203. Quality of people’s lives

Let’s meditate Paul’s reflection:
“Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong, and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something, so that no human being might boast before God.
It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.’” 1 Corinthians, Chapter 1, verses 26 to 31

Paul seems to have understood how a person on a mission is. He doesn’t elaborate much and defines it in a few words: “foolish, weak, lowly, despised”. That’s what Paul thinks of us. It’s not very flattering. But it depends on the point of view of the person who receives it.

For the world, being foolish, weak, despised, it’s the equivalent of nailing us onto a cross. In their eyes, we’re poor.

But when we place our weaknesses in God, in what Paul says about us, becomes strength. For the strength doesn’t come from our pride, our know-how, our wisdom, but from God. We place our pride in God.

We are foolish to believe in a Crucified Messiah. We are despised to follow Jesus, we are weak to trust only in Jesus. We mention this from the beginning to give us an idea of the different types of poverty. For some people, poverty is wealth, for others wealth is poverty. But, in reality, there is real wealth and real poverty, and all humans stand between these two realities.

As we read this book, we’re invited to reflect on our different personal experiences of poverty and the different kinds of poverty we see around us. These discovered poverties we can give them to Jesus. We will be on a mission to help improve the quality of people’s lives.

The new American Bible, 2011-2014
Book: Caring for our poverties, Normand Thomas