By Not Known
As an avid coffee drinker, I love this story. The beans of this certain coffee
come from a remote part of Java although several other Southeast Asian countries
also claim to have such coffee. It is supposedly the most exquisite, exotic, and
most expensive coffee in the world. At US$300 for 450 grams, it could well be.
Those who can afford and are able to purchase it, would claim that it is out of this
world.
It is called Kopi Luwak, Luwak is Indonesian for the civet cat which is a
nocturnal animal. It is also a connoisseur of top-notched coffee cherries. In the
night, it wanders all over Java island and picks the most perfect coffee cherries to
eat. It would rather starve than to eat a Kona coffee bean or even a Blue
Mountain coffee bean. It eats the most perfect beans and they would be digested
through the night.
In the morning, the locals harvest the beans that had gone through the
digestive system of the cat. Each of these US$300/450 grams beans comes out in
the droppings of the civet cat. Hence Kopi Luwak.
Isn’t it amazing how God works! Where do we get succulent tasty mushrooms?
Rotting mushy wooden mash. Bird nest soup? Saliva of some swallows inhabiting in ,
limestone caves. Expensive exotic Kopi Luwak? From droppings of civet cats.
Where was Jesus born? A dirty, smelly, noisy manger with animal dung all
around him. The place where he died, a place fitting for the criminals of those
days, a place called Golgotha.
Today we begin our study of 1 Corinthians. And right there in v25 of the first
chapter, we were told that divine folly is wiser than human wisdom and divine
weakness stronger than human strength. Some of us are wise people, by human
standard, yet we are told that God had chosen to shame the wise with what is
foolish in the world. God chose what is weak in this world to shame the strong.
God has chosen things low and contemptible to highlight God’s best.
So, there is to be no human pride for God has made Jesus to be our wisdom.
He is our righteousness; in him we are consecrated and set free. This is why, "if
you must boast, boast in the Lord."
The Gospel is about the way in which what is the weakest, what is most
despised, what is most contemptible in our lives, in this world, can become,
through the power of the Holy Spirit, what is the most beautiful, what is most
radiant, and what can be a blessing. God can turn the topsy-turvy world right-
side-up, inside-out. If you want to win, you have to lose. If you want to live, you
have to die. If you want get ahead, you have to get behind and follow.
God’s wisdom is like drinking a good cup of Kopi Luwak knowing where it
comes from. Even then, that cup comes with a price.