| Yesterday morning I googled the definition of the phrase “down and out”. It told me that someone who is down and out has “no job and nowhere to live, and they have no real hope of improving their situation.” AI suggested “a person is in a difficult situation, often financially, and may be struggling to make ends meet, lacking resources, and feeling hopeless or defeated – at rock bottom, with little prospect for improvement.” No surprises here. However, this got me thinking about how our God in Christ Jesus has a way of flipping things upside-down. “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God … Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. … For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. … 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, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” (1 Corinthians 1.18-31) This is called the “Theology of the Cross” … God revealing himself most profoundly in things that are contrary to our ordinary way of thinking. The Roman cross was the most humiliating and torturous means of punishing criminals and rebels ever invented, yet God chose to “flip” it into the means through which he saved the world. It is the ultimate way in which “we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8.28) This got me thinking about some “down and out” events connected to me and my life in ministry … closing our school at Saint Thomas … closing Lutheran High East and West … Charity Lutheran Church Detroit (where I spent my first 19 years in ministry) closing … in the Circuit of which I am the Circuit Counselor, Peace Lutheran Warren closing last year and Trinity Lutheran Warren closing this coming Sunday. All “down and out” stories … “difficult situations financially, ministries struggling to make ends meet, lacking resources, and feeling hopeless or defeated – at rock bottom, with little prospect for improvement.” Is it really possible for our God to “work these things together for good”? The answer, of course, is yes … YES! However, in order for us to see it, he has to “flip” us from our natural way of thinking (you might call this a “Theology of Glory”) … to recognize that though “the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”One thing this has done for me is “flip” my understanding of what it means – in God’s economy – to be “down and out.” Take, for instance, the story of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11). Post-flood, God had commanded Noah and his descendants,“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”(Genesis 9.1) However Genesis 11 describes them sticking together in one region. Together they say, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves.” (Genesis 11.4) What does God do? He comes down to them (verse 5 and 7) and sends them out (verse 8) from there over the face of all the earth. What is happening here? Our God is Christ Jesus if “flipping” the definition of “down and out.” He takes a story that seems “hopeless and defeated” … and changes it to one where he “comes down” from heaven and sends “people out” … taking a bad situation and making it into a blessing … fulfilling his will of “filling the earth”. The story of Pentecost in Acts 2 is very similar. Ever since Easter (and the day before) the disciples (about 120 in number – Acts 1.15) were basically camped out in an upper room in Jerusalem. Luke describes the scene this way: “They were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2.1-4) From there God sent them out to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1.8) This puts “down and out” into a whole new perspective. This is how I am now looking at all the “down and out” closings of my past, along with the one in which I will be participating on Sunday. In these events our God who “works all things together for good for those who love him” and whose “word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved is the power of God”He comes down to us with his hope generating, victory sharing Spirit and sends us out into new contexts for the good of his kingdom. Taking us from a situation where there is “no real hope of improving the situation” into one where his blessings are multiplied beyond our imaginations. |
And if he is doing this in all of my “down and out” stories, he certainly is around to do it for you as well.