Who confers distinction upon you?
What do you possess that you have not received?Paul reminds us that we have no basis for becoming inflated with pride. We must first learn to put aside wisdom of this world and receive the wisdom from Christ. Since this wisdom usually comes through others, apostles and evangelists, there is still the risk that we might become tribal, "in favor of one person over against another."
Fortunately, many of us who become Christians do at least learn to cast aside the things of this world as supports for our ego and our pride. But after that we try to fill the void in a way almost the same as before, yet now with Christian trappings. We're no longer proud of ourselves for reading the New Yorker or the Wall Street Journal, but now we think our worth comes from First Things or the National Catholic Register. Perhaps our worth is no longer vested in politicians, cultural commentators, or self-help gurus, but is now based on the cleverness of the theologians and religious leaders we now follow. It is not their teachings that are the problem, nor what is written in those journals that is necessarily that is the issue. It is the way in which we are still boasting that is the problem.
But if you have received it,
why are you boasting as if you did not receive it?
Our worth is not meant to be something which we discover or create for ourselves. And how fortunate this is! If it were, we would never have a firm place to stand. It is rather as a gift given to us that the meaning of our lives is found.
Scripture can help to keep us safe from the risks of pride. If we learn not to go beyond what is written we will carefully avoid the pitfalls of wishing to appear wise, and strong, the need to be help in honor. We need to constantly hear the reminder that "Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord" (see First Corinthians 1:31).
Paul shows us that we become mature as Christians, not when others think well of us, but when we are willing to be fools on Christ's account, seen as weak, held in disrepute, enduring privations of the things of this world, and even suffering violence for the sake of the Gospel. If we insist on our own comfort we will build the walls of pride to keep us safe. But then Christ will not be able to use us to build his Kingdom. It is precisely as weak and foolish that we are seen as credible, because it is then that it becomes obvious that our message is not from us, nor for selfish ends.
When ridiculed, we bless; when persecuted, we endure;
when slandered, we respond gently.
We have become like the world’s rubbish, the scum of all,
to this very moment.
When we are willing to be fools for Christ we experience freedom. We no longer care what the Pharisees think when we pick grain on the sabbath. We learn to care only about what the Son of Man thinks, since he is the lord of the sabbath.
He fulfills the desire of those who fear him,
he hears their cry and saves them.
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