October 28, 2022

“I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself.” (1 Corinthians 4:3)

Here’s a line from Green Day’s “Basket Case” – “Sometimes I give myself the creeps / Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me / It all keeps adding up / I think I'm cracking up.”

Funny but true: sometimes I give myself the creeps. The fruit of the gospel is the gift of self-forgetfulness. That is what the Apostle Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians. Theologian Oswald Bayer describes it this way.

“Those who are born anew are no longer entangled with themselves. They are solidly freed from this entanglement, from the self-reflection that always seeks what belongs to itself. This is not a deadening of self. It does not flee from thought and responsibility. No, it is the gift of self-forgetfulness. The passive righteousness of faith tells us: You do not concern yourself at all! In that God does what is decisive in us, we may live outside ourselves and solely in him. Thus, we are hidden from ourselves, and removed from the judgment of other or the judgment of ourselves about ourselves as a final judgment. “Who am I?” Such self-reflection never finds peace in itself.”

Amen! Who is God is the question that finds peace in itself.

“O God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (For Quiet Confidence – BCP)