I Corinthians 1:18-31

I Corinthians 1:18-31 (NRSV)

¹⁸ For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written,

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. ²² For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³ but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

²⁶ Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; ²⁸ God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, ²⁹ so that no one might boast in the presence of God. ³⁰ He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, ³¹ in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

I Corinthians 1:18-31 (Year A Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany) introduces the theme of the cross vs. the wisdom of the world. I provide a summary, a verse-by-verse study, theological reflections, practical applications, and illustrative stories. My intent is to be thorough, weaving together biblical exegesis, historical context, philosophical critique, and personal application. My intent is to offer a robust theological and historical analysis, referencing Greek, Roman, and Jewish contexts, as well as notable theologians and philosophers that I hope enhance credibility. I hope the devotional meditation, the reflection on calling, and illustrations, make the text relevant and accessible. Among the key takeaways:

·      The cross challenges worldly wisdom.

·      God’s calling often comes in unexpected ways.

·      Our vocation is an expression of faith.

Summary

         I Corinthians 1:18-2:16 has the theme of the cross versus the wisdom of the world. Paul begins his discussion with a look back to the cross. The foolish are without faith in Christ. They do not belong to the true people of God. The foolish see in the news of the death of Jesus only the news of a further demonstration of the meaninglessness of human life. Some people want to see God act in miraculous ways. Then, they will believe. Others want to believe in whatever notion of God they can develop with their reason. They want divine truths in the same way they get scientific truths. They want to observe and come to their conclusions. Paul is saying, however, has God has showed up in this world in the strangest way possible – the cross of Jesus Christ. In fact, he is willing to summarize his message and preaching as focused on the cross. We tend to want general truths to which we can reason. When the truth becomes specific, something disclosed in a moment or event, it requires a response from us. Do we see this moment as a disclosure of truth we did not discover, but rather, that God revealed? Granting that the world will not see the cross as salvation until Christ returns, we get to experience salvation and life today. Then, Paul turns toward those of us who respond with faith in the wisdom of the cross. By human standards, believers of his time were hardly wise, powerful, or noble. Throughout much of this world, this observation remains true. Of course, the church in the history of West became wise, powerful, and noble in the ways of this world. Many of its sins arose in that part of its history. God chose the weak and shameful path of the cross to bring salvation to humanity. When we embrace the Crucified One, we set aside anything in which we could take pride. Christ alone is the source of our life, and thus, our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. 

I Corinthians 1:18- 2:16 has the theme of the cross versus the wisdom of the world. Paul directs our attention to the significance of the moment as over against the general and universal. In this case, the moment is the cross. This moment discloses what we know concerning God. The reports of divisions of which Paul has heard from representatives of Chloe told him factions in the community at Corinth. In response to the damage the factions have caused, Paul teaches the community concerning the wisdom of God and the wisdom of human beings. We get a lesson in the dialectic within Paul between revelation and culture. What may feel natural given certain cultural settings contrasts sharply and dialectically with the moment of revelation. Preachers and teachers of Christian faith must never back away from the dialectical tension in trusting revelation. Yet, Nietzsche, in Antichrist, famously took aim at the Christianity expressed here.[1] I Corinthians 1: 18-31 begin with the notion that to those God is saving, the message about the cross is the power of God. The rhetorical tradition of Hellenism that championed the abilities of human wisdom and power and glorified the pride and prestige of knowledge appealed strongly to the Corinthians.  Paul deals with this by referring to a passage in the Old Testament and to the blatant foolishness of the preaching of the cross. 

Verse-by-verse study

Verse 18 relates the paradox of the cross. ¹⁸ For the message [λόγος] about the cross is foolishness [μωρία] to those who are perishing, but to us who God is saving, it is the power of God. Why is the word about the cross so foolish, utterly offensive to both Jews and Greeks? Well, for one thing, there was no worse way to die. Romans flogged victims just short of death, then nailed their hands and feet to the wood. Crucifixion proved to be particularly effective in subduing restless colonies; thus, the Romans used it widely in Judea. Though widely used, classical Roman literature downplays its role, stressing that government authorities used only on barbarians and then, only in the most rebellious of them.  In crucifixion, it was not only the physical pain, but also government authorities hanging up a body naked for all to see and mock. No wonder that crucifixion was especially popular torture for robbers, rebels, and other disturbers of the peace. A crucified Messiah? Bonhoeffer is right in saying, "It is no small thing that God allows himself to be pushed out of the world on a cross." To worship the crucified? Imagine driving by a building that has a hangman's noose on its sign out front. If you were a Jew, Greek, or barbarian, I think you would find it rather foolish for folk to assemble to worship that. While Paul does not speak of the gospel of reconciliation, he will write of the word of the cross, which is describing the gospel. [2] Paul begins his discussion with a look back to the cross. Paul is saying that God has showed up in this world in the strangest way possible – the cross of Jesus Christ. In fact, he is willing to summarize his message and preaching as focused on the cross. That message is the story of self-sacrifice of a man whom believers accept as Son of God.  For a population concerned with making as much economic and social headway as possible in the fluid culture of Corinth, holding up the defeatist symbol of the cross seemed stupid and self-defeating. Yet the preaching of the cross sets in motion the power of God. Such preaching is just words, is it not? German philosopher Lessing spoke of "the ugly broad ditch" that separates the event of Jesus Christ in this time from our contemporary appropriation of that event in our time. How, asked Lessing, can one event in one time be accessible to us in our time? How does the distant “then” become a “now?” The gospels typically solve this dilemma by proclaiming cross and resurrection together. "He was crucified, dead and buried, and rose from the dead," we say in the Creed. Time does not trap the resurrected Christ, as if he were a man of the first century but not our own. God has raised him from the dead. Paul preaches this in places like Romans. But here, to the Corinthians, Paul grounds salvation, not so much in resurrection but in preaching, in the "word of the cross." He does not mention resurrection. He replaces resurrection by a word. He replaces cross-resurrection by cross-word. It is the word of the cross that makes Christ present. An amazing claim for words, do you not think? Thus, we can say that here, Bultmann was right to say that Jesus rises into preaching. Paul is claiming that the saving power comes to us in preaching. I have heard lousy sermons. I have given my share of them. Yet we give attention to the preached word because we have seen the power of God in something so vulnerable and foolish as preaching. Frankly, preaching seems so powerless to do any good. Sermons are just words. If preaching the word of the cross gives it power to save, this must mean power to break the grip of sin on the life and imagination of people and to bring us to God. The word of the cross is just that dramatic. The cross, of course, is the supreme event, a divine intrusion and disruption. 

Verses 19-25 offers a scriptural reflection and rhetorical refledtion. ¹⁹ For we find it written in Isaiah 29:14 (Septuagint) “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” For his primarily Gentile audience, enamored of Hellenistic philosophies, the weight carried by Jewish scripture was slight. Yet, with this citation, Paul introduces the stark contrast between the wisdom or plan of God and the wisdom of humans who view themselves as wise. The cross discloses the folly of the wisdom and strength of this world. One of the paradoxical statements of Paul is that the folly of the cross is wisdom.  God has abandoned the wisdom of this world.  At the heart of the Christian gospel is the word of the cross. As in other places (such as the wonderful hymn of Philippians 2:5-11), Paul delights in the paradox of the cross and how its offense and weakness reveal the power of God, thus exposing the foolishness of this age. Indeed, in many places Paul embodies this paradox himself as he bears his apparent lack of eloquence as a demonstration of his conformity to Christ (1:17, II Corinthians 10:10ff). Here he applies it to challenge the wisdom and authority of those who would elevate their status in the community over others and thereby bring disruption to the church. Indeed, the message of the cross has not won universal acceptance

Then Paul offers a series of rhetorical questions in the form of a taunt. ²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. Paul humbles his proclamation by calling it foolish in the eyes of the world, even while it saves those who believe. His point is that we see the wisdom of God in making sure that human beings could not know God through wisdom. Rather, through the foolishness of the proclamation of Paul and the other apostolic leaders, God decided to save those who believe. We find here the danger of falsification of the gospel through finding worldly strength by presenting the gospel in an acceptable or tolerable form.[3] The foolish are without faith in Christ. Thus, they do not belong to the true people of God. They see in the news of the death of Jesus only the news of a further demonstration of the meaninglessness of human life. I think it fair to say that the culture in the West tends to want general truths to which we can reason. The model is science, for its conclusions, which mathematize the movements of nature, apply to every culture and time. Yet, the claims of religions, as with the claims of economic and political theory, do not have that type of certainty or universality. When the truth becomes specific, something disclosed in a moment or event, it requires a response from us. Do we see this moment as a disclosure of truth we did not discover, but rather, that God revealed? Granting that the world will not see the cross as salvation until Christ returns, we get to experience salvation and life today. 

Next, Paul also demonstrates his understanding of the church and its mission, comprised of both Jew and Gentile. Not everyone shared the vision of Paul for a church comprised of Jew and Gentile. Revelation puts both groups at risk, for that on which these groups depend stand in tension with the cross. The moment of revelation places Jew and Gentile on the same footing. Both conflict with revelation! To their credit, both Jew and Gentile want to know God. Their inability to know God by their chosen means to do so is part of the divine plan. We will need to trust something beyond our ability to control or toward which we could reason. We will have to direct our attention decidedly not us to learn who God is. If revelation conformed to our expectations, we would hardly have needed revelation. ²² For, from his experience, Jews demand signs. The Old Testament amply demonstrates the demand for "signs" from God. They are people of the word as well, but the beginning of their existence, arising out of slavery in Egypt and a long journey through the wilderness, involved signs, the cloud and fire, that provided markers along the way. Such a characterization of Jews is consistent with the presentation of scribes and Pharisees in the Synoptic tradition, as the demand signs from Jesus (Matthew 12:38). It suggests that they had trouble with trust. They wanted tangible demonstrations of power. Such a sign would be dramatic intervention in the sky and the earth. The Jews demand a victorious Messiah. They seek the saving action of God through the Messiah, accompanied by certain signs. Even today, some people want to see God act, accompanied by certain miraculous signs. Then, they will believe. Thus, the notion of the Messiah nailed to a cross, coming under the ancient curse, is unbelievable, an offense to Torah, for the Jew. What the Jew naturally demands conflicts with revelation. The Jew will need to become open to the possibility that the moment of divine revelation will not have accompanying signs they have come to expect. In a comparable way, Greeks desire wisdom. The Greeks demand an approach to the ineffable that is intellectually cogent and philosophically sound. They want any talk of God to have intellectual respectability. The Greeks wanted to weigh the pros and cons of a new system. Paul is combating an inflated view of wisdom and knowledge. Human knowledge creates the obstacle here. If one measures revelation by the standards of human reason, revelation will come up short. To put it another way, we do not need revelation to teach us what we can learn through experience and reasoning. If revelation occurs in the cross, then it moves against human presumption. The cross moves against our natural tendencies. It refuses to conform to our standards of experience or reasoning. Revelation in the cross stresses what God has done there rather than that which we can know through the exercise of our reason. Greeks, or Gentiles, do not want to see, they want to know. Others want to believe in whatever notion of God they can develop with their reason. They want divine truths in the same way they get scientific truths. They want to observe and come to their conclusions. We naturally want revelation to confirm whatever we already believe. We are part of a culture. We must not assume that divine revelation will confirm what it thinks it already knows or act in ways it already does. They may see the proclamation of the paradox as in Acts 17:32 and turn away in impatience or alarm. It may well be a good sign that not many wise respond, for it is in keeping with the presumed folly of the Gospel.[4] The demand for logic and reasons, in other words, can blind one from seeing the moment of revelation. However, ²³ we proclaim [κηρύσσομεν] Christ crucified, a stumbling block, understood as an offense to Torah, to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. How foolish it is to think that something significant happens in something so vulnerable, so prone to misunderstanding, as preaching. The moment of revelation goes against the expectations of Jew and Gentile. Revelation in the cross is not glory as the Jew would understand it, nor wisdom as the Gentile would understand it. Both Jews and Greeks, as Molly Marshall-Green puts it, are looking for God in all the wrong places. They shall have neither signs nor wisdom. Paul is stressing that the difficulty in discovering the presence of God is the preconceived expectations of who God is and how God ought to behave.  Sign-seeking Jews and wisdom-desiring Gentiles denounce the gospel because it does not meet their norms of godliness. The prophetic work of Jesus Christ has the form of passion. Yes, he is Jesus Christ the Victor, but through Gethsemane and Golgotha. In this form of suffering, as the Rejected, Judged, Despised, Bound, Impotent, Slain, and Crucified, we see the Victor who marches with us and to us through the times, alive in the promise of the Spirit. In this form, he is at the core of the kerygmatic theology of Paul and the kerygmatic accounts of the Gospels. In this form, as an obstacle to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, he has addressed his own, his community, and through this the world, from the time of his resurrection onwards. He encounters humanity in this form, or not at all.[5] However, ²⁴ to those who God calls, emphasizing the extent to which human decision is not involved, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power (δύναμιν)of God and the wisdom (σοφίαν) of God. The gospel claims that Christ crucified is the ultimate revelation of God's wisdom and power. Paul makes it clear that the cross goes against expectations of Greek and Jew, for the cross is neither glory nor wisdom. To believe or trust in its wisdom and power is to accept the paradoxical way of God in this world. The march of world occurrence hides the reality of divine wisdom. Only at the end of history will the divine counsel that underlies what takes place be knowable. The dawning of such revelatory events of the end-time in the person of Jesus initiated the definitive revelation of God and showed the goal of the divine counsel, leading Paul here to regard Jesus Christ as the embodiment of the divine wisdom.^[6]  25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Paul is combating an inflated view of wisdom and knowledge.  Some may have tried to measure the Christian message by standards of human reason, so that they could defend God by reason. 

Martin Luther considered a theology of the cross to be a new principle of theological epistemology. The cross of the outcast and forsaken Christ is the visible revelation of the being of God for humanity in the reality of a human world. He understands the cross in an unmystical way as the protest of God against the misuse of the divine name for the purpose of a religious consummation of human wisdom, works, and the imperialism of ecclesiastical society. It is a protest for the freedom of faith. The theology of the cross begins the Reformation struggle over the true or false church and over the human liberation of enslaved humanity under work and achievement. He criticizes natural theology as found the Sentences of Peter Lombard. This method begins from the works of God and draws conclusions from the effects to the cosmos, based upon Romans 1:19-20. Lombard expressed this natural knowledge of God as humanity perceiving the Creator in what is created by virtue of the excellence of God. The cosmos is permeated by the divine Logos and the seed of wisdom is innate in all people. Since like is known only by like, he thought of the analogy of being bridging the gap between creation and the Creator. The excellence of humanity is of greater importance than the commonality of humanity with the rest of creation. Aquinas would add the notion of a community of being that allows logical inference from what one experiences in the world to the divine. At this point, Luther shifts attention to I Corinthians to contrast such natural knowledge of God from the knowledge of God gained through the cross. The natural knowledge of God potentially open to humanity, but humanity misuses it in the interest of their self-exaltation and their self-divinization. Humanity misuses the knowledge of God to serve human pride. Knowledge of God gained in this way is useless. The knowledge of God gained in the suffering and death of Christ takes the perverse human situation seriously. Such knowledge is descending and convincing knowledge. Therefore, God wants something on earth. Such knowledge shatters pride and kills gods made by humans. The theology of the cross has God revealing who God is in the contradiction and the protest of the passion of Christ to be against all that is exalted and beautiful and good. This knowledge is achieved through contradiction, sorrow, and suffering. The theology of the cross begins with that part of the being of God that is visible and directed toward the world. This visible being of God is the passion and cross of Christ. One can know the being of God only in the cross of Christ, knowledge of God being therefore real and saving. The theology of the cross recognizes that one knows God in despised humanity and calls human things by their real names.[7]

I invite you to stand back from the specifics of this argument and consider its broader implications. Paul condemns arrogant human wisdom. He does not condemn genuine knowledge. He suggests the deepest human need is to know God, but the quest for knowledge could not fill the void.  However, that inability was part of the plan of God. Nevertheless, one does not find here a biblical warrant for abandoning the study of wisdom and enshrining ignorance on the altar of spirituality. Are we to disregard the idea of philosophy as the handmaid of theology? Does Athens have nothing to do with Jerusalem? Early theologians (Clement of Alexandria, for one) were quick to rehabilitate Paul on this point, arguing that Paul, influenced by the Greek philosophical setting, is not railing against philosophy, but against bad philosophy, particularly philosophy of the Epicurean and Stoic variety. He himself quoted the philosophers to make his own theological point, although without much success (Acts 17). A preacher wrote John Wesley: Dear Mr. Wesley, the Lord has directed me to write you to say that he don’t need your larnin’ to spread his word.” Wesley wrote: “Dear Sir, I received your letter in which you observed that the Lord directed you to inform me that he does not need my learning to spread his word. I reply, not by the Lord’s direction, but on my own to inform you that while the Lord does not require my learning, neither does he require your ignorance.”

In addition, here lies the heart of the distinction that Martin Luther drew and famously expounded in the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518 between theologia crucis and theologia gloriae. He links those who embrace the wisdom of the world to a theology of glory, an ontological enterprise in which one presumes to be able to discover the transcendent, majestic reality of God through natural signs and wonders and intellectual pursuits. A theology of the cross, on the other hand, seeks not the glory of sophistry but the humiliation of the cross, to recognize God where God has hidden himself, hidden under the cloak of incarnational darkness and the scandal of the cross.

In an article that examines Jewish perceptions of the cross as a Christian symbol, Mary C. Boys wonders whether hundreds of years of Christian anti-Semitism has tainted the symbol. She considers other symbols as potential replacements but discards them. She recognizes that like all symbols, the cross evokes more than one can explain. It condenses death and life into one symbol. It enfolds some of the deepest fears of humanity - vulnerability, betrayal, pain, forsakenness - and transfigures them into expressions of hope. When Christians proclaim the power of the cross, they are voicing their confidence that death is not the end, that God has broken the grip, and that God will banish the powers and principalities who control this world. When Christians proclaim the power and wisdom of the cross, they declare with trembling voice that at times one must simply endure suffering, that one must bear certain things in life. Moreover, they are declaring that in the passion of Jesus we find a model for our fidelity.[8]

George Bernard (1873-1958) wrote a hymn that expresses something of the Christian devotional approach to the cross. He refers to the cross as the emblem of suffering and shame. Yet we love that old cross, where the dearest and best received the punishment of death for a world of lost sinners. The world despises the old, rugged cross. Yet, it has a wondrous attraction for us. The dear Lamb of God left the glory of life with the Father, bringing that glory to dark Calvary. Yes, the old, rugged cross, stained with blood so divine, has become beautiful in our eyes. Jesus suffered and died on that old cross for you and for me. Thus, we will be true to the cross and gladly bear its shame and reproach. In addition, Keith and Christin Getty have written a popular praise song, In Christ Alone. It contains the notion that Jesus received scorn from those he came to save to the point where he died on the cross. Yet, since the Father laid the sins of humanity on the Son, the wrath of the Father against sin received satisfaction. Here, in the death of Christ, we live.

 

Verses 26-31 is the calling of believers. Then, Paul turns toward those of us who respond with faith in the wisdom of the cross. The event or moment of revelation would be nothing without a corresponding event in those who hear the calling of God in it. The event of faith and the event of revelation bring an intimate connection that realigns a human life outside itself and allows the event of revelation to determine the course or direction of one’s life. By human standards, believers of his time were hardly wise, powerful, or noble. Throughout much of this world, this observation remains true. Of course, the church in the history of West became wise, powerful, and noble in the ways of this world. Many of its sins arose in that part of its history. God chose the weak and shameful path of the cross to bring salvation to humanity. When we embrace the Crucified One, we set aside anything in which we could take pride. Christ alone is the source of our life, and thus, our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. ²⁶ Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. In this, the event of our calling from God in Jesus Christ cuts across the various spheres of human life. Jesus Christ, as true Son of God is true humanity as well, who is all things human quite different from all other human beings, but to whom nothing human is alien. The object of the work of Christ is as people are. If so, who human beings matter to God. Christ finds humanity as it is, in various vocations. The event of the shaking of the divine calling occurs in the context of human beings as they are.[9] Election involves the improbable exception becoming the intimation of a new norm, a new creation. In that sense, we as modern readers can see an analogy with the evolutionary process, which relies upon certain unique mutations becoming successful as a new pattern for a species.^[10] 28 God chose, in the plural here, Paul specifically has the Christian community in mind, while we immediately learn that belonging to Christ is the basis for the selection.^[11] God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, ²⁹ so that no one might boast in the presence of God. The world's nobodies become God's somebodies; the world's somebodies are nobodies. The point of Paul in all this is that given all this, no one can boast in the presence of God. Such reflections make silly the divisions that Paul described in the previous section. ³⁰ He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom (σοφία) from God. Jesus Christ became our righteousness (δικαιοσύνη), meaning that our righteousness or justification has a historical center in the revealing work of God in the event of the cross.[12] As those who are of like humanity with Christ in him as Head and Representative, we are righteous, acceptable, and pleasing to God even as we are. As our Brother and with the forgiveness of sin, God accepts, loves, and blesses the children of God. Jesus Christ is also our sanctification (ἁγιασμὸς) referring to a divinely effected state, made possible in a way that has the historical center of the event of the cross of Christ, and it is by Christ that it comes into effect in Christians, so that the sanctifying effect is the living form of the Christ life.[13] This means that as those like him in humanity, God claims us as those who are regenerate, converted and already engaged in turning to God, and therefore as Christians. Because we are in Jesus Christ before God, we are righteous and holy before God. Such sanctification has its roots in the life of the community and in love.[14] Sanctification is a necessary consequence of justification as the subjection of humanity to the divine direction. Sanctification is the presupposition of all Christian ethics. Sanctification is the claiming of all human life, being, and activity by the will of God for the active fulfillment of that will. As such, sanctification is a form of the atonement, of the conversion of humanity to God, and an element the divine activity of human reconciliation with God. Sanctification is by and in Jesus Christ.[15] Jesus Christ is our redemption (ἀπολύτρωσις), in that he set us free for a ransom, namely, the giving of his life, providing the historical center of our redemption in the cross of Christ. The word in a secular setting meant paying for the freedom of slaves, those in prison, and prisoners of war. In this passage, it refers to the present reality of the Christian, implicitly equating it with the forgiveness of sins. We can speak of the historical reality of redemption if we remember Jesus Christ is the Crucified and Risen Christ proclaimed in the Gospel. We need to think of more than redemption as part of the historical life of Jesus that works its historical influence in those who continue to follow him, taking us up into the power and blessedness of the consciousness Jesus had of God (Schleiermacher). Rather, Paul has in mind the work of God toward humanity in Jesus Christ. Redemption in Jesus Christ means Jesus Christ is the middle point of the history of God with humanity. God has bound up redemption with the person of Jesus Christ. Such redemption occurs within the circumference of faith in Jesus Christ. Redemption derives from God at work in Jesus Christ, for God has made Christ our redemption. The focus is the act of emancipation itself, rather than the secular notion of payment for ransom.[16] ³¹ In order that, as it is written in Jeremiah 9:23-24, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” There can be no excuse for co-opting God to advance our own theological agenda. All claims to a sectarian loyalty that places allegiance to a human agent of proclamation above allegiance to the message of the cross itself is the ultimate folly. The reality of divine revelation is here, as the New Testament, in this constant reiteration of the name of Christ. Every part of the Scripture has significance only as it relates to this Word.[17]

         Practical application for a modern consideration of calling

Consider your calling. During WWII, when the Nazi armies were in every country of Europe, King Christian of Denmark stubbornly resisted the Nazis.  His country was quite insignificant compared to powerful Germany, and the king knew he could not win on the battlefield, but he put up a valiant moral struggle.  One day he observed a Nazi flag flying about one of his public buildings.  He reminded the German commander that this was contrary to the treaty between the two nations, and he said, "The flag must be removed before 12 O'clock; otherwise, I will send a soldier to remove it."  At five minutes before 12:00, the flag was flying, and the king announced that he was sending a soldier to take it down.  "The soldier will be shot," the Nazi officer replied.  The King Christian calmly said, "I think I should tell you that I will be that soldier."[18]

         Consider your calling. Mother Teresa started her work among the dying in Calcutta, India.  She was obstructed at every turn by government officials and orthodox Hindus.  They were suspicious of her motives.  She and her sisters were harassed and insulted and threatened.  One day, amid stones being thrown, she threw herself down on the ground and threw her arms out in the form of a cross, and said, "Kill me!  And I'll be in heaven all the sooner."  Though it stopped the violence for a time, it soon came back.  One morning, Mother Teresa was near a Hindu temple when she saw a man dying on its steps, while no one dared to touch him because he was dying of cholera.  She took the body of the priest in her arms and carried him to her shelter.  Day and night she nursed him, and eventually he recovered.  Repeatedly he would say to the people, "For 30 years I have worshipped a god of stone.  But I have met in this gentle woman a real holy person, one of flesh and blood."  Never again were stones thrown at Mother Teresa or her sisters.

Paul invites us to consider the significance of the event of our calling. Such an event may lead us to dangerous and unexpected places. However, it may lead us deeply into the commonness of daily life. In fact, you can do a Google search and find many articles that claim to help you find it. I do not claim this sermon will do that. I would like to discuss life calling by asking two simple questions. In the process, my hope is that they will stimulate you to consider or re-consider this critical area of your life. I want to do this in the light of what the cross of Christ means for us as Christians. We need to listen to our life experiences. We need to discover our passion as we consider what we genuinely believe, how our skills enhance our beliefs, and how our values will sustain our passion. Most of all, we need to look at our lives through what God has done in Christ. 

My first question is this. Who will you become? Early in our lives, and at critical moments throughout our lives, we are making ourselves. We are deciding the kind of person we will be. Some people will say that they need time to find themselves. I understand that and I am sympathetic. The sad reality is that many people, if they are honest, will take that long journey inward and discover an onion. They will find that no one is home. The reason is that the soul, the self, who you are, is waiting for you to take responsibility for forming it. We create who we are through the commitments and decisions we make.[19]

My second question is this. What will you do with your life? To what work will you commit yourself? A few kids in school seem to know from first grade on just what they wanted to be when they grew up. Do you remember? I envied them. Most of us spend quite a bit of time shopping around before we finally find, or fall into, a profession that suits our personality. However, regardless of the work we do the people who are to live out our lives considering what God has done in Christ.

First, let us consider your call. Did you know that God has called you?  David, the youngest of many brothers, was tending sheep when summoned by Samuel. Abraham was minding his own business in Ur. Jeremiah was a shy and unwilling youth. God often calls us when we are running errands, doing the mundane, thankless chores of life. When we least expect it, God elects us.[20] Here is Moses, hiding out on the backside of Midian desert. He is running an errand when a bush started burning. Isaiah was in the temple, performing his regular priestly duties, when he had a heavenly vision that commissioned him. Amos herded sheep and tended to sycamore trees when the Lord told him to go and preach. Andrew and Peter were fishing when Jesus called them to fish for people.

Paul has a simple definition of calling. God calls each of us so that the source of our life is in Christ. In Christ, we find our justification, sanctification, righteousness, and redemption. God is in the habit of choosing what the world considers foolish to confound the wise, what the world considers weak to confound the strong. 

To put it simple, our calling is to be a Christian. God worked through a faithful mother, pastor, Sunday school teacher, and other people in a little church in Austin, MN, to issue a call to me that I might find my life in Christ. You see, we can always find our lives in ourselves by living for ourselves. I consider it a gift that I received that calling early in my life and have, through many twists and turns, hills and valleys, remained on that path. For some of us, we did not respond to that calling of who we are until much later in life. The search was a long and difficult one.

Second, you express your calling in your vocation. Our calling may sometimes be dramatic and scintillating work, something like firefighting, space walking, dancing a ballet, or even scoring a touchdown. Far more often, we are office managers, bank tellers, factory workers, and doing electrical repairs. We perform the common labor that keeps things running smoothly. Your calling might be high and lifted up on occasion. However, you will often spend your calling low, bent down, and serving. If we think of our life calling in light of Christ, we ought to learn at least that.

Many of us find all this a complicated process. We must discover our identity, filtering out all the chatter that tells us to be someone we do not really want to become. Your calling to be a Christian and your vocation in which you express it is not some kind of destiny. We may have to test certain things, sometimes for years, before we discover what truly brings fulfillment in our lives. We might be in a career for years, experiencing its weariness, until we have the courage to make a change toward transformation and significance. While some know early, the answers do not come easily for most of us. Usually, we have some pain, risk, adversity, and struggle. In fact, we often see the divine pattern only as we take a retrospective look at our lives and see how a divine purpose has woven into our lives something beautiful and purposeful.

 

 

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[1] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.2 [45.2] 242

[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 455.

[3] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71.5] 632.

[4] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.1 [30.3] 435-6.

[5] Barth Church Dogmatics IV.3 [70.1] 390-1.

[6] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1, 441.

[7] (Moltmann, The Crucified God 1973, 1974) 207-14.

[8] -Mary C. Boys, "The cross: Should a symbol betrayed be reclaimed?" Cross Currents, Spring 1994.

 

[9] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4 [56.2] 603.

[10] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 113.

[11] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 3, 457.

[12] Schrenk, TDNT Volume II, 204.

[13] Procksch, TDNT, Volume I, 112-3.

[14] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [64.4] 273-4.

[15] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.1 [58.2] 101.

[16] Buchsel, TDNT, IV, 351-356.

[17] Barth, Church Dogmatics I.2 [13.1] 10.

[18] C. Thomas Hilton, Be My Guest: Sermons on the Lord's Supper, 41.

[19]  --Tony Campolo, "Lose Yourself," on the Red Letter Christians blog, April 7, 2011.www.redletterchristians.org/lose-yourself/ Retrieved August 12, 2013.

[20] Walter Earl Fluker("Valley Calls," Pulpit 1.3 [Summer 1998], 36-37).

Micah 6:1-8

Micah 6:1-8 (NRSV)

6 Hear what the Lord says:

Rise, plead your case before the mountains,

and let the hills hear your voice.

² Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord,

and you enduring foundations of the earth;

for the Lord has a controversy with his people,

and he will contend with Israel. 

³ “O my people, what have I done to you?

In what have I wearied you? Answer me!

⁴ For I brought you up from the land of Egypt,

and redeemed you from the house of slavery;

and I sent before you Moses,

Aaron, and Miriam.

⁵ O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised,

what Balaam son of Beor answered him,

and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,

that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.” 

⁶ “With what shall I come before the Lord,

and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

⁸ He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?

 

Micah 6:1-8 presents the case that the Lord has against Israel. I provide an introduction that explores historical context, a verse-by-verse study that points to its biblical and theological significance, and an application that points to its relevance to the modern context.

Introduction

The Lord has a controversy with the people of Israel and contends with Israel. In the Old Testament, we see that many people approach with the controversy they have with God. However, in this passage, God has a controversy with the people of God. It advances the legal metaphor of a lawsuit to address the relationship between the Lord and Israel. This is not a usual lawsuit. The prophet summons the mountains, hills, and the very foundations of the earth. In one sense, the passage does not address humanity, but Israelite humanity. That which the Lord requires is not something that all human beings owe each other, like the Ten Commandments, but is what those in covenant with each other owe to each other.[1] As we shall see, the passage may have implications for what God expects of human beings as well.

Verse by verse study

The opening verses (6:1-5) are in a covenant lawsuit format. First, in verses 1-2, using words that can have multiple meanings, the prophet summons the people to hear the case of the Lord against them: ¹Hear what the Lord says: Here is the covenant lawsuit format. Rise, the Lord is rising, plead your case, the Lord is pleading the case, before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice. ² Hear, you mountains, the controversy of the Lord, and you enduring foundations of the earth. The Lord pleads the case in the presence of creation. For the Lord has a controversy with his people, and he will contend with Israel. However, instead of itemizing a direct bill of indictment, in verses 3-5, the point is unequivocal that Israel had no reason to abandon the Lord, for the Lord has done no wrong, for the Lord has performed many gracious acts for Israel, so the Lord turns the tables and asks the "witness" Israel rhetorically: ³ “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me! This format only makes it all the clearer that it is Yahweh alone who has the right to be weary - weary of Israel's disobedience. Isaiah 43:24 refers to the disobedience of Israel as a burden and making the Lord weary. Malachi 2:17 also speaks of Israel making the Lord weary through their disobedience. Instead of admitting growing weariness over Israel's disobedience, Yahweh offers a case history of the divine steadfastness and salvation visited upon Israel over the centuries. The gracious acts mentioned relate to the exodus from Egypt, the period of wandering in the desert, including the Balak-Balaam story in Numbers 22-24, and the crossing of the Jordan in Joshua 3-4. First, the Lord brought them out of Egypt, recalling the redemptive act of the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. The Lord has kept covenant. ⁴ For I brought you up from the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of slavery. Second, the Lord sent them impressive leaders during their early years: and I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, in which we should note the equality with which the sister is treated as a leader with her brothers, which contrasts with the narrative as we have it in the Torah. Third, the Lord protected them from enemies. In this eighth-century view of Hebrew history, the story of Israel's rescue from the deceits of Balak and Balaam was an exceedingly popular text. ⁵ O my people, remember now what King Balak of Moab devised, what Balaam son of Beor answered him. Fourth, the Lord tells of Israel's successful entrance into the Promised Land, her final camp at Shittim and her first cultic actions at their site of entry at Gilgal: and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal. Here is what should be the result of the actions of the Lord: that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.” Together, these events present an impressive, albeit brief, overview of the saving acts the Lord has performed for Israel. Abruptly the covenant lawsuit/trial motif ends.

In 6:6-8, for which some scholars for a post-exilic date, we find the text taking the shape of a Torah liturgy. It represents the speech for the prosecution. The subject is the usefulness of sacrifice. The question-answer section of verses 6-7 acts as the liturgical answer of the people to the suit brought against them by the Lord in verses 1-5.  As Israel wonders what it can do to earn back acceptance from the Lord, it offers a list of cultic activities whose purpose is to put God and the people back into a right relationship. The list of sacrificial actions that they might take grows in fervor and flamboyance as the verses continue. In the process, Micah poses the most urgent question of religious existence. What is the way of true worship?[2] ⁶ “With what shall I come before the Lord, and as the only offering for the poor, bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with the costly and highly prized offering of calves a year old? ⁷ Will the Lord be pleased with the outrageously lavish demonstrations of sacrifice available only to the king such as thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Finally, the forbidden dark sacrifice: Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Torah had long outlawed child sacrifice but continued as a sporadic practice throughout the ancient Near East. Genesis 22 and the King of Moab II Kings 3:27 and the horror it brought upon Israel relate to this.  In imagining the setting in which the people might ask such questions, we are to imagine them as pilgrims going to Jerusalem at one of the annual feasts. They would ask the questions at the gate of the temple. 

Micah was not alone in his concern about the animal sacrifices required by Torah. His contemporary in Isaiah 1:11-17 also says the multitude of sacrifices of animals mean nothing. Another contemporary, in Amos 5:21-24, says the Lord hates their festivals and solemn assembling’s in which they make burnt and grain offerings. Psalm 40:6-8 says the Lord does not desire sacrifice and offering. Psalms 40:6 says the Lord has not required of the poet sacrifice, burnt offering, or sin offering. Psalm 50:7-11 says every animal already belongs to the Lord, so sacrifice and offering do not make sense. Psalm 51:16-17 says the Lord finds no delight in sacrifice and burn offering. Deuteronomy 10:12-13 very closely parallels Micah 6:8: “So now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you? Only to fear [revere] the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD your God. …” A strong part of the tradition is to guide people away from dependence upon sacrifices and offerings, as if they replace a life of obedience. Although Micah knows that sacrifice is a necessary part of a right relationship with God, which Mosaic Law commanded and carefully detailed in Leviticus 1-6, these actions in themselves are still not enough. Historically, Israel in Canaan at first made modest use of sacrifice.  However, as the religion of Canaan influenced Israel, it became more elaborate.  Amos accepted the lower view of sacrifice, and earlier in I Samuel 15:22, where obedience is better than sacrifice.  Hosea and Isaiah shared reservations about sacrifice.  Hosea 6:6 (cited by Jesus in Matthew 9:13; 12:7), “For I desire mercy [hesed], not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Jeremiah had some challenging words in this regard: frankincense and burnt offerings are not acceptable (6:19-20). They need to amend their ways, act justly, and refuse to oppress (7:5-7). In the period of the exodus the Lord did not command them to present burnt offerings, but to walk in obedience to what the Lord commanded (7:21-26). One can properly boast only in knowing and understanding the Lord with love, justice, and righteousness (9:23-24). The wisdom teachers were consistent with this emphasis: the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination while the prayer of the upright brings delight to the Lord (Proverbs 15:8), which while true, even more so is the sacrifice of those with evil intent (21:27), while the doing righteousness and justice is more acceptable than sacrifice (21:3). Even in NT times, there were rabbis who did not value sacrifice highly. Jesus has an analogous concern when he said the Pharisees counsel tithe on the smallest thing while neglecting the weightier matters of the torah, such as justice, mercy, and faith (Matthew 23:23) and when he said that loving God with all that we are and loving our neighbor is greater than observing the law regarding burnt offerings and sacrifices (Mark 12:28-34). The writer of Hebrews takes it further, saying that we are wise not to interpret such reservations as a rejection of Temple offerings. Some NT passages follow certain OT passages’ lead in spiritualizing sacrifice. Thus, since the sacrifice of animals cannot take away sin, the Son told the Father that he would offer his body so that the sacrifice of animals is abolished, thereby establishing the priority of doing of the will of the Father (Hebrews 10:4-10), continually offering the sacrifice of praise, doing good, and sharing with others, which are the sacrifices that please the Father (Hebrews 13:15-16), offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to the Father through Jesus as the Christ (1 Peter 2:5). Such notions in the Old Testament expresses the common concept of the primacy of morality over sacrifices. Thus, we need not find such counsel mystifying. We may resolve the issue by seeing a combination of ironic and/or spiritualizing language and a corresponding call to return to a form of religious practice that does not use even proper religious observances as a cover-up for disobedience to God and unrighteousness, especially injustice. A religion of the heart will lead its observers not only to observe ceremonial practices, but also to live a righteous and just life in a society that shows love for God and neighbor.

The climax of this text is the response of the prophet to the litany of questions from the people. It spells out what it is God seeks from Israel if sacrifice is not what God requires so that she may "make things right." The "better way" is a threefold path. ⁸ He has told you, O mortal (adam), using an uncommon address. The use of adam may simply be to stress the mere creatureliness of human listeners over/against the exalted divinity of God the Creator. But there is another possibility. The inclusivity of the term adam may also point to the universality of God's expectations for these spiritual attitudes and attributes. All humans, even those outside Israel, may be expected to choose this threefold path. The prophet urges them to do what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but, the first two behaviors involving establishing right human-to-human relationships, (1) to do justice, and (2) to love kindness, and (3) to walk humbly (to live with in communion, referring to one’s whole way of life, even as Enoch in Genesis 5:21-24 walked with God, to walk modestly and wisely) with your God? Taken together, these three attitudes outweigh all sacrificial actions. This didactic saying is one of the most influential and oft-quoted sayings in prophetic literature. It was considered as a summation of all the law. Even for modern readers, these words seem reassuringly familiar. Yet these words are profoundly challenging. The point is that God has been faithful to the covenant, while the people have responded with faithless ritual and lack of faith toward each other.

Practical application

President John Adams wrote: “The longer I live, the more I read, the more patiently I think, and the more anxiously I inquire, the less I seem to know.... Do justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly. That is enough.... So questions and so answers your affectionate grandfather.”[3]

This passage challenges us to reflect upon that which we have set our hearts and lives. Hopefully, we will know ourselves well enough that success will be doing what we want to do.[4] We need to exercise care here, for that on which we set our hearts shall come our way. We need to be sure that on which we set our hearts is worthy.[5] We begin to improve the world when we look to our hearts, heads, and hands.[6] With some self-awareness, our thinking about such important matters is not simply rearranging our prejudices.[7] If our vision is to die with more toys than anyone else, we still die.[8] We do not give up our search for happiness and satisfaction, regardless of our fleeting the experience may be. Regardless of what we achieve, see, acquire, or do, satisfaction slips from our grasp. We crave it, we believe we can get it, we glimpse it, we may experience it briefly, but then it vanishes.[9]

As modern readers, we have long put aside animal sacrifices. However, we might replace that ritual with another. The ritual of Sunday observance is an obvious one. With biting satire, philosopher Kierkegaard offered another. 

 

"We artful dodgers act as if we do not understand the New Testament, because we realize full well that we should have to change our way of life drastically. That is why we invented 'religious education' and 'Christian (sic) doctrine.' Another concordance, another lexicon, a few more commentaries, three other translations, because it is all so difficult to understand. Yes, of course, dear God, all of us - capitalists, officials, ministers, house-owners, beggars, the whole society - we would be lost if it were not for 'scholarly doctrine!'"[10]

 

I suppose at some level, many of us have a controversy with God. We wonder why the world seems to operate the way it does. We see much in the world that does not have the nice, harmonious relationship between health, happiness, morality, and faith that we would like. Good people suffer greatly. Some Christians suffer in this world simply because they are Christians. Some people, who clearly reject any sense of morality, decency, justice, and mercy, often have success, as the world defines success. 

Yet we at least need to think about the controversy God has with us. God often acts in goodness, mercy, patience, and love. Our response is to move through empty ritual, going through the motions of what we think is a good or religious life. God seems to ask of us some simple things we might call the better way to lead a well-lived human life, a life worthy of the God who made us. For example, God wants us to learn to treat each other with justice and fairness. We have an obligation to each other to respect the worth and dignity each of us has as children of God. God also wants us to learn to offer kindness or mercy to all persons. Such caring for others is the basis of all ethical life, for morality is not just a matter of following rules but of genuinely caring for others. God also wants us to learn to live our lives in communion with God. When we learn the habit of living in the presence of God, we learn to re-direct the focus of our lives from self and toward God. We commit ourselves to learning such simple ways of living our lives, we will move a long way toward what God wants us of us.

As he wrote about the people of Israel in crisis, Micah’s focus was to simplify — remind the people of their purpose. Like an executive on a corporate treadmill or a doctor who is given all she had to give, the people of Israel had been relying on their busyness, their ritual, their status as chosen people to make meaning of their lives. Their offerings to God were simply the fruits of their frantic labor, much like those of us who believe that if we can just do enough, give enough, work enough ... then our God, our boss, our families, our friends will finally be pleased with us. 

Tony Campolo writes of his experience as a college professor, counseling students who are thinking of dropping out because they need time to "find themselves."  His answer to them: "What if, after you peel away each of these socially prescribed identities and socially generated selves, you discover you're an onion? What if you take that long guru journey into yourself, and when you get there -- nobody's home? Stop to consider the fact that if you peel away all the layers of an onion, guess what you have left? Nothing! And it just may be that when you take that trip to the innermost recesses of your soul, that's exactly what you'll find." The self, Campolo continues, "is not an essence waiting to be discovered through philosophical introspection. Quite the contrary! I believe that the self is an essence waiting to be created! We create who we are through the commitments we make. And without commitments we have no identity."[11] He is making a crucial point. We are creating the self we shall be through the experiences of our lives, the relationships we form, and the choices we make. 

It was an afternoon that changed a life forever. Here is the story:

Rick Olson stood with his son Patrick on a hill overlooking a panoramic view of downtown Pittsburgh with its three rivers and tall buildings. As they gazed over the railing on the Mt. Washington observation deck, Patrick pointed to the barges floating up and down the three rivers, a blue-and-gold bridge and a host of other scenes there laid out in front of them, all the while asking questions — “What kind of boat is that? How do they get the sand out of the railcars and into the barges? Which river goes south to north? Is it that one or that one?” 

Rick had been living in Pittsburgh for 22 years and had never really paid attention to things like that. For two hours Patrick made observations, asked questions, and Rick could only say, “Hmmmm.”

Then Patrick asked his dad to point out the building where he had been working every day for five years as a corporate lawyer specializing in radio station mergers. There in that steel and glass edifice Rick was known as “The Mechanic” for his ability to close the deal, even though he was not particularly good at bringing in business. Well, at least Rick knew where his building was and pointed out the downtown tower. 

“What’s the building next to it?” asked Patrick. Rick did not know. He had walked past that building every day for five years and he had no idea. How could he not know?

When they returned home, Rick made his son dinner, played with him, read him a story, put him in bed and kissed him goodnight. But when Rick came downstairs and plopped down on the couch, he had an epiphany. One thought kept gnawing at him: “I had been here 22 years and never noticed all those things. What else have I been missing?”

Rick realized that he was unhappy as a corporate lawyer. His bosses passed him for partner, and he was not making much money. He scheduled his whole life around work, and it began to overwhelm him. He remembered the time his wife (now his ex) was scheduled for gallbladder surgery and on the way to the hospital one of the partners gave him a cell phone and suggested he make calls to clients while in the waiting room, or the time that his son Patrick had to sit in his office all night while his dad met with clients. He was multi-tasking his life and still not making it. It was time for a change.

That night Rick was 80 percent sure that he wanted to quit, but he needed to find the other 20 percent to be sure. That came in the form of a serious leg injury he sustained playing recreational hockey that forced him out of action for quite a while. When Rick woke up in the hospital and the doctor told him by that his foot and leg had broken in at least 11 places, Rick’s response was to laugh. “They just unlocked the gate. This is my chance to walk away.” The doctor replied, “You won’t be walking anywhere for quite a while.”  “That’s fine by me,” said Rick. Ironically, during his 10-month rehabilitation, Rick had found the courage to move on with his life. For 20 years he had said that when work got frustrating, he would “rather drive a truck.” So that is what he did. Rick now spends 60 percent of his time driving an over-the-road tanker truck, working 10 days on the road, and then getting at least four days to spend with Patrick uninterrupted by his job. “I needed to do something different,” he explains. “I didn’t anticipate that I’d fall in love with the job.”

Rick is just one of the people profiled in Po Bronson’s book What Should I Do With My Life? Bronson calls the book title “The Ultimate Question” — the question that most of us wrestle with at some point. But rather than write another “how-to” book or a treatise on finding your purpose, Bronson simply spent time with people, hearing their stories, watching their transformation, seeing them “facing up to [their] own identity and filtering out the chatter that tells us to be someone we’re not.” 

“Your calling is not something you inherently ‘know,’ as if it were a predetermined destiny. Far from it. Most of the people I interviewed found their calling after great difficulty. They had made mistakes before getting it right. For instance, the catfish farmer used to be an investment banker, the truck driver had been an entertainment lawyer, a chef had been an academic, and the police officer was a Harvard MBA. Everyone discovered latent talents that were not in their skill sets at age 25. “Most of us do not get epiphanies. We only get a whisper — a faint urge. That is it. That is the call. It is up to you to do the work of discovery, to connect it to an answer.”[12]

It is not a philosophical book. Instead, it is a look at the “hard-earned record of those who actually took action, changed their lives, and enjoyed or suffered the consequences.” Bronson gathers together stories of transformation from pointlessness to purpose, from success to significance, including:
• A mother torn between an Olympic career and her adolescent daughter.
• The Cuban immigrant who overcame the strong disapproval of her parents and quit her lucrative career to go into social work.
• The OB/Gyn physician who walked away from her lifelong “destiny” of being a doctor and was trying to make sense of it all.
• A high-powered IT saleswoman who gave up the certainty of salary to be a massage therapist because she missed a close connection with people.

The more you read Bronson’s book, the more you begin to understand that there are millions of people out there desperately seeking the answer to The Ultimate Question, and those answers do not often come easy. Usually there is some pain, some risk, some adversity, some struggle involved — and often the vision for the future only comes to us through the lens of hindsight.

Micah breaks it down. The answer to The Ultimate Question is quite simple. We find our purpose in the larger purposes of God. “What does the Lord require of you?” asks the prophet. What really matters? A "Pontius Puddle" cartoon begins with "I wonder if God can really hear me." The next frame shows Pontius praying, "Hey God! What should I do with my life?" The third frame has a voice from heaven saying, "Feed the hungry, right injustice, work for peace." "Just testing!" Pontius replies. "Same here," God speaks back.

What is God’s purpose for us? What really matters is relationship — relationship with God and with each other, relationships not quantified by dollars or organization charts, by ritual or virtuous deeds. What really matters, says the prophet, is “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (6:8).

 

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[1] (Barth, Church Dogmatics 2004, 1932-67), II.2 [37.2], 572, [36.2] 537-551.

[2] (Heschel 1962) Vol I, 102.

[3] --John Adams, in a letter to his granddaughter Caroline, in response to a comment of hers about the riddles of life; cited by David McCullough, John Adams (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), 650.

[4] A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and does what he wants to do. -Bob Dylan, singer, songwriter and successful 60-year-old.

[5] Beware what you set your heart upon. For it shall surely be yours. --Ralph Waldo Emerson.

[6] The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands. —Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

[7] A great many people think they are thinking when they are only rearranging their prejudices. -William James

[8] He Who Dies With the Most Toys Wins - But He Still Dies. -Greg Borchert, "The best T-shirts of summer, 2001," The Washington Post, August 2, 2001, C9.

[9] Brooks, Arthur C. “How to Want Less.” The Atlantic, February 8, 2022, www.theatlantic.com.

[10] -Brennan Manning, Abba's Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging (Colorado Springs, Colo.: Navpress, 1994), 137-138.

[11]  --Tony Campolo, "Lose Yourself," on the Red Letter Christians blog, April 7, 2011.www.redletterchristians.org/lose-yourself/ Retrieved August 12, 2013.

 

[12] Po Bonson, Fast Company magazine (January 2003)