Rev. Dr. Joel D. Biermann
I Corinthians 1:26-31
4th Sunday after Epiphany
January 29, 2017
Christians, these days, don’t enjoy a great deal of favorable press or good feeling from the surrounding culture. Several books and studies have appeared in recent years documenting this animosity. But you don’t need books to tell you what you already experience. Being a serious Christian intent on following Christ, honoring his truth, and living according to God’s will does not exactly inspire the world’s applause. More often, it invites the world’s derision and contempt. But this is nothing new. Already in the second century, a Roman writer named Celsus described the Christians of his day as uncultured, ignorant simpletons. They were, he said, “the most uneducated and vulgar persons.” Celsus compared Christians to “a swarm of bats or ants creeping out of their nests, or frogs holding a symposium around a swamp, or worms in conventicle in a corner of mud.” Christians have been putting up with attacks and insults from the culture for a long time.
Some believers get rather perturbed by these characterizations and attacks. And some believe that the church should challenge the misinformation and the slander by fighting back with declarations and evidence to prove the greatness, wisdom, and accomplishments of Christian men and women. That may be a worthwhile idea…or maybe not. I’m not certain it would have much real impact. Besides, there’s a bigger problem we need to face. It’s bad enough when the world speaks harsh and cruel words about Christians, but, what happens when the unflattering descriptions and accusations of Christians don’t come from unbelievers, but from your own leaders? Writing to the Christians living in Corinth, the Apostle Paul reminded them of the hard facts: they were uneducated, unimportant, powerless, and largely insignificant in the eyes of the world. It’s not particularly nice, but it’s right. There were a few exceptions, but for the most part, the first believers fit Paul’s description to a tee. And even the assessment of Celsus was probably not far off target.
Still, describing the early Christians that way is one thing, but using those words on today’s believers is another matter altogether, isn’t it? You can probably put up with your spiritual forebears being described harshly; but it’s harder to swallow the words when they are aimed at you. Foolish, weak, low, despised: these are not easy labels to bear. But, doing research or piling up evidence to disprove the charges is beside the point. Whether most Christians, today, are actually successful, middle class, college-educated, critical thinkers is irrelevant. Those who reject Christ and his church are going to think what they want to think about us despite statistics or facts. And what does it actually matter what they think, anyway? What people think about us ultimately isn’t overly important. People may think that Christians are ignorant, unsophisticated, obscurantists, who cling to archaic, falsified notions and superstitions; so, what? Let them believe what they will. It doesn’t matter. Neither, though, does it matter what we in the church may think about ourselves. Neither what the world thinks of us, nor what we think of us are of any consequence whatsoever. What counts, the only thing that counts, is what God thinks of us. And although it may be hard on our tender, easily bruised human egos, what God thinks of us is even less flattering than what the world has to say.
We all know that God is thoroughly unimpressed by human achievements, worldly deeds, and cultural accomplishments. We know that he is not wowed by the brightest and best that this world has to offer. God is no respecter of persons, and does not privilege the rich and powerful. Still, we are mistaken if we think that the opposite must be true. While God is unimpressed by human accomplishment, he is not favorably disposed to human mediocrity, inability, or failure to achieve. To be simple, uncultured uneducated, and underprivileged, does not put a person a little closer to God. People living in poverty are not inherently more virtuous or appealing to God because of what they don’t have or haven’t done. People who have all the perks don’t merit God’s favor…and people who have none of the perks do not merit God’s favor either. No human offering or action can ever impress God or wrest loose some blessing of God. Power, knowledge, and wealth are not impressive to God. Weakness, ignorance, and poverty are not impressive to God. We cannot offer to God our triumphs. We cannot offer to God our defeats. We can offer to God, nothing. And that’s the point.
You remember that when God created our universe, he did it ex nihilo—out of nothing. God did not start with atoms, or nuclear particles. He did not start with unharnessed energy or force. He didn’t even start with a black hole. He started with nothing. God took nothing and made everything. In creating the world, God violated every scientific rule of cause and effect, and ignored virtually every rule of physics. Everyone knows that you can’t make something out of nothing. But God did. God created out of nothing, ex nihilo. The same truth, the same Latin phrase applies to your spiritual life. When God created faith in you, he did it the same way. He created ex nihilo. He created out of nothing. That’s how God always creates. He makes something, some great thing, out of no thing.
God did not take your humility and lowliness and create faith out of that. He did not take your guilt and your sense of shame and worthlessness and use those things to create your justification. And he certainly didn’t take your sincerity ad goodness and because of them create salvation for you. He took from you what you had to give, he took nothing. Nothing in you creates faith. Nothing in you makes you a believer. Nothing in you makes God care about you, or think twice about you. Not your success, not your failure. Not your confidence, not your humility. Not your position and achievements, not your lowliness and defeats. Nothing. You bring to God nothing; because only where there is nothing does God create something. This is a critical truth. God cannot work his miracle of spiritual creation when something else is already there. The something that keeps God out is any preoccupation with self. It can be puffed up pride and self-sufficiency that can’t stand to be called poor, ignorant, and gullible; or it can be despairing self-hatred that is offered to God. But, when God creates, we can give nothing. Nothing.
It turns out that the analysis of the enemies of Christianity is on the right track after all. Celsus was right—well, actually, he didn’t go quite far enough! To be Christian, one must first be nothing. Before God creates, he first has to remove everything in the way. God works in us only when there is nothing in us. “God chose the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him.” That’s how Paul put it. In other words, God only does his work of creating ex nihilo. That’s how it works when God saves you, when he justifies you. And that’s also how it works when God leads you as his disciple. When you trust yourself, your commitment, your sincerity, your passion, your determination to follow Christ and do his will, you will fail. There probably aren’t many Christians who will readily admit it but, this self-sufficient sort of discipleship is rather common among believers. Even people in the church who claim to know all about grace and who say that they are trusting God for everything have a tendency to begin counting on their own wits and abilities to get things done, and to grow in their Christian walk. When you count on yourself, you push God out. Salvation is never a cooperative venture. Discipleship is not a mutual effort between you and God. It’s all God’s work from start to finish. From the font to the funeral, it is all God’s work.
God’s his work is remarkably consistent. He works in you when you are nothing; and, he worked to win your salvation by himself becoming nothing. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul relates the work of God to save us. He tells us that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, emptied himself or poured himself out. Jesus was fully God in human flesh. All the power of the entire universe was completely his as he walked this earth. He was the Creator. He was the Lord. But, to save the creation, he used none of that power. To restore this world, he revealed none of that might. Instead, he emptied himself. He made himself nothing. He humbled himself to the point of letting others nail him to a cross. Jesus joined us in our nothingness. He became one with us by himself becoming nothing. Crucified. Dead. Buried. Nothing. And then God made him everything. Raised. Vindicated. Exalted. Everything. This is how God worked your salvation. This is how God continues to work in the lives of his people.
Those who follow Christ come to their Lord each day an empty vessel—not just in theory, but in reality. It’s a conscious admission of the score. They have nothing; God has everything. That’s how each day begins for Christ’s followers. And from that point of nothingness, God takes over and makes them everything. He creates and gives and guides. Each day God fills his people with the strength and the zeal they need to follow and do what he calls them to do that day. God does it. It’s creation ex nihilo every single morning. St. Paul understood this truth about God’s work in the lives of believers. His letters breathe the reality. Paul disparaged all of his own earthly accomplishments—and he had many both before and after his conversion to Christ. But he rejected them all and counted them as garbage, as…nothing. He was weak. God was strong. He was incapable. God was more than able. He was ignorant. God was wise. He was nothing. Christ was everything. Every follower of Christ knows this reality. Disciples don’t rely on themselves and what they have. They rely on Christ and all that he has. This is the core of the Christian life.
It’s a daily process, of course. And, it’s a process that you will never leave behind, or “grow out of”. The longer you are a Christian, the more you need to check yourself to make certain that you are not putting things where there should be nothing. It’s too easy to slide into self-reliance. It’s so easy to be deceived into a self-assured swagger. When things are going pretty much the way that they are supposed to go, it’s tempting to take the credit, or at least begin to forget that you need God for everything. It’s precisely when you are on track and seeing success in your efforts in your home at work, or in the neighborhood, that you most need to be on guard. It’s then that you are most vulnerable to forgetting that you have nothing and need God for everything. It’s then that you are in danger of leaving God behind. People rarely fall from faith in one fell swoop. No, it’s not the great crisis or sudden disaster that drives people to renounce their dependence on God for everything. Hard events may be a critical juncture or a crystalizing moment, but the rejection of God always begins long before. Faith is lost incrementally and gradually. It’s given up by degrees. And it is the seasons of success and plenty that are the most dangerous to the Christian. Those times breed a spirit of independence and self-reliance that are the antithesis of faith. Trusting what you have, puts an idol where only God can be. God works ex nihilo. That’s how he saved you. That’s how he grows you. The daily rhythm of your life must begin with an admission of your need and God’s provision.
The world’s motives may be vindictive and cruel, but their assessment of Christians is closer to the truth than even they know. It’s true, we Christians are poor. We are ignorant and unlearned. We are incapable and prone to fail. But the truth goes even further. We are nothing, which is just fine, because Christ is everything. You are nothing. He is everything. And to you, who are in Christ, he gives everything. Amen.