocket scientists or the rich and powerful. God depends on Sunday school teachers, greeters, people singing in the choir, people filling out pledge cards . . . good people . . . not superstars, but solid responsible church people. That is who God is depending on. God uses common, everyday people to do his work. That is what Paul is saying when he writes, “Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world . . .” Now to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t have done it that way if I had been God. I wouldn’t have started at the bottom of society and worked my way up. I wouldn’t have had my Son be born to Mary and Joseph in the stable of Bethlehem. I would have had him born in Caesar’s household. Then one day he could stroll out on his balcony and wave his hand and said, “From now on everyone will be Christians.” But that was not how God did it. God started at the very bottom of society with very ordinary people and that is still how God is working today. Through ordinary folk like you and me. We are God’s plan for saving the world. God is counting on us. “Who' Us'” Yes, us. God is counting on us to turn the world upside down. You can see why Paul says it sounds like foolishness to the world. God chose the church to do His work in the world. This is the primary reason Christ came into the world. If you ask most Christians why Christ came into the world, they will say he came to die for our sins. And that’s true, of course, but there is another reason Christ came into the world: it was to train an ordinary group of people to take his message to the world. Who was that group of people' Why us, the church. The key reason Christ came into the world was to found the church. We are to be his body doing his saving work in a world that is lost. Christ started with only 12 men and an unknown number of women. By the time he died, the company was still very small. Then, after Pentecost, that number exploded. By the time Paul was preaching to the Corinthians, there were tiny churches planted in towns all along the Mediterranean. Still, it seemed like a mighty stretch when St. Paul said that God was going to use this motley group of generally powerless people to turn the world upside down. Of course, it was not long, relatively, before that tiny group of believers took over the whole Roman Empire, but at the time Paul was preaching it probably did sound like so much foolishness that God was going to do anything significant with the church. Do you know that there are still people today who think it is foolishness that God is going to do anything significant with the church' And the sad thing is that some of these people are in the church. Some people still don’t understand that the church is at the center of God’s plan. Now I know that silly things happen in the church. I’ve seen them. Sometimes tragic things happen in churches. Some of the most unchristian people in the world are found on church rolls--bigots, snobs, uncaring people--people who are an embarrassment to God. I’m very aware of that. But I also know this and you know it too, the best people in this [city] are in the church. I run into them all the time. They are people who care about their families, care about their neighbors, care about their communities--and the reason they care is that once upon a time they stood at the altar of a church like this one and gave their heart to Jesus. There is really only one way to make this community a better community, one way to make this city a better city, one way to make this a better world and that is to bring everyone we meet to Jesus. There is nothing else that will work. That is how God has chosen to turn this world upside down. The work of the church is serious work, important work, life changing work. It’s work that God is calling you and me to do. Now this means something quite obvious: If the church is the means that God has chosen to turn this world upside down, each of us has a part to play. If this is God’s plan--not to work through celebrities and rocket scientists but through ordinary folks like you and me--it means that there is something for each of us to do. Arthur Gordon once told about a man named Charlie who joined a prayer group to which Gordon belonged. Charlie wasn’t a joiner. So the next time Gordon saw Charlie he asked him why he had joined this prayer group. “Well,” said Charlie, “I had problems and I was praying about them, but I didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Then one day I read an article about bees. When it gets too hot in a hive, a group of worker bees all face in one direction, anchor themselves to the floor, and fan their wings rapidly. One bee alone wouldn’t make much of a difference, but a lot of bees can produce an air current strong enough to draw fresh, cool air into the hive and blow the stale air out. “So, I said to myself, ‘If a group of bees working together can activate a healing current that changes everything for the better, maybe a group of people can do the same thing.’” (4) That’s a pretty good description of what the church is all about. We’re like those bees. On our own we can’t get much done, but flapping our wings in unison we can blow out the stale air of sin and oppression. But each of us must do our part. Once there was a young Methodist pastor serving a two-point circuit in the hills of East Tennessee. [In other words he preached each Sunday morning to two congregations.] The larger church which had their service at 10:00 a.m. had an average attendance of 70. The smaller church which had the 11:00 hour for their service had an average attendance of 4. The young pastor resented preaching to 4 people. Particularly at 11:00. He had already preached his sermon once. He had it down pat, and now he was preaching it to 4 people, basically 2 elderly couples. It was depressing. He felt it would make much more sense if the four people at that service would hop in his car and go with him down to the other church. Four people. There was another elderly couple that came sporadically. So sometimes there were 6. There was one old gentleman who came on Christmas and Easter. So on those Sundays they had 7, but he rarely came any other time. One Sunday, however, this old gentleman named Claude showed up on a regular Sunday. And at the conclusion of the service the young pastor could see that something in the service had touched Claude quite dramatically. He went back to him and asked, “Claude, is there a problem'” Claude squinted his eyes and looked up at his young pastor. “Preacher,” he said, “things aren’t going to be like this around here anymore.” “I didn’t know if he meant he was going to burn down the church or what,” the young pastor said later. “I didn’t know any other way that church could be changed.” But the next Sunday morning when the pastor drove up to that little church, there were cars everywhere. He went inside and there were children and teenagers and older people. And on the little board where they posted the attendance for Sunday School, it said 58. Fifty-eight! Now, that’s not a big crowd at most churches, thought the young pastor, but when you’ve been averaging 4, it’s all the people in the world. He looked for Claude. “Where did all these people come from'” He asked. “Well, preacher,” Claude said, “I know these hollows up in here better than you do. I went to old folks and shut-ins I knew who weren’t going to church and I said, ‘If I come and get you Sunday in my station wagon would you come to our church Sunday morning'’ and every once in a while someone would say, ‘Why Claude you don’t have to come for me. My daughter could bring me down there.’ And I would go to a family that had young children and say, ‘If my son or I came to pick up your children Sunday morning would you let them come to our church'’ And every once in a while someone would say, ‘Why you don’t have to come after my children. I could bring them.’ And this is what happened.” Fifty-eight people! Well, the young pastor knew it wouldn’t last. And it didn’t. The next Sunday they were down to 56. The following Sunday, though, they had 60. And for a decade after that, that small church which had once averaged 4 on Sunday mornings averaged about 50 people--most of whom would never have been in church except that a 75-year-old man named Claude was determined that his church wasn’t going to be like that anymore. And that’s all it takes. (5) Why' Because God chose to do something foolish. God chose ordinary people like you and me, and God set out to changing the world one person at a time. Was God foolish--to count on such as us' Only you and I and God know the answer. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Roger E. Axtell, Do’s and Taboos of Humor Around the World (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1999), p. 183. 2. The Door. Christian Reader, Vol. 33, no. 5. Cited in SermonCentral Weekly Newsletter. 3. Gene Shalit, Great Hollywood Wit (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2002), p. 78. 4. Daily Guideposts, http://www.ourprayer.org/dailyguideposts. 5. The young pastor was King Duncan, editor, Dynamic Preaching. Children’s Sermon Object: A jar of honey Good morning, boys and girls: Our lesson from the Bible tells us that God choose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God choose what is foolish to shame the wise, God chooses what is insignificant to confound the mighty. I am amazed at how the smallest of creatures has such an important place in God’s world. This jar of honey--where did it came from' From the grocery store, yes--but where did the honey come from originally' That’s right. It was produced by a honey bee. Actually it took more than one bee. I read that about 80,000 bees must fly the equivalent of three times around the world to gather the nectar for a large jar of honey. That is fantastic, isn’t it' Meanwhile those bees are pollinating plants which make it possible for farmers to harvest crops so that you and I can have something to eat. Have you ever given God thanks for bees' It might not be easy after one has stung you, but honey bees are a very important part of our world. They may be very tiny, but we depend upon them. God doesn’t attach importance to size. A tiny little baby is small and helpless, but look how much happiness it brings into a family. Maybe sometimes we worry about our size. We would like to be bigger. But we need to remember how important even the smallest of creatures can be. All of us are important to God. He loves us all.