A More Light Congregation

Bethany Presbyterian Church

Sermon

1 Corinthians 2:1-12

1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God. 6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7 But we speak God's wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory 9 But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him"— 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God's except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.


Paul uses the word “wisdom” six times in the first eight lines.  In last week's reading, Paul used “wisdom” or “wise” 12 times!  One might think that Paul had something to say about wisdom.  We might thing he's over doing it, but it's important for Paul to emphasize that we don't need to be anything special to have what God has given us.


We don't need to be baptized by anyone special, we don't have to know just the right people, we don't need to have the best spiritual resume, we don't have to have any special insights or knowledge to have what God is offering us.  We have spiritual gifts just as we are.  We just need to access them.  And human means by themselves don't work.  Paul believes that everything God has ever promised us and has to offer us can be ours because of the cross.  For Paul, when God sent Jesus and Jesus disrupted society and was crucified cruelly and publically for it, God had the last word the man Jesus rose from the dead and lives on forever.  That act gave us the Spirit of God to live in us.  While the word trinity is not mentioned in the bible, Paul is talking about exactly that.  The wisdom of the cross leads us to have a perspective not given any other way.  


The Jesus on the cross is the very God that prophets have given us messages about as early as Isaiah who lived about 700 years before Jesus.  When Paul quotes Isaiah 64 and says “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” Paul is bringing to mind words that would be familiar to his audience.  For Paul to quote this portion of Isaiah, he in invoking the cultural memory of a people looking for God.  Jesus on the cross, says Paul, is that very God that was spoken of.  That power of God that can be ours is the Spirit.  


We too are a people looking for God.  I think that sometimes when God seems like one big mystery, we are being called to look harder, and to be creative about how we search.  Artists know this.  Philosophers know this.  Writers know this.  Relationships teach us this.  Our human ability to be creative is a spiritual gift.  One definition of creativity that would work for me is, “to look another way.”  Not “the” other way.  Another way.  


Creativity doesn't just mean art as in The Arts.  Creativity is when we want or need something and we find a path to get there.  How we get from point A to point B.  Creativity is when we're at the end of our rope and don't even know IF there's a point B, but we try anything.  Creativity is having another perspective.


Because I get so much of my theology from British mystery series' I have this one scene that keeps coming back to me.  Some of you have heard me mention this as something to think about.


There's a salesman who is really bad at his job.  His boss, before firing him, gives him one last chance.  His boss asks him a question.  “If someone comes into your store and wants a ¼” drill bit, what does the customer need?”  The salesman says, “A ¼” drill bit.”  The boss says, “no, the customer needs a ¼” hole.”  Creativity is finding the need behind the want.


That's not so easy, but it's a helpful way to think about life.  Is a relationship hitting a brick wall?  Find a different perspective.  Ask yourself if either of you is asking for what you want or what you need?  Look at any troublesome behavior of your own or anyone else.  What do I/they need that makes me/them behave that way?  What do I really need, when I stomp off mad from an argument? People skills are full of examples where the question of want and need might be a helpful way to find a new perspective.


God IS doing a new thing, and if we can't see it, maybe we just need a different perspective.


Paul says, “For what human being knows what is truly human, except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God's except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.”


Paul doesn't deny what is human, but the human spirit that is within, is a gift from God.  Accessing that spirit from within requires different things from different people.  For some it may mean pulling off some blinders that we have been wearing.  For some it may mean adding a new lens.  Whenever I've changed my mind about something, I'm probably also saying “I didn't know!”  For every impressive iceberg that's visible, there's another huge not always so beautiful chunk of ice beneath it. We don't know, what we don't know.


Remember the story of the six blind men and the elephant?  Each one thinks what they are touching is a different thing.  The one holding the tail thinks it's a rope.  One who fell against the side of the elephant thought it was a wall.  One man holding the tusk thought it was a spear.  The trunk was a snake.  The mighty leg was a tree.  The ear was a fan.  The last line of the Hindoo fable says, “And so these men of Indostan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong.  Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong!”


Before we claim that we are right and someone else is wrong we should remember that sometimes everyone is right and everyone is wrong, at the same time.  It's clearly a matter of perspective.


When I find myself wondering about the divisiveness and ugliness and rancor in our country these days, I often wonder if there's another perspective I could look from, and try to see things another way.  We don't all need to agree and see things the same way, but I find myself in disbelief at the ways people hurt others and refuse to change.  It's tempting to think that people at least try a little to do their best, after all they are children of God too and have the same spirit from within that I do.  Maybe I don't like what they do because I can't see things from their perspective. Maybe I can't find what the need is behind their appalling behavior.  I'm very forgiving when people come up short because I certainly do all the time.  I don't have a dim view of humanity in general.


But in this age of quick information, the bad behavior just comes at us fast and furious. And furious is a good word for it.  It's exhausting to try to figure out who to trust, which news outlets are honest, what to stay away from.  We probably all have a good sense of these things but everything has just become so extreme.  Folks who go off the grid, are in an enviable position sometimes.  We're wired for connection though so that's not ideal.


Here's a story from a radio program I was listening to this week that shows how sometimes another perspective is offered as truth and whole societies are changed.


The program is called White Lies: An Investigation into the Unsolved Killing of Rev. James Reeb.  In 1965, civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, were beaten and tear gassed in an event that became known as Bloody Sunday.  Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. put out a call for ministers from around the country to travel to Alabama and join the demonstrations for voting rights.  Rev. Reeb was a white Unitarian minister from Boston who traveled to Selma after hearing this call.  Two days after arriving in Selma he too was viciously beaten by a white mob.  His killing has never been solved.


Three men were charged and tried, and subsequently acquitted, but a newspaper article later decried the injustice and said that the jury included a man whose brother was a suspect in the attack, and another man, a well-know racist.


Recently, NPR reporters uncovered new evidence, and in this radio program called White Lies, they told the story of their reporting.  It's a fascinating story and one that I hope you can still find online, to hear the whole thing.  


I'm sharing this story now, because by leaving this case as a cold case since 1965, the town has never had to deal with the collective pain of the civil rights story in their town.  The report includes the story of a man who knew more than he let on at the time, and had written a letter at the time telling his perspective of the incident and provided evidence of his theory.  His theory was that the black movement needed a martyr to energize their cause and get press coverage, so they purposely delayed emergency care for Rev. Reeb so that his death, the death of a white man, would get better news coverage.


It has taken all these years to discover this letter, disprove its statements, and find the evidence necessary to change the story.  That conspiracy letter has been the town's narrative about the story all these years.  The final piece of proof the reporters need is a tape recording that they found and know where it is, but frustratingly it is inaccessible.


Finding a new perspective is not creating a lie to make ourselves feel better.  Finding another perspective is having the courage to risk seeking another truth.  That courage comes from inside us.  

Finding another perspective must include using the God given spirit from within.  


For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within?


Let's pray.


Perspective

Reverend Debra McGuire

February 9, 2020


1 Corinthians 2:1-12