Holy Weirdos--October 5, 2022

Holy Weirdos--October 5, 2022

"'All things are lawful,' but not all things are beneficial. 'All things are lawful,' but not all things build up. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other." [1 Corinthians 10:23-24]

This is it, friends: this is what makes us blessedly strange, holy weirdos in the world.  In the midst of a culture that angrily shouts, "You can't tell me what to do--that's FREEDOM, baby!" the followers of Jesus speak another word: "We will choose to do what builds up and benefits others, rather than ourselves." They just don't know what to do with that.

If this sounds like a theme we've heard before in First Corinthians, you're right.   For Paul, the whole Christian life is oriented inside-out compared to the conventional wisdom of the day, and so he keeps coming back to this countercultural notion that we who follow Christ will live in his other-centered way as well.  And we will do that, even when the rest of the world insists that it looks foolish, or weak, or backward.  We will deliberately not use our rights or freedoms simply for our own self-interest, but will be willing to waive rights, to not demand what we are entitled to, and to use our freedom and ability for the sake of building up others.  And we will do such things because we have learned that this is the key to living life in its fullest since we've seen it in Jesus.

In this pair of verses, Paul is back to quoting his readers and their slogans.  They seem to have fixated on the idea that "all things are lawful" for them, much as that slogan had come up back in chapter six when they were hung up on using people as objects.  But once again, Paul has to remind them--and us--that we live by a different standard than merely asking "Is this legal for me?"  We live with other criteria than simply, "Is there a law that says I can't do this, and even if so, who says I really have to follow it?" Rather, the followers of Jesus ask the more vital question, "Will doing this build someone else up?"  We ask, "If I do this, how will it help a neighbor?"  And for us, that is actually an expression of our deep freedom in Christ.  

That's because we can be so grounded in the assurance that God's got us covered.  We don't have to look out of for our own interests above all else, because we dare to trust that God is looking out for our interests as well as those of the whole world.  We do not need to be constantly gaming out, "How will this benefit me?" because we recognize that God is already committed to our good and our well-being as a sheer gift of grace.  And we realize that in Christ we are not alone--we don't have to fend for ourselves in this world, because we are not left to our own devices!  And once we realize we don't have to waste our energy, our time, or our attention on getting ahead of everyone else, we are finally truly free to care for the needs of our neighbors, without reducing them to being recipients of our charity so we can rack up heavenly points or merit badges or gold stars.  Grace frees us to love our neighbors, maybe for the first time ever for real.

The other thing that's worth noting about this whole train of thought is that God's goal [if we can talk about God having "goals"] with us is not simply to "get souls into heaven," but rather to make us to be more and more fully like Christ--that is more and more fully embodying the living Christ who dwells in us.  And because Jesus himself is, to use Bonhoeffer's great phrase, "the man for others," we are being shaped more and more completely to be oriented outward toward the needs, the joys, the shared sorrows, and the situations of others.  The deeper we go in the Christian life, the less we'll find ourselves saying, "I don't care what it does to anybody else--I'm free to do it, and you can't stop me!"  The more like Christ we become, the less we'll accept the old, tired logic that says, "Me and My Group First!"  And the more the living God turns us inside out toward others, toward neighbors, toward strangers, and like Jesus even toward enemies, the more we'll reflect the character of Jesus himself.

In a culture that celebrates its own selfishness and still keeps cheering for the "Us First!" agenda, following Jesus' way of seeking the interests of others first is going to make us look weird.  But maybe that weirdness is really what we have meant by "holiness" all along.  Maybe it is a beautiful thing after all to be so blessedly strange.

Lord Jesus, make of us reflections of you own beautifully odd, blessedly strange, holy weirdness.