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. –1 Corinthians
1:18
On Thursday morning, it was just me and the driver in the
shuttle from the airport. The driver was
in a talkative mood. He started by
saying that he didn’t like smart phones very much because they distracted
people - - particularly the drivers he needed to negotiate around in his
work. He said he had dropped cable,
saved a lot of money and bought an old fashioned antenna. “I’ve stopped watching the news.” He told me.
Then, he began to talk about his grandfather, who “told me the truth and
the difference between right and wrong when he was a boy.” And then about his mother who, at 89, still
helped him make sense of his life and the world. We finished our ride with a discussion about
the importance of family and not letting your work consume you. There was a lot of wisdom packed into that
short ten minute drive. Wisdom about
what, in Lutheran circles, we would call “vocation.” His concerns grew out of his understanding of
what it takes to live a meaningful life in what can be a challenging
world. He didn’t know what I did for a
living until the very end of the conversation.
I was just another traveller who happened to jump on his shuttle. But, when he heard that I was a pastor, he
told me I had a hard job, “convincing people who don’t always listen about the
ways of God.”
I share this encounter because it reminded me that there are
people all around us all the time who are trying to make sense of the worlds we
inhabit. They are asking deep questions
of meaning, and searching for signs of hope and hopefulness in a world often
bereft of both. As we meet these
neighbors, how, I wonder, can the power
of the cross speak to these searchers in a way that can be heard and
experienced? But maybe that’s the wrong
question to ask. It’s backwards. It assumes we have the wisdom to impart when,
in fact, maybe we are the ones who need to hear God speaking wisdom through
those we encounter, especially from those who the world might call “the least
of these.” As Paul says a few verses
later, “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; God chose what is low and
despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that
are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29).
In truth, we all wrestle with the questions of vocation and
meaning the shuttle driver was asking.
The saving power of the cross is the Good News that God stands with us
in the midst of the questions, the struggles and our attempts to make sense of
an often senseless world. Perhaps, by
listening more for the voice of God in those we meet, out there, in the world,
we can, together, more fully experience the power of God at work between
us. Perhaps, as we ride together, we can
come to know that the wisdom of the cross can and does give life its meaning
and grounds for hope.
Peace,
Bishop Mike
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