The Surprising Profile
Commentary
We’ve all read job postings and help-wanted ads. We have probably had occasion to compose and post a few ourselves. And so we are well-acquainted with the genre.
In a typical listing for some job, there is both a description of the position that’s available and a description of the kind of person desired to fill it. The former helps the reader see if it’s what he or she is looking for. The latter helps the reader recognize whether he or she is what the employer is looking for.
Invariably, the employer is looking for certain positive attributes and abilities. Fluent in this and trained in that. Able to, proficient in, qualified for. Experience, attitude, availability. The employer is looking for a variety of positive qualities and qualifications.
An employer-employee relationship is not an ideal metaphor for our relationship with God. Still, inasmuch as master-servant is one of the many relational images used in scripture for us and the Lord, the metaphor may provide helpful insight. And especially it helps us to get after the concept of what God is looking for.
The world of resumés, employment applications, and job interviews is a culture of self-promotion. We want to puff ourselves up and highlight all the great things we are and can do. But coming out of this world’s value system, we may be surprised by the profile of God’s successful candidate. Our three scripture readings for this week all give us insight into what he is looking for.
Micah 6:1-8
It’s a powerful argument, and a disarming one. The Lord asks his own people, in effect, “What have I done wrong?” And one wonders what answer they could possibly give.
Micah is counted among the “judgment prophets” of the Old Testament. More specifically, he is numbered among the great eighth-century BC prophets, along with Isaiah in the south, and Amos and Hosea as approximate contemporaries in the north. It is an era of national sin and international conflict. And God has dispatched his prophets to condemn the people for their sins and to warn them of the divine judgment to come.
So it is that Micah gives voice to a dispute between God and his people. As a rhetorical technique, the mountains and hills are called as impartial jurors for the case. It’s a majestic scene, for this defendant has no peers to serve on his jury. Instead, the grandest occupants of earth, the mountains, are called for jury duty.
Within the larger context of a judgment prophet’s message, the Lord’s question to his people is filled with dramatic irony. The prevailing theme and reality is what the people have done wrong. Yet the Lord asks them what he has done wrong.
There is, of course, no answer. And so, absent any evidence of how he has wronged the people, the Lord reminds them of the good things he has done for them. He recounts significant episodes from their common history. They are testimonies about “the saving acts of the Lord,” which should in turn remind the people about the goodness of his heart and his will. This is a matter of central importance about which we continually need reminding, for ever since the Garden of Eden our enemy has been calling into question the goodness of God’s will.
Then suddenly the dialogue changes. The Lord has rested his case, it seems, and now someone else is speaking in response. The speaker is not explicitly identified, but his response is just right.
The penitent human asks, “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?” He begins with what would have been conventional wisdom: burnt offerings. Sensing the inadequacy, he expands the proposal to “thousands of rams” and “rivers of oil.” Then he raises the stakes still higher, offering his own child: “the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.” Is any of this sufficient for God on high?
Then the speaker changes one more time. It is a go-between, perhaps the prophet himself. He speaks to the man and speaks of the Lord. “He has told you what is good and what he requires of you.” And what is that? “To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
Micah’s famous summary of what the Lord desires is perfectly balanced. It has both the horizontal and the vertical relationships of life. The justice and mercy apply to our human relationships, while the humble walk is our relationship with God. And at the same time, that horizontal element reflects a necessary balance too, for justice and kindness need one another. The person who is all justice but lacks kindness may be suffocating and harsh. Meanwhile, the person who is all kindness yet lacks justice dishonors the righteousness of God. Ah, but what perfect beauty there is in the man or woman of God who both does justice and loves kindness!
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
The 1972 disaster move The Poseidon Adventure tells the story of a fictitious cruise ship that is capsized by a monstrous wave following a sub-sea earthquake. Many passengers are killed in the initial calamity. The ones who survive, however, follow different courses of action in trying to escape to safety from the sinking ship. We follow one particular handful of survivors, and we discover in the end that they are the only ones to escape.
At one eerie moment in the movie, our familiar group is working its way through the upside-down corridors of the ship when they happen to see another group of frightened survivors walking through a different, perpendicular corridor. Each group, of course, thinks that it is heading in the right direction, and they presume that the others are doomed.
The corridor we are taking, you see, is foolishness to those who are taking a different one. To those of us who are taking it, however, it is our salvation. And our corridor is the cross of Christ.
Interestingly, Paul frames the two corridors, if you will, in terms of wisdom and foolishness. They are not equal choices in the world’s eyes. The one -- the cross -- appears to be nonsense. And so the message of the cross meets with ridicule in the world. And Paul is not apologetic about it, but rather sees that even this is the plan and will of God -- to choose and to use what is foolish, weak, and despised. It is an approach that runs counter to all our marketing instincts, but it is “so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”
The apostle Paul sees the cross in dramatic terms. There is no blasé, ho-hum option when it comes to the cross. Instead, the reactions and perspectives Paul references are at extreme ends of a spectrum. For the Jews, he says, the cross is a stumbling block. For the Greeks, meanwhile, it is foolishness.
This is not a theoretical business for Paul; this is personal experience. He goes out into the Mediterranean world, taking the gospel first to the Jews and then to the Greeks. And he has found in both an innate rejection. They reject for different reasons, but the cross cuts across the grain for each.
Does that mean that heaven has trotted out a product for which there is no market? That the gospel is a failure that meets with unanimous rejection? No, not at all. “To those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
So what the world regards as nonsense, we recognize as God’s wisdom. What the world dismisses as weak, we affirm as God’s strength. It is a strange paradox. Yet it is not surprising coming from the One who says that the first will be last and the last first, that he greatest of all must be the servant of all, and who was in the form of God but took on the form of a servant.
Finally, we must note the role of human pride. In one form or another, you see, most of what keeps us from God is the exaltation of self. Likewise, the reasons that people reject the gospel and the cross are typically traceable back to human pride. And so Paul’s ending place in this passage is significant and revealing. Quoting the prophet Jeremiah, Paul writes, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
In Paul’s mind, boasting is the emblem of human pride. He reasons elsewhere (Romans 3:27) that it has been excluded by God’s plan of salvation. And so, likewise, here in his letter to the Corinthians. The Lord has worked in such a way “so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” Yet inasmuch as it is our instinct to want to boast, the prophet and Paul invite us to a converted boasting: “boast in the Lord.” Such is the quality of the lovely reorientation of our lives: that now, in stark contrast to our human pride, we are all about him.
Matthew 5:1-12
I think an earlier generation knew the Beatitudes better than current and younger generations do. That may be in part because there was a greater general familiarity with scripture 50, 60, and 70 years ago than there is today. And it may be, too, because some earlier, older generations had a different relationship to hardship than so many do today.
Hardship is part of the theme of the Beatitudes. It was part of the context for the poor and oppressed people in Jesus’ immediate audience, and it was part of the future for those who would follow him. And so those ears may have heard these words differently than we do.
Jesus is promising blessing. And specifically, he is identifying those people who are assured of being blessed. They seem to fall into two broad categories: those who are virtuous and those who are suffering. And in the context of a fallen world, those are not entirely separate categories.
Those who are virtuous include the poor in spirit, the meek, those with an appetite for righteousness, the merciful, the pure-hearted, and the peacemakers. Those who are suffering include the mourners and the persecuted. And then, of course, there is a sense in which the virtuous are all sufferers too, for it is a painful business to be a peacemaker in a strife-torn world, to hunger for righteousness in a perverse world, and such.
The promise of blessing to those who are faithful in these ways is reminiscent of Jesus’ messages to other people later in the New Testament. In the second and third chapters of Revelation, the Lord speaks his word to the folks who are part of what we know as the seven churches of Asia Minor. Those are people who, collectively, are living in the midst of wickedness and persecution, deception and temptation; they are often poor and surrounded by opposition. Yet in the midst of such unfavorable settings, the Lord promises reward and blessing to those who, though suffering, remain virtuous.
The teaching takes a conspicuously personal turn at the end. For the first eight verses of “blessed” statements, those that are blessed are always referred to in the third person. It could be anyone. But when Jesus comes to the subject of persecution, he shifts gears and breaks the preceding pattern.
Persecution, you see, is the thematic hinge. In verse 10, the “blessed” is for those who are persecuted. And again in verse 11, the issue is persecution. It seems that when Jesus came to this particular subject, though, it all became quite personal. “Blessed are you,” he says. Now we’re not talking about someone else. Now we’re not talking theoretically about just anyone. No, now we’re talking specifically about “you.”
And it’s personal too, inasmuch as we’re talking about him now too. The verse 10 folks are persecuted “for righteousness’ sake.” In verse 11, however, it is “on my account” -- that is to say, the persecution is for Jesus’ sake. The pronouns turn intimate, as Jesus’ teaching literally becomes “you” and “me.”
Application
A traditional resumé might feature prominently the applicant’s education. For many kinds of positions, this is a key consideration. The employer wants someone who is bright, trained, and capable. Yet the apostle Paul seems to discount such qualifications. “Where is the one who is wise?” he asks. “Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” And so, instead of selecting those who are obviously best qualified, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”
This particular divine pattern and preference will not surprise students of Old Testament history. We recall that when the Lord chose Gideon, his candid self-assessment was “My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” Likewise, the Lord chose Saul, though the reluctant king protested “I am only a Benjaminite, from the least of the tribes of Israel, and my family is the humblest of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin.” And of course, the story of David and Goliath is the quintessential example of God using the weak to shame the strong.
Meanwhile, a traditional resumé might also list deeds and accomplishments that are quantifiably big, measurably significant. Yet the Lord is not impressed by “thousands of rams” or “ten thousands of rivers of oil.” What he seeks is a different stratum of greatness, one marked less by fanfare than by faithfulness.
And finally, a traditional job interview might hear a candidate describe himself or herself as strong, ambitious, aggressive, a real go-getter. The candidates that God is looking to bless, however, are the pure and the persecuted. They are the mourners and the meek. They are the ones who offer mercy and make peace.
Taken all together, it is not the typical profile of what this world regards as successful, or even desirable. Yet taken all together, we get a glimpse of the heart of God. For in these passages we see what he values, and therefore what he is looking for. And consequently, we gain a portrait of what you and I aspire to be.
Alternative Application
The Beauty of a Common Story. Significant experiences become memories. The memories are recounted as stories. And the stories often bear witness to truths. So to a group of people who share some of the same experiences, the recalling of the stories is profoundly important.
The most natural group that has such shared experiences and stories, of course, is a family. A close group of friends that goes back some years knows the phenomenon too. And at another level, a nation can function with such a strong sense of its history that its citizens feel such a connection to shared stories, a common past.
This was surely the case for the ancient people of Israel. Perhaps more than any other nation in history, the Israelites functioned with a sense of common history and shared stories. That’s not surprising, of course, since their nation began as a family, and the family is the most natural unit for the experience.
Israel’s history featured a great wealth of truth-bearing stories, and we see that phenomenon at play in each of our scripture readings this week.
The Lord makes significant use of the lessons from his people’s history in the passage from Micah. Their history, after all, is not exclusive: it is a history they share with him. Their story is their testimony, and the Lord reminds them of some of what he has done. “I brought you up... I sent before you... Remember now what King Balak... what Balaam... and what happened...” It is not sentimental, but it is a meaningful trip down memory lane.
In the case of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the history lesson is more immediate and even more personal. “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters,” he writes to those people that he knows so well. “Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” He is not belittling his audience. Rather, he is employing a reference to their own history -- their common story -- in order to illustrate the work of God. And just as the nation of Israel was a large, extended family, so here Paul is addressing the common story of a church family.
Finally, Jesus also employs the people’s common past at the conclusion of the Beatitudes. In this case, we shift back to the large and long family that is the nation of Israel. At the climax to his surprising paradigm of blessings, he tells the people that they are blessed when they are reviled and persecuted. It’s counterintuitive, to be sure, but he makes the case that they are in good company: “your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Jesus’ audience surely had a common story with respect to the prophets of old, and it featured two broad themes. On the one hand, they were posthumously revered as men of God. On the other hand, they were remembered for their mistreatment at the hands of contemporaries who resisted their message. And so, here, Jesus’ teaching invites his followers into a new perspective. For while the persecution they will experience is unwelcome, they will recognize that they are in very good company indeed.
In our day, common stories and shared history are harder to come by. We are sensitive to the variety of stories and backgrounds from which different people around us come, and together we enrich one another. But we lose some landmarks of truth when we lack a common story. Yet while we may not have much sense of that personally or culturally, we hold fast to it in the church. Here, even for all of our diversity, we still embrace and affirm a common story.
In a typical listing for some job, there is both a description of the position that’s available and a description of the kind of person desired to fill it. The former helps the reader see if it’s what he or she is looking for. The latter helps the reader recognize whether he or she is what the employer is looking for.
Invariably, the employer is looking for certain positive attributes and abilities. Fluent in this and trained in that. Able to, proficient in, qualified for. Experience, attitude, availability. The employer is looking for a variety of positive qualities and qualifications.
An employer-employee relationship is not an ideal metaphor for our relationship with God. Still, inasmuch as master-servant is one of the many relational images used in scripture for us and the Lord, the metaphor may provide helpful insight. And especially it helps us to get after the concept of what God is looking for.
The world of resumés, employment applications, and job interviews is a culture of self-promotion. We want to puff ourselves up and highlight all the great things we are and can do. But coming out of this world’s value system, we may be surprised by the profile of God’s successful candidate. Our three scripture readings for this week all give us insight into what he is looking for.
Micah 6:1-8
It’s a powerful argument, and a disarming one. The Lord asks his own people, in effect, “What have I done wrong?” And one wonders what answer they could possibly give.
Micah is counted among the “judgment prophets” of the Old Testament. More specifically, he is numbered among the great eighth-century BC prophets, along with Isaiah in the south, and Amos and Hosea as approximate contemporaries in the north. It is an era of national sin and international conflict. And God has dispatched his prophets to condemn the people for their sins and to warn them of the divine judgment to come.
So it is that Micah gives voice to a dispute between God and his people. As a rhetorical technique, the mountains and hills are called as impartial jurors for the case. It’s a majestic scene, for this defendant has no peers to serve on his jury. Instead, the grandest occupants of earth, the mountains, are called for jury duty.
Within the larger context of a judgment prophet’s message, the Lord’s question to his people is filled with dramatic irony. The prevailing theme and reality is what the people have done wrong. Yet the Lord asks them what he has done wrong.
There is, of course, no answer. And so, absent any evidence of how he has wronged the people, the Lord reminds them of the good things he has done for them. He recounts significant episodes from their common history. They are testimonies about “the saving acts of the Lord,” which should in turn remind the people about the goodness of his heart and his will. This is a matter of central importance about which we continually need reminding, for ever since the Garden of Eden our enemy has been calling into question the goodness of God’s will.
Then suddenly the dialogue changes. The Lord has rested his case, it seems, and now someone else is speaking in response. The speaker is not explicitly identified, but his response is just right.
The penitent human asks, “With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?” He begins with what would have been conventional wisdom: burnt offerings. Sensing the inadequacy, he expands the proposal to “thousands of rams” and “rivers of oil.” Then he raises the stakes still higher, offering his own child: “the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.” Is any of this sufficient for God on high?
Then the speaker changes one more time. It is a go-between, perhaps the prophet himself. He speaks to the man and speaks of the Lord. “He has told you what is good and what he requires of you.” And what is that? “To do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
Micah’s famous summary of what the Lord desires is perfectly balanced. It has both the horizontal and the vertical relationships of life. The justice and mercy apply to our human relationships, while the humble walk is our relationship with God. And at the same time, that horizontal element reflects a necessary balance too, for justice and kindness need one another. The person who is all justice but lacks kindness may be suffocating and harsh. Meanwhile, the person who is all kindness yet lacks justice dishonors the righteousness of God. Ah, but what perfect beauty there is in the man or woman of God who both does justice and loves kindness!
1 Corinthians 1:18-31
The 1972 disaster move The Poseidon Adventure tells the story of a fictitious cruise ship that is capsized by a monstrous wave following a sub-sea earthquake. Many passengers are killed in the initial calamity. The ones who survive, however, follow different courses of action in trying to escape to safety from the sinking ship. We follow one particular handful of survivors, and we discover in the end that they are the only ones to escape.
At one eerie moment in the movie, our familiar group is working its way through the upside-down corridors of the ship when they happen to see another group of frightened survivors walking through a different, perpendicular corridor. Each group, of course, thinks that it is heading in the right direction, and they presume that the others are doomed.
The corridor we are taking, you see, is foolishness to those who are taking a different one. To those of us who are taking it, however, it is our salvation. And our corridor is the cross of Christ.
Interestingly, Paul frames the two corridors, if you will, in terms of wisdom and foolishness. They are not equal choices in the world’s eyes. The one -- the cross -- appears to be nonsense. And so the message of the cross meets with ridicule in the world. And Paul is not apologetic about it, but rather sees that even this is the plan and will of God -- to choose and to use what is foolish, weak, and despised. It is an approach that runs counter to all our marketing instincts, but it is “so that no one might boast in the presence of God.”
The apostle Paul sees the cross in dramatic terms. There is no blasé, ho-hum option when it comes to the cross. Instead, the reactions and perspectives Paul references are at extreme ends of a spectrum. For the Jews, he says, the cross is a stumbling block. For the Greeks, meanwhile, it is foolishness.
This is not a theoretical business for Paul; this is personal experience. He goes out into the Mediterranean world, taking the gospel first to the Jews and then to the Greeks. And he has found in both an innate rejection. They reject for different reasons, but the cross cuts across the grain for each.
Does that mean that heaven has trotted out a product for which there is no market? That the gospel is a failure that meets with unanimous rejection? No, not at all. “To those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
So what the world regards as nonsense, we recognize as God’s wisdom. What the world dismisses as weak, we affirm as God’s strength. It is a strange paradox. Yet it is not surprising coming from the One who says that the first will be last and the last first, that he greatest of all must be the servant of all, and who was in the form of God but took on the form of a servant.
Finally, we must note the role of human pride. In one form or another, you see, most of what keeps us from God is the exaltation of self. Likewise, the reasons that people reject the gospel and the cross are typically traceable back to human pride. And so Paul’s ending place in this passage is significant and revealing. Quoting the prophet Jeremiah, Paul writes, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
In Paul’s mind, boasting is the emblem of human pride. He reasons elsewhere (Romans 3:27) that it has been excluded by God’s plan of salvation. And so, likewise, here in his letter to the Corinthians. The Lord has worked in such a way “so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” Yet inasmuch as it is our instinct to want to boast, the prophet and Paul invite us to a converted boasting: “boast in the Lord.” Such is the quality of the lovely reorientation of our lives: that now, in stark contrast to our human pride, we are all about him.
Matthew 5:1-12
I think an earlier generation knew the Beatitudes better than current and younger generations do. That may be in part because there was a greater general familiarity with scripture 50, 60, and 70 years ago than there is today. And it may be, too, because some earlier, older generations had a different relationship to hardship than so many do today.
Hardship is part of the theme of the Beatitudes. It was part of the context for the poor and oppressed people in Jesus’ immediate audience, and it was part of the future for those who would follow him. And so those ears may have heard these words differently than we do.
Jesus is promising blessing. And specifically, he is identifying those people who are assured of being blessed. They seem to fall into two broad categories: those who are virtuous and those who are suffering. And in the context of a fallen world, those are not entirely separate categories.
Those who are virtuous include the poor in spirit, the meek, those with an appetite for righteousness, the merciful, the pure-hearted, and the peacemakers. Those who are suffering include the mourners and the persecuted. And then, of course, there is a sense in which the virtuous are all sufferers too, for it is a painful business to be a peacemaker in a strife-torn world, to hunger for righteousness in a perverse world, and such.
The promise of blessing to those who are faithful in these ways is reminiscent of Jesus’ messages to other people later in the New Testament. In the second and third chapters of Revelation, the Lord speaks his word to the folks who are part of what we know as the seven churches of Asia Minor. Those are people who, collectively, are living in the midst of wickedness and persecution, deception and temptation; they are often poor and surrounded by opposition. Yet in the midst of such unfavorable settings, the Lord promises reward and blessing to those who, though suffering, remain virtuous.
The teaching takes a conspicuously personal turn at the end. For the first eight verses of “blessed” statements, those that are blessed are always referred to in the third person. It could be anyone. But when Jesus comes to the subject of persecution, he shifts gears and breaks the preceding pattern.
Persecution, you see, is the thematic hinge. In verse 10, the “blessed” is for those who are persecuted. And again in verse 11, the issue is persecution. It seems that when Jesus came to this particular subject, though, it all became quite personal. “Blessed are you,” he says. Now we’re not talking about someone else. Now we’re not talking theoretically about just anyone. No, now we’re talking specifically about “you.”
And it’s personal too, inasmuch as we’re talking about him now too. The verse 10 folks are persecuted “for righteousness’ sake.” In verse 11, however, it is “on my account” -- that is to say, the persecution is for Jesus’ sake. The pronouns turn intimate, as Jesus’ teaching literally becomes “you” and “me.”
Application
A traditional resumé might feature prominently the applicant’s education. For many kinds of positions, this is a key consideration. The employer wants someone who is bright, trained, and capable. Yet the apostle Paul seems to discount such qualifications. “Where is the one who is wise?” he asks. “Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” And so, instead of selecting those who are obviously best qualified, “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”
This particular divine pattern and preference will not surprise students of Old Testament history. We recall that when the Lord chose Gideon, his candid self-assessment was “My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family.” Likewise, the Lord chose Saul, though the reluctant king protested “I am only a Benjaminite, from the least of the tribes of Israel, and my family is the humblest of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin.” And of course, the story of David and Goliath is the quintessential example of God using the weak to shame the strong.
Meanwhile, a traditional resumé might also list deeds and accomplishments that are quantifiably big, measurably significant. Yet the Lord is not impressed by “thousands of rams” or “ten thousands of rivers of oil.” What he seeks is a different stratum of greatness, one marked less by fanfare than by faithfulness.
And finally, a traditional job interview might hear a candidate describe himself or herself as strong, ambitious, aggressive, a real go-getter. The candidates that God is looking to bless, however, are the pure and the persecuted. They are the mourners and the meek. They are the ones who offer mercy and make peace.
Taken all together, it is not the typical profile of what this world regards as successful, or even desirable. Yet taken all together, we get a glimpse of the heart of God. For in these passages we see what he values, and therefore what he is looking for. And consequently, we gain a portrait of what you and I aspire to be.
Alternative Application
The Beauty of a Common Story. Significant experiences become memories. The memories are recounted as stories. And the stories often bear witness to truths. So to a group of people who share some of the same experiences, the recalling of the stories is profoundly important.
The most natural group that has such shared experiences and stories, of course, is a family. A close group of friends that goes back some years knows the phenomenon too. And at another level, a nation can function with such a strong sense of its history that its citizens feel such a connection to shared stories, a common past.
This was surely the case for the ancient people of Israel. Perhaps more than any other nation in history, the Israelites functioned with a sense of common history and shared stories. That’s not surprising, of course, since their nation began as a family, and the family is the most natural unit for the experience.
Israel’s history featured a great wealth of truth-bearing stories, and we see that phenomenon at play in each of our scripture readings this week.
The Lord makes significant use of the lessons from his people’s history in the passage from Micah. Their history, after all, is not exclusive: it is a history they share with him. Their story is their testimony, and the Lord reminds them of some of what he has done. “I brought you up... I sent before you... Remember now what King Balak... what Balaam... and what happened...” It is not sentimental, but it is a meaningful trip down memory lane.
In the case of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, the history lesson is more immediate and even more personal. “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters,” he writes to those people that he knows so well. “Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” He is not belittling his audience. Rather, he is employing a reference to their own history -- their common story -- in order to illustrate the work of God. And just as the nation of Israel was a large, extended family, so here Paul is addressing the common story of a church family.
Finally, Jesus also employs the people’s common past at the conclusion of the Beatitudes. In this case, we shift back to the large and long family that is the nation of Israel. At the climax to his surprising paradigm of blessings, he tells the people that they are blessed when they are reviled and persecuted. It’s counterintuitive, to be sure, but he makes the case that they are in good company: “your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Jesus’ audience surely had a common story with respect to the prophets of old, and it featured two broad themes. On the one hand, they were posthumously revered as men of God. On the other hand, they were remembered for their mistreatment at the hands of contemporaries who resisted their message. And so, here, Jesus’ teaching invites his followers into a new perspective. For while the persecution they will experience is unwelcome, they will recognize that they are in very good company indeed.
In our day, common stories and shared history are harder to come by. We are sensitive to the variety of stories and backgrounds from which different people around us come, and together we enrich one another. But we lose some landmarks of truth when we lack a common story. Yet while we may not have much sense of that personally or culturally, we hold fast to it in the church. Here, even for all of our diversity, we still embrace and affirm a common story.
