Imagine being a part of the early church. You wouldn’t have had much going for you and your little tribe of Jewish and Gentile misfits. After all your “king” rode a donkey and waved a white flag of surrender, he was nailed to a cross as a political prisoner standing up for liberty and justice for all, and his glorious come-back in resurrection was the ultimate upset to a first century reader as it’s two women greeting him on his way to restore the Kingdom. On top of that, it was illegal to be Christian, as to follow Christ meant you were not following Caesar – prepare to hide or prepare to die.
Paul’s epistles to the first faith communities in the city of Corinth read like encouraging love letters when we understand what these folks were up against,
“The Message that points to Christ on the Cross seems like sheer silliness to those hell-bent on destruction, but for those on the way of salvation it makes perfect sense. This is the way God works, and most powerfully as it turns out. It’s written, ‘I’ll turn conventional wisdom on its head, I’ll expose so-called experts as crackpots.’”
Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of “the brightest and the best” among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these “nobodies” to expose the hollow pretensions of the “somebodies”? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, “If you’re going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God.” (1 Corinthians 1:18-21, 26-31 MSG)
No matter who you are or where you are in life’s journey God is calling you to participate in the healing of the world. We might be small but we are mighty. For God is calling our small community to act in big ways. It is “unconventional” to the world but it is “the way God works, and most powerfully it turns out.” May we build one another up with affirmations in the good work that is being done through the ministries of our church. May the trumpets we blow for God resound through our double-paned glass windows for the neighborhood to hear how good and wonderful salvation through Jesus Christ truly is!
