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God's
Weird Recruitment Plan by Dave Stratton
God
chose to change the world through the foolish, the weak, the lowly, the
despised—the real “nobodies.” That’s what the apostle Paul wrote in 1
Corinthians 1:26-31. It is not that God has some preference for the foolish,
the weak, the lowly, the despised—the real “nobodies.” It is not that
God was forced to resort to foolish, the weak, the lowly, the despised—the
real “nobodies.” No, God chose to change the world through these.
This
makes God’s recruitment plan the weirdest one in the world.
In
school did you ever have those times that you played ball and captains had to
choose up sides? Each captain would take turns choosing a player for their
side and who was picked first? The captains chose the strongest and most
skilled ball players first. When you got down to the end of the process there
were the skinny kids and the fat kids and the nerdy types wearing glasses and
pocket protectors.
The
strongest and fastest and most skilled were chosen first, and the weakest and
slowest and least skilled were not really chosen at all, but you had to put up
with them.
God
is depicted as the captain who chooses all the seemingly weakest players, as
it were.
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God chose, not the wise, but the foolish.
·
God chose, not the strong, but the weak.
·
God chose, not the prestigious, but the lowly.
·
God chose, not the beloved, but the despised.
·
God chose, not the “somebodies,” but the “nobodies.”
You’ve
got to admit this is a really weird recruitment plan. Are you sure you want to
be a part of a team of apparent losers?
What
God thinking? Why choose such a motley crew through which to change the world?
Paul wrote that God operates this way so that no one may boast.
When
one boasts, then one effectively says, “I’m a cut above somebody else.”
No one is a “cut above” in God’s eyes. Do you remember John 3:16? For
God so loved the what?
The
world. The whole world. Every single person in the whole world. No one is
valued above another in God’s eyes. Oh, we are all different, but God loves
all people of the world equally. We value some above others in many ways in
our society. Effectively we love some above others in our society, at least in
society’s shallow understanding of love. But God loves everyone from every
society equally.
So
the “I’m a cut above” attitude that belongs to the heart of boasting
does not cut it with God because God loves everyone equally. What better way
for God to demonstrate that a rejection of the “I’m a cut above”
thinking than to turn standard recruitment plans upside down?
God
looks at those who are unwanted because they are considered fools, or weak, or
lowly, or despised, or nobodies and God says to them, “Hey, I choose you. I
want for you to come and help change the world in a glorious way.”
God’s
weird, upside down recruitment plan demonstrates a great love for the whole
world. No one is to be overlooked or ignored or rejected. All are
wanted—fools, weak, lowly, despised, and nobodies included. All are wanted
in God’s wonderful plan to change the world.
The
context of the passage about God’s weird recruitment plan is a word about
the revolutionary plan through which God has chosen to change the world. In
verses 18-25, Paul speaks of the message of the cross, which he refers to as
the “foolishness of God” and the “weakness of God.”
I
love the passage because it gets at the radical heart of the revolutionary who
is God. If we refuse to tone down the inflammatory nature of the passage, then
we must admit that the message is subversive. Those verses rebel against the
values and the ways that dominate our society.
Paul
indicated that the message of the cross was foolishness to the dominant
thinking of his world, and it still is today. He indicated that God, through
the cross of Jesus, exposed the silliness of the overriding values of society.
Has
God done this through the cross? There was a serious mess in the world that
had to be cleaned up. How did God handle it? Well, God did like we would do.
God sent a powerful military leader and an army to conquer and occupy and
straighten things out, right?
No,
that wasn’t it.
God
threw a bunch of money at the situation, hiring famous consultants and
experts, to make it better, right?
No,
that wasn’t it either.
God
installed a powerful government leader who pressed an aggressive legislative
agenda, passing and enforcing laws to force society to conform to God’s
ways, right?
No,
that’s not right either.
God
sent a little baby born in a smelly stable to a poor couple. He grew up and
taught some upside down values about God smiling on the poor rather than the
rich and the weak rather than the powerful. Those teachings got him in some
serious trouble. Here and there he showed little glimpses of the great power
he had at his disposal. But when his life was on the line he did not exercise
that great power to wipe out his opponents and to rule. Instead he allowed
himself to be killed in a horrible, horrible way.
What
kind of solution is that?
According
to Paul it is foolishness to a lot of folks, but to the followers of Jesus it
is the power of God. Power revealed in weakness and lowliness rather than
through the exercise of authority and control. That’s revolutionary.
The
proclamation of the seemingly foolish and definitely revolutionary message of
the cross changes the world.
Then
Paul states that God’s upside down way of changing the world extends to
God’s weird, upside down recruitment plan. Through the proclamation of the
foolishness and weakness of the cross the world is changed and God calls the
fools and the weak to proclaim that message.
If
it offends you to think that you are among the fools and the weak that God has
called to change the world by declaring the foolishness and weakness of the
cross, then you just don’t get the wonder of God’s plan. I’m not going
to try to break that mystery down for you or me either (as if I could). I’ll
just join Paul in pointing out that the foolishness of God is wiser than human
wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
The
followers of Jesus are part of a winning team. Yet our places on the team are
not secured because we are necessarily so all fired great as society counts
things. No, our places on this winning team have been made possible because
God loves us and has called us to join an “elite” group fools and weak
folks and lowly folks and despised folks—the rest of the nobodies—through
which the world is being changed. The followers of Jesus are on a winning team
of losers changing the world. Now, let’s go change the world.
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