The sex scandals in the church in America and elsewhere is an evil that no one should try to understate or explain away. The people of God in churches where they took pace reacted in various ways. Some reacted with anger, others with sadness, and everyone felt betrayed. Many people threatened to leave the church, saying that the church is nothing but a bunch of hypocrites. Some actually left. That may not be the best way to react to the crisis. In today’s second reading from the First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul offers us another way of reacting to these atrocities without losing our faith; a way that enables us to denounce sex abuse in the church without throwing away the baby with the bath water. The reading tells us that God knows how to write straight with crooked pens; that God, in fact, prefers to write with crooked pens.

Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, 29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).

Paul begins this section by inviting the Christians of Corinth to consider their call. To be a Christian or a minister of the people of God in any capacity is a call. It is God who takes the initiative and calls us to His service. We sometimes find ourselves considering whether we should remain in the church or not. We feel that it is up to us to decide to follow Jesus or not. But Jesus tells us that the initiative to follow him comes not from us but from God himself. “You did not choose me but I chose you” (John 15:16), he says. And “No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me” (John 6:44). It is a calling given by God. The most sinful and most unworthy Christian you have ever known is nevertheless handpicked and called by God to follow Christ.

What standards does God use to choose men and women to belong to Him and do His work? Now, this is exactly where God’s ways part from our ways. Normally we would expect God to pick people who are wise, powerful, and of a good reputation. But Paul tells us that God actually chooses people who are the exact opposite, people who are foolish, weak in character, and of a low reputation. Why does God prefer to work with the nobodies of this world? There are two reason for this: one is in the interest of the individuals concerned, the other is in the interest of those among whom they work.

We can live the life of God or do the work of God only with the strength that comes from God. Therefore, the first requirement of a servant of God is that he or she learn how to depend on God. For this reason God sometimes allows His servants to carry the burden of their human weakness, so that they will learn that unless they stand in God, they cannot stand at all. Paul had a “thorn in the flesh”which he prayed God to remove from him. God did not remove it. God simply said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” And Paul concluded, “Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, … for whenever I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

The second reason why God allows human weakness in His servants is so that the people among whom they work will realise that the good that God’s ministers have been able to accomplish come not from their personal ingenuity but from the grace of God working in and through them. This will weaken for the people the temptation to idolize their ministers. The Christians of Corinth had already fallen into this temptation when they began labelling themselves according to their favourite missionaries: “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas.” God wants us to see through and beyond the ministers who bring us the word of God and to keep our eyes on Jesus, who is Lord and saviour of us all.

The Lord calls us all Christians, and especially those men and women who minister God’s word to us in any capacity, to a life of holiness. While we pray for holiness in our members, and especially in our ministers, let us also ask God to give us the faith not to be scandalized when we or our ministers fall short of the life of holiness expected of all of God’s children.