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Choosing the weak to shame the strong

by James Barringer  
7/21/2010 / Christian Living

Jesus is backward. Okay, not exactly - Jesus has it right, and we're the ones who are backward, but if you read the gospels, you'll quickly find things that don't match the way we usually think. One that I find particularly frustrating is that Jesus viewed the social order upside-down.

What I mean is this. We, as a culture, place great emphasis on "being somebody." A recent USA Today survey showed that "becoming famous" was a major life goal of 51% of high school students. Why do you suppose this is? You can see shades of it all over, though. Everybody wants the fashions that the famous people are wearing. Why - because the fashions themselves are objectively superior to what you and I wear? No, merely that wearing a famous person's clothes is a way of being just one iota closer to famous. Hollywood actors talk about their political opinions, and people listen. Why - because being good at pretending to be someone else makes a person qualified to talk about politics? No, because they assume that "being somebody" makes their opinions more valuable. It's easy to see why so many people want to be in that position. The only thing better to me than writing these essays would be if a million people read them. I too feel the pull of fame.

And Jesus was oblivious to it. First of all, he rejected the lie of fame personally. Every time someone tried to lift him up, he stubbornly refused, and pointed the finger back to God. "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and finish his work," he said in John 5. That is not the mark of someone who is eager to take credit for himself.

Second, he rejected the lie of fame socially. Look at who he used to start his ministry: a handful of blue-collar manual laborers, a guy who made his living by forcing people to pay more taxes than they owed, and a few other random nobodies. None of them were famous. None of them were educated (see Acts 4:13). He didn't go for the Pharisees, who could have used their influence and power to reach many for the gospel; in fact, he was usually content to dismiss the Pharisees with a curt reply. He didn't go for the Roman government, to encourage them not to persecute the believers. Christianity began with common people and largely got by with common people for the next 2000 years.

And look at it today. The President of the United States has historically been Christian, including President Obama, but most heads of state around the world are not Christians. Most Hollywood actors, directors, and producers are not believers. Most of the world's prominent novelists and poets are not either, nor most of the world's richest people. Most famous athletes are not either; there are quite a few prominent Christian athletes in the United States, but worldwide this is not the case. And yet there are more than two billion Christians in the world - almost a third of the world's population. It is the single largest religion on the planet, and it has achieved this status without the aid of the people who the world usually calls "somebodies."

The Bible gives us some idea of why this might be true. The essence of Christ's message is a punch right in the gut of anyone who wants to be a "somebody." All have sinned. All have fallen short of the glory of God. The remedy for you is the same as it is for me, and for the President, and for everybody: salvation through Christ only. No one deserves special treatment. No one is anybody. We are all beloved children of the King, so we are all fantastically more important than anyone can ever realize - yet we are all children, desperately in need of grace to do for us what we can never do for ourselves. There's no room for a hierarchy of importance. Jesus has nothing at all to offer to a person who craves fame.

The really goofy thing of it all is that, during the times when the somebodies have been Christian, Christianity has been the farthest from what it was originally supposed to be. In the middle ages when all the heads of state were nominally Christian, they forced conversions and fought wars in the name of the cross - exactly the opposite of how Jesus said to act. The most recognizable faces of Christianity in the last ten years have been the pastor who blamed homosexuals for September 11 and the pastor who said that Haiti's earthquake of January 2010 was because they had made a pact with the devil. The Christian athletes, loved and respected by millions, seem to ignore everything the Bible says about what to do when you have a lot of money. It sure looks to me like it's almost impossible to simultaneously be a Christian and a somebody. Nearly always, something goes wrong.

Paul explains this very simply in 1 Corinthians 1. "Consider your calling. Not many of you were wise according to wordly standards; not many were powerful, not many of noble birth. But God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong." It's almost as if God enjoys showing off, poking his finger in the eye of the world, mocking the fame- and power-driven hierarchy and doing it his own way just to show that the world does not know best.

I think that this is a prophetic word that God speaks into our lives. You can see in front of you the evidence that you don't have to do life the world's way. The world says that you should become somebody; God says that being somebody doesn't matter at all, and he takes nobodies and uses them to change the world. As long as we are trapped by the world and its empty call to meaningless fame, we'll be deaf to God's quieter call to empty ourselves, relinquishing our claims to more, just as Christ did when he "made himself nothing" (Philippians 2) to reconcile us to himself.

Proverbs 3:34 says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Which of those two you get from God is 100% dependent on your attitude: pride or humility. It is hard to describe the desire for fame as anything less than the natural result of pride. Contentment with anonymity can be nothing less than pure humility. Which of those are you displaying in your own life? Would you rather have the world's pride and fame, or God's humility even at the cost of being a nobody? Do you ever find yourself wishing that more famous people were Christians? Why do you suppose you feel that way, if you do?

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

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