I Am Weak but Thou Art Strong
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
July 5, 2015[1]
I love to watch
baseball! I am amazed at the talent,
strength and skill that Bryce Harper, Jayson Werth, Denard Span, Matt
Carpenter, Yadier Molina (just to name a few) display on the field. It all seems to come so naturally to these
superstar athletes. The power of a home
run crushed to the deepest part of center field, the duel between the power
pitcher and the hitter with the eye and the quickness to protect the plate and
extend the “at bat” to ten or twelve pitches.
The intricate coordination and dance of a well-turned 6-4-3 double
play. The drama of the throw from
centerfield to home plate to throw out the base runner trying to score. The skill and strength of these players amaze
me. I wish that I could be as strong in
my faith journey as they are in their baseball journey. Sometimes, I feel so weak. In today’s scripture lesson, I discover that
I am not the only one.
I.
Paul was having trouble with the church in Corinth
that he had founded. What we read as the
Book of 2 Corinthians was actually one of several letters that Paul exchanged
with the people in Corinth after he had started the church and then moved on to
other mission fields.
It is hard to put together the pieces of this story. We are reading Paul’s letter (or perhaps
fragments of several letters that were compiled into one document; we aren’t
sure). We are only reading one side of
the correspondence. Since Paul and the
Corinthian readers both knew what he was talking about, he did not give us all
the facts.
From what we can piece together, it seems that one or
more persons came to Corinth and challenged the credentials of Paul as an
apostle. During one of Paul’s earlier
visits (before writing this letter), there was an ugly confrontation with these
newcomers. Conversations did not go
well, and Paul left Corinth in a hurry.
In the correspondence with the Corinthians that followed, Paul wrote some
very emotional words. He said that “I
wrote you out of much distress and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to
cause you pain, but to let you know the abundant love I have for you.” (2 Corinthians 2:4).
Just what were these new “super-apostles” saying? The text of our Pew Bibles understates the
rhetoric. To get a better sense of the
emotional diatribes going on, I find it helpful to read from Eugene Peterson’s
translation called The Message:
Paul says, “I hear that I’m being painted as cringing
and wishy-washy when I’m with you, but harsh and demanding when at a safe
distance writing letters. Please don’t
force me to take a hard line when I’m present with you. Don’t think that I’ll hesitate a single
minute to stand up to those who say I’m an unprincipled opportunist. Then they’ll have to eat their words.” (2 Corinthians 10:1a-2, The Message). Later on,
he compares these new apostles to the serpent in the Garden of Eden: “I’m afraid that exactly as the Snake seduced
Eve with his smooth patter, you are being lured away from the simple purity of
your love for Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:3, The Message).
Paul goes on to accuse one of these new apostles of
“preaching quite another Jesus than we preached—different spirit, different
message,” but yet the Corinthians “put up with him quite nicely.” Paul asks, “if you put up with these big shot
“apostles,” why can’t you put up with simple me? I’m as good as they are!” (2 Corinthians 11:4, The Message).
This is part of the context to today’s Gospel
Lesson. When Paul is “boasting” about
the trials he has endured for the sake of the Gospel, or about his times of
spiritual visions and ecstasy, he is boasting for a reason—to reestablish his
credentials and authority as an apostle sent by Christ himself to preach the
Gospel. But his boasting begins with an
acknowledgment of his own weakness. Paul
could truly say, “I am weak but Thou art strong.”
II.
Is our world all that different? I remember my days in the legal and corporate
world. I remember watching the older, established employees struggling to
understand how to react or respond when the “boss” brought in a younger “wiz
kid” to turn things around. We would see
the drama played out between honoring the people who had brought you to where
you were vs. honoring the creativity and talent of someone young, who may have
had credentials in a given field, but did not have the experience of applying
their book knowledge in the real world of business and relationships.
The long-term employees would question why the boss
would rely so much on the advice of unproven newcomers. Yet, in their heart of hearts, the long-term
employees knew that they didn’t have the energy level or the spark or the
creative edge that they once enjoyed.
They began to doubt themselves. The
newer employees would wonder why the boss would stick by the “old guard” who
were past their prime and were out of touch with current trends, technology and
business. If the young employees were
self aware, they might reflect from time to time that they were out of their
league, but they didn’t dare admit to any weakness, at least not publicly. But in their quiet moments, both the
long-term employee and the young, up and coming talent would have to admit that
they were weak, even though they wanted to be strong.
It happens in the church world, as well. The so-called “mainline” churches worry about
declining membership, and introduce the latest and greatest strategic analysis
to turn around the decline. We see
tension develop between the old guard and the new wave of leadership on social
issues. Sometimes, the tension shows up
in differences of preference in worship practices—with some people lamenting
the loss of the “old songs” and others wondering why we still bother with
responsive reading of the Psalms.
Sometimes, the stress shows up in the fixation with statistics we are
required to report on church growth and participation in mission trips. Sometimes, it shows up in our building
projects and in our programs. We try so
hard to project an image of strength and power that we forget the source
of our strength and power.
If it is true for the church, it also is true for me
personally. I grew up with a vivid
imagination of my spiritual heroes, and I wanted to be like them. As a kid, I grew up with what now seems like
a really naïve and almost arrogant notion.
I remember so well on the long afternoons that I was walking my
five-mile long paper route, thinking that I wanted to know God better than
anyone else ever did. I don’t know what
ever caused me to think that I deserved such an honor; but that is what I hoped
for. I wanted to be strong; the reality was always a much
different picture.
III.
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians hits me in different
ways. Sometimes, his description of
himself as weak sounds self-deprecating, sort of a Gomer Pyle, “Golly gee, Sgt.
Carter.” Sometimes, Paul sounds arrogant
and boastful. Sometimes, he sounds
whining. But by the end of this
morning’s Scripture Lesson, Paul has found his voice.
The power in Paul’s voice doesn’t come from bragging
about surviving shipwrecks. His power
doesn’t come from telling stories about daring escapes, like being let down in
a basket through a window in the wall surrounding the city of Damascus. His power doesn’t come from telling about
visions of ecstasy and out of body religious experiences. And his power doesn’t come from his stories
of overcoming personal disabilities or “thorns in the flesh.”
We never get to see the climactic moment in which Paul
turns the corner in this struggle. If
this were a major movie or television production, at this point we would hear
the music in the background getting louder and louder, and then we would see a
spotlight shining on Paul, perhaps creating an aura or glow around his face,
with a few glycerin tears escaping his eyes.
But this is no Hollywood production.
Real life does not come with a sound track. We simply hear Paul bearing witness that it
is only in his weakness, when he is at the end of his rope, that he is able to
hear the voice of the Lord assuring him that “My grace is sufficient for
you.” It is only when Paul recognized
that he would never be smart enough, strong enough, or good enough to make it
on his own that he can hear the words, “power is made perfect in
weakness.” (v. 9). It is only when Paul
relies on the power of the cross, when he is able to plead for “just a closer
walk” with the Christ of the cross, it is only then that Paul discovers the
true secret of spiritual power.
IV.
It was true for Paul.
Can it be true for us today? Is
it possible for the church once more to discover that in our weakness, we can
find strength? Can we rediscover once
again that God’s grace is enough?
I wonder what would happen if our churches were able
to let go of the worries and concerns over church growth and rediscover the
simplicity of Christ’s call to “follow me”?
What would happen if our churches were able to let go
of the need to prove how vital it is and to focus instead on living vitally. Would we as a church be able to remember that
God’s grace is enough?
Remember that image of the boy on the paper route
wanting to know God? Well, he has
tempered his language a bit. He has
realized that knowing God doesn’t always mean seeing visions or building mega
churches or writing bestseller spiritual guides. He has learned, instead, that saint-sized
faith begins in weakness, when we realize that we are weak but Jesus is
strong. It begins when we are able to
let go of the concerns about how others see us and cling instead to the
cross-to its way of living and loving.
What would happen if we instead of planning for the big event, we were
to focus on “daily walking close to” the one who invites us to take up our own
cross and to follow Him?
“Let it be, dear Lord.
Let it be!”[2]
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