“When Grace and Weakness Meet”

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday July 5, 2009

2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10

Psalm 48

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

One of the greatest misperceptions about the Christian faith is that its primary interest concerns what happens after death.

There are legitimate reasons for this misperception.   There have been times, in the history of our faith, when the reward of heaven and the threat of hell have been held out as the primary motivations for the decision to embark upon the journey of faith.  This preoccupation has often led people to speculate, in great detail, upon the nature of heaven’s glories and of hell’s torments.  Of course, such speculations about heaven and hell have been questioned by scholars, cynics and humourists throughout the ages – including Mark Twain, who famously quipped that one should go to ‘heaven for the climate, and hell for the company’.

This preoccupation with the afterlife has often distracted people of faith from some of the most profound promises that the Bible makes about this life.  Even though a vision of eternal life rests at the heart of faith – as we declare every time that we confess our faith in the life everlasting – it is important for us not to allow some vision of heaven to become so dominant in our thoughts that we lose sight of the fact that the good news that was proclaimed, in this world, by Christ, was a message about life – here and now. 

In many ways, today’s reading from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian church addresses this strange tension between life in this world and the nature of life in a world yet to come.

The passage begins with a passing description of one of the most mysterious visions that is to be found in any part of the New Testament epistles.

Paul recounts an experience that happened to “someone Paul knew” – or so he claimed.  Most biblical commentators and interpreters believe that these words describe a vision that Paul himself had experienced but – as was a common practice of the time -- he preferred to claim that it had happened to someone else.

The event itself involved some level of visionary experience in which the person involved caught sight of a glorious glimpse of heaven.  Paul writes,

I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.

There have been countless questions raised about what Paul meant in this passage – what he meant by the ‘third heaven’ or what exactly he saw; whether this was some level of internal delusion, or whether it was some transcendent out-of-body experience; and what it was that were the “things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat”.  Moreover, others have wondered why this strange experience does not figure more prominently in other passages in Paul’s letters.

Regardless of how we might understand his words in this passage, what cannot be doubted was that it was, for Paul, a truly mind-blowing spiritual experience.

And what cannot be doubted, either, was that Paul was not interested in talking about it.

Which is really quite strange.

After all, Paul spent a great deal of his life seeking to establish his own legitimacy as an apostle, and the legitimacy of his understanding of the Gospel, not only in relation to the early Christian communities in the cities to which he travelled, but even with relation to the other disciples themselves.  Frequently, he discusses disputes that he was having with other members of the early church in Jerusalem, and sometimes even with some of the most important leaders in the early Church, many of which concerned claims that he was making about the Gospel.  His belief, for example, that the Gentiles should and could be welcomed into the Christian community – without requiring that they undergo circumcision or live by the strict dietary laws of Judaism – had led to significant conflicts with individuals such as Peter and James. 

And the controversies in which he was engaged were not limited to his fellow believers.  Rather, earlier parts of these letters to the Corinthians suggests that there were those, in the city of Corinth itself, who were attempting to legitimize their spiritual claims by describing their own fantastic mystical experiences.

In light of those controversies and conflicts, one might assume that Paul would have said a great deal about this vision of heaven, if only to legitimize the validity of his claims about God and about the implications of the Gospel.    

But he did not.

In fact, he seemed to go to great lengths not to talk about it. 

…if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me, even considering the exceptional character of the revelations.

Which is quite strange.  After all, when a person is trying to convince their hearers of some claim that they are trying to make, they usually tend to offer the strongest argument that they can muster in order to legitimize or support their idea.  When politicians, or lawyers, or debaters are trying to convince their hearers of some claim that they are making, it is always quite wise, for them, to use their strongest arguments in order to support their ideas.  Seldom will a politician spend much time focusing on a lesser promise when a greater promise can be offered.  Seldom will a lawyer occupy a great portion of their defense seeking to prove the merits of a weaker piece of evidence, to the neglect of a more powerful claim.  Seldom will a debater spend the greatest portion of the time allotted to them seeking to make a weak point when a more powerful point can be presented.

So, why then, we might ask, does Paul skip quickly over this vision of heaven – even to the point of stating that he is going to refrain from speaking about it? 

Is it because he had come to realize that his greatest argument for faith was not found in that glorious vision of heaven, but in a promise that seemed much more mundane, much more simple, much more common, but in fact much more powerful than a description of heaven that could neither be fully articulated nor fully verified?

And is it possible that we, throughout the ages, have sometimes been so preoccupied with heaven – and with the ongoing debate about who is and who is not going to be there – that we have overlooked this much more powerful promise that is to be found in this passage from 2 Corinthians?

So what was this other promise, this more powerful argument?

The substance of this ‘other promise’ is reflected in the fact that Paul shifted his focus from his vision of heaven to a discussion of some form of physical ailment or recurring problem that he was experiencing.  He suggests that this ‘thorn in the flesh’ was a problem of such severity that he had prayed to God for it to be lifted from him.  

Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me.

There are countless number of speculations about what this thorn in the flesh might have been.  Some suggest that it was a form of skin disease or medical problem; others suggest that it was related to his own eyesight; others suggest that it was a recurring problem such as epilepsy; still others speculate that it may have related to Paul’s sexuality.  In any case, we do not know the nature of the problem – but what we do know is that it caused Paul a great deal of trouble, even to the point that he prayed that he would be relieved from it. 

But his prayer was not answered in the way that he had hoped.  Rather, we read,

Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.

And, in this simple yet profound statement, is the true heart of Paul’s message to his readers in this passage.  Paul could have told them about heaven; but he did not.  Rather, he told them about a grace that had met him in his weakness – and the way that that grace had transformed his life – even to the point of leading him to find a sense of peace in the midst of life’s most difficult moments –

Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.

For Paul, the grace that had met him in weakness was a greater argument for faith than was his mystical vision of heaven. 

And the implications of this claim are quite immense.   God’s grace is not simply meant for those who have wonderful visionary spiritual experiences, nor do we need to wait for, or even seek out such moving experiences in order to be renewed by a touch of grace.  Rather, the promise of this passage – and the promise of Scripture itself – is that the God before whom we bow in worship is not a God whose power is reserved for those who have had wondrous spiritual experiences.  The God before whom we bow in worship is not a God whose power is only revealed in glorious supernatural visions. Rather, the God before whom we bow is a God whose grace is sufficient for us, whose grace meets us in our moments of weakness, whose grace is revealed in our times of greatest need. 

And what was true for Paul is true for every one of us.  Regardless of the struggles that we have to face, the journey of faith leads us into the experience of a grace that is sufficient, even for life’s most troubling moments.

So often in life, we actually discover the truth of this good news.  So often, it is when we can no longer count on our own power that we come to realize the power of the One who is -- ever and always -- with us.   It is when we have come to the end of our strength, that we discover the strength of the One who has been holding us all along.  It is when we think that grace is gone that we learn the truth of the claim that we read in Paul’s letter – that God’s grace is sufficient.  We do not need to catch a mystical vision of glory; we do not need to be swept up into some transcendent revelation of the levels in some celestial realm; we do not have to go to heaven in order to experience the presence, the power and the grace of God – in Christ, God came to us, lived us, touched us, healed us, saved us, restored us, and reassured us that there will never be anything in this world that will ever be able to separate us from the presence of God’s love and grace. 

The good news of God, in Jesus Christ, is not offered in the form of a detailed description of what some otherworldly realm will be like.  And, in actual fact, when we find ourselves going through difficult times, or when we journey with people who are facing a future filled with uncertainty and fear, good news does not come in the form of a detailed description of what some otherworldly realm will be like.  Rather, truly good news comes in the assurance, the proclamation, the experience of a grace that strengthens us in our times of weakness; a grace that will be sufficient to help us to confront and overcome our times of trouble; a grace that supports us at every moment of our lives; a grace that will hold us even at the moment when we come to our moment of greatest weakness, and can no longer hold onto this precious gift of life itself.  

And, even at that moment, we shall discover the eternal truth of these wondrous words – do not fear; do not worry; my grace is sufficient for you; for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.