1 Corinthians 1:18-31 & Matthew 5:14-16
Rev. Denny Burnette
February 2nd, 2014
563: As far as I can tell, that’s approximately the number of sermons I have
preached to you in the twelve and a half years that I have been here. Now here’s
another interesting observation: assuming that each of my sermons is about two
typewritten pages long, I could publish a book over a thousand and one hundred
pages.
Preachers: Simply by virtue of experience, you already know a lot about
people like me. As much as anything, I suppose, you know that we’re a varied lot.
Some of us are interesting; others of us are as dull as dishwater. Some are somber;
others are witty. Some like to stir up controversy; others seek to build harmony.
Some are absolutely brilliant; others are, to say the least, not the sharpest knives in
the drawer. And so the list goes.
With these things in mind, you may appreciate the quotation I came across a
couple of weeks ago. It was written by George Herbert, someone I have mentioned a
time or two before. As you may recall, Herbert himself was a preacher and a poet. In
his spiritual classic entitled The Temple, he made several interesting observations
about preachers. Since the reverend Mr. Herbert lived back in the 1600s, I’ve taken
the liberty of modernizing his language. Here’s what he wrote; and notice, by the
way, that its poetry:
Judge not the preacher; for he is your judge:
If you don’t like him, you understand him not.
God calls preaching folly. Do not grudge.
To pick out treasures from an earthen pot.
The worst speak something good: if all lack sense,
God takes a text, and preaches patience.
“The worst speak something good”: I suppose Herbert was saying that every
once in a while, even the most ineffective preachers manage to say something
worthwhile. Yet even if they don’t, and you have to sit in the pew listening to 20
minutes of nonsense, all is not lost: at least God offers you an opportunity to learn
patience from experience.
But what really caught my eye was something else. Early on in those verses,
Herbert stated that “God calls preaching ‘folly.’” What an odd statement for someone
like him to make --- someone who, like me, attempted to proclaim God’s word from
the pulpit at least once a week, why do you suppose he said such a thing?
The answer to the question is found in the passage we read from the apostle
Paul’s first letter to the Church in the Greek city of Corinth. To appreciate fully what
Paul meant, we have to understand this one fact about that city: it was rich,
powerful, and full of fashionable and well-educated people. As a result, the people of
Paul’s congregation, most of whom were not part of the elite of that city, had trouble
hearing the Gospel. They were so awed by and envious of the privileged, that Paul’s
preaching often fell on deaf ears.
With that in mind, Paul sought to remind the people in his church of this one
all-important fact about our faith: what we think is important and what God thinks
is important are frequently totally at odds. That’s why he wrote these unusual, and
frankly shocking, words to them. “God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom.
And God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.”
So what was Paul really trying to say here? Was he just another one of those
bumbling preachers George Herbert wrote about, or did Paul really have something
to say?
As you’ve already guessed, the latter is the case. Paul did indeed have
something important to say --- something so important that his words still ring out
today, 2,000 years after he wrote them. In a nutshell, Paul wanted to impress this
fact upon the recipients of his letter: the model for our lives, the person God wants
us to emulate, is not one of the so-called “elite;” indeed, it is and always will be Jesus.
Jesus --- and Jesus alone --- is the one whose footsteps we are called to follow. Jesus -- and Jesus alone --- is the one on whom we are to base our lives. Because of that,
we can see that what the world values and what Jesus values are often totally at
odds.
Think for a moment about how Jesus is portrayed in the Bible and compare
that picture with what we hear and see all around us, and you can see what I mean.
The world measures wealth in terms of money and material possessions; Jesus, on
the other hand, said that true wealth has to do with the closeness of our relationship
to God. The notion of power is another example. Many of us think that power is
determined by economic, military, and political might; Jesus, however, taught that
real power is demonstrated by love --- our love for God and one another, especially
our enemies. And finally ,many people believe in the value of pride --- pride in who
we are and what we have; but Jesus consistently showed that what really counts is
not pride, but humility – the humility that comes from knowing that we are no
better and no worse than all our brothers and sisters. As a result, the focus of our
lives should not be on others or us; instead it should be in God. For, as Paul once
again put it, “God’s so-called weakness is stronger than human strength; and God’s
so-called foolishness is wiser than human wisdom.”
But now for the surprising part. What Paul wrote about preachers and
preaching applies not only to people like me --- people who are paid to stand in the
pulpit each Sunday to deliver sermons. His words are also directed to you, the
“people of the pews.” For when you leave today, every word you said and every
action you take is a “sermon” to someone. Every day, your words and actions touch
lives of hundreds of others in our community and even beyond. For that reason, it’s
vitally important that what you say and do outside of the church reflects what you
have seen and heard inside the church. After all, since you come into contact with so
many other people during the week, your “sermons” --- your words and actions --may have a far greater impact on peoples’ lives than anything you hear from the
pulpit on Sunday morning. And who knows: what you say and do might have a lifealtering, even a life-saving effect on someone else. That’s why its so important not
just to “talk the talk” of the Christian faith, but to “walk the walk” as well. You too are
preachers; your life is a sermon to others.
Recall that direct statement Jesus made in our reading from Matthew’s
Gospel, and you’ll see what I mean. “You are the light of the world,” he said. In other
words, as the book of Genesis says, we are made in the “image of God;” and each of
us is a spark of divinity. Further more, note that Jesus went on to say that we are not
to keep God’s light to ourselves; we are to share it with others by showing them the
same love and compassion that God has shown to us. When we do that, we are
preaching a sermon that, as I said before, is just as powerful as anything you hear
from the pulpit. For, once again, what you say and do to someone else may change,
or even save the life of someone else. That, of course, is the reason Jesus also said in
the passage we read, “…let your life shine before others, so that they may see your
good works and give glory to your Father in Heaven.”
Almost everyone is familiar with the name Nelson Mandela, the Nobel prize
winner and champion of equal rights, who became the first black president of South
Africa back in 1994. In his presidential inaugural speech, he made the statement --- a
statement that shows just how important it is for us to let God’s light shine forth to
others: our deepest fear is not the we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are
powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We
ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who
are you “not” to be? You are a child of God. You’re playing small doesn’t serve the
world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel
insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us: it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we
unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from
our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
“…As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.” Or once again, as Jesus himself put it, “…Let your light
shine before others, so they may see your good works and give glory to your Father
in Heaven.” Receiving that message is God’s gift to us. Enacting that message is our
gift --- our sermon --- to others.