What changes lives? The Spirit's power!

(Pastor Justin Schoolcraft first wrote this blog about 1 Corinthians 2 for us in June of 2020.)

It’s easy to talk about the weather. We enter a room with a stranger or acquaintance, and, not quite knowing how to speak to them, we say, “Man, it’s been hot here recently.” They say, “Yeah. I’m ready for fall.” It’s easy to talk about the weather.

It’s harder to talk about the big things. I had a professor who challenged my class to write and speak only from a place of “bedrock,” that core of your soul that contains the most painful experiences of your life, the deepest joys, and the rooted passions that make you tick. The problem for all of us is that those pieces of our lives feel as vulnerable as an egg on a spoon. When we unearth those breakable pieces from our bedrock and hand them to another person, we are ridden with fear. “What if they drop it?” Splat! “What if they laugh at it and toss it over their shoulder?” Crunch! “What if they throw it back at us out of scorn?” Ouch! We tend to keep those things tucked away, afraid to speak them. It’s easier to talk about the weather.

But maybe we need to talk about the big things. In the novel Old Friends, Tracy Kidder tells of a man in a nursing home who obsessed about how his wife always asked him, “Why don’t you tell me you love me more?” And he would say, “That’s not my way. I prefer to show it.” Now his wife had died and he was left wondering why he never said those important words. Why leave them tucked away? Why not just say it?

Imagine how hard it is talking about the biggest thing of all-–God, and what God has done for us. It cuts to the very center of our soul. In our reading today from 1 Corinthians, St. Paul reminds the church in Corinth about his first visit to their city. “When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.” Can you picture St. Paul-–the greatest missionary of all time, trembling before his audience, stammering as he speaks? Talking about God cuts right to the most vulnerable parts of our souls. It’s a scary endeavor.

But notice two things. First, Paul says his message was not delivered with wisdom or eloquence. He relied instead on the Spirit’s power at work through his words, so that no one listening would give Paul the credit. Second, and most important, the content of his message was the testimony of God. Paul’s “bedrock” was not just his personal, vulnerable story: his bedrock was God’s story at work in him. The breakable pieces of his life were blanketed by God’s unbreakable power. In other words, God’s story strengthened Paul’s vulnerability so that Paul could freely proclaim what God had done in his life, even though that proclamation felt vulnerable and fearful.

We tend to think that those vulnerable pieces in our bedrock are as breakable as eggs on a spoon. We tuck them away and rob the world of our words. Paul is telling you today that if God’s story is a part of your story, whenever you speak those transforming parts of your life into the open, those in your hearing will not hear you, but the world-altering power of the Holy Spirit.

There’s nothing wrong with talking about the weather…I do it all the time. It’s natural to stay guarded and protect the most vulnerable parts of your life. But you can change the world if you speak your bedrock. Because if you are living in the power of the Holy Spirit, your bedrock is not breakable. It is Christ the Solid Rock on which you stand; all other ground is sinking sand. It’s deep, it’s personal, and you may tremble like Paul. But Paul, in his trembling, changed the world.