Made Perfect in Weakness, 2 Corinthians 12:2-10
First United Methodist Church, July 8, 2018
Pastor Toni Carmer
How do you respond when you're feeling attacked or criticized?
I don't remember what it was about anymore, but I do remember someone saying to me, "You're being defensive!" And I thought, well, yeah, it makes sense when you're coming at me like that. I am defending myself.
In the verses we've read this a.m., Paul is responding to criticism. He feels the need to defend his calling and his status as an apostle, while at the same time it discourages and frustrates him that he should even need to do that. The "super apostles" as Paul sarcastically refers to them, have challenged Paul's authority and have negatively influenced the Corinthian church against him. Paul feels that there is nothing to be gained by a competition of sorts between them, and relates that he has already "boasted foolishly" of his qualifications, of the pain and the suffering he has endured as an apostle, as a follower and teacher of Jesus Christ. What he wants to do, is focus on Christ, and yet here he is defending himself—called to provide his qualifications, his list of references, basically—to prove his worthiness. He has been working hard: he's tired, he's vulnerable, and he's trying to be faithful as he communicates his heart.
There was a former pastor living in Elkhart who worked at a carpet store. He'd experienced a call to ministry, graduated from seminary and served several churches. And then he was done. He said it was a series of small complaints. Nothing he did seemed good enough. He was being nibbled to death by ducks. And then, one last complaint and he'd had enough. That was it. Done.
I think of Paul as being nibbled to death by ducks. One thing after another. And yet he hangs in there. Doing his best to respond in a way that's helpful to the church…that will heal and build the relationship with this church that he loves.
As our scripture begins, Paul "boasts" of an event/encounter he experienced 14 years before, but he speaks of himself in the third person, as though it were someone else. "I know a person in Christ," he says… By the time he finishes describing what happened, it's clear that this is his own experience; a veiled but fairly obvious attempt to NOT boast about his spiritual credentials, as that has been the tactic of the "Super-apostles." He doesn't want to get into that kind of back-and-forth. "My spiritual experience was bigger than yours." "I've got a more impressive story than you do!" Really? We're going to do this? Okay, then let's go—Paul ends up saying. But he doesn't hand it all over, he doesn't reveal the details. That experience is very moving to him, very personal. It sounds as though he still isn't fully sure of what happened, and he's not ready to fill in the blanks with creative license in order to impress somebody. Impressing the Corinthians in order to win them over? Not his ambition.
But what about that experience? Was it a vision or was Paul somehow taken up? What is he talking about?
As Paul writes this to the Corinthians, he doesn't provide an explanation and so it seems that they would know what it meant to be taken up to "the third heaven (v. 2)," which apparently means the same thing as being "caught up into Paradise (v. 4)." The Jews believed in plural heavens. When you and I say, the heavens and earth, I think we're thinking of one big heaven, but in that time there were often thought to be 7 levels of heaven, though it was also not uncommon to describe 3, as Paul does here. The ancients thought of heaven in a different way than we do in these modern times. Sometimes God is described as living there, but in Hebrews 4:14 Jesus passes through the heavens to get to God. Even evil powers are a part of the heavenly realm (Ephesians 6:12). "Paradise," or the highest heaven, whether it's 7th or 3rd, was the place of the righteous dead to the Jewish mystics. For Paul, it seems the experience was more auditory than visual: he says he heard things that "are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat" (v.4).
That's all I know about the different levels of heaven—that's really more than I know, we can all ask Jesus about it someday and I'm confident that he'll be happy to tell us all about it. What I do know is that Paul had this amazing experience, this incredible encounter with God that he hasn't before shared because he doesn't want to boast about it: "God spoke to me. Has God spoken to you?" To help keep him humble, Paul speaks of the thorn that was given to him in his flesh, a messenger sent to torment him (v. 7).
We don't know what that "thorn" was, either, though that has never stopped anyone from speculating. It's thought to be something physical—something that truly debilitated him in some way. It wouldn't be surprising if he had some kind of damage related to the beatings he's endured. Maybe epilepsy from a head injury. Some think that perhaps it had to do with his vision (he says to the Galatians, "see what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand!" (6:11). It could be depression (which would make sense, too), or an overwhelming sense of guilt from all he did before his conversion on the road to Damascus). Whatever it is, Paul doesn't say that this thorn is inflicted upon him by God, but is instead, a "messenger of Satan to torment him." Three times he asked God to remove this thorn, and God did not take it away. Instead, God said to him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."
I like the way Eugene Peterson's The Message describes this:
Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, "My grace is enough; it's all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness."
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become (12:7b-10).
I am not going to make a correlation today that any physical illness, limitation or affliction that any one of us might experience is Satan's plan to torment us. I'm not going there, because it's not true. Bad things happen to us and if we want to say it's Satan's fault, okay, ultimately, we can do that…but I won't say that you're dealing with cancer or dementia or hard times at home or at work because it's Satan's plan to torment you with that. And I won't say that God has chosen not to heal all of our physical afflictions in order that God's strength might grow out of that affliction. In this world, we get sick, bad things happen, and sometimes we're completely healed and sometimes we're not. Another question for Jesus someday. But I do know that God does work in and through these times of trial and frustration and sickness and pain…and even when I'm not sick, when I step back, it makes a place for God to step in.
It's one of the many paradoxes of our Christian faith:
Weakness equals power.
In lifting others up, we lift ourselves.
When experiencing sorrow, we discover joy.
When we are last, we are first.
When we die, we live.
It really isn't a surprise that the empty cross is the symbol of our faith, is it? The empty cross shows us that ultimately, the power resides with God. The story didn't end with the death of Jesus, but the cross stands empty by God's power, by God's grace, by God's goodwill toward all humankind. Jesus was subject to the powers and principalities of his day, but that's not where the story ends…he gave himself up so that God's power would be known.
Perhaps, when you and I are most vulnerable, when we're most ready to admit that we're not super-human beings who can be all things to all people—perhaps it's then when God can most use us. Perhaps when we accept the gift of being who we are, instead of trying to be who we aren't, and who we were never meant to be, God can work most powerfully through us.
Maybe God can better use us when we're real. When we're willing to admit that we don't have all the answers, and it's not our job to keep everybody happy and well-taken care of. Pretending doesn't work, eventually our weakness will come to light. Holding back because we're afraid of making a mistake won't accomplish whatever it is God is calling us/you to do.
We're "qualified" by the grace of God.
We are, as Brenan Manning says, God's beloved.
So what, in a very specific way, does this exceedingly honest word from Paul mean for us?
Perhaps we’re being offered a couple of invitations: The first is this: to be a community where we are courageous enough to be real and avoid the temptation to pretend we have it all together. Knowing we are loved, that grace is enough, so we can be real and stop spending energy trying to look like we have it all together.
Second, perhaps we’re called to be a community where we are more enthusiastic about encouraging and affirming leaders than being a place where we are eager to point out how leaders don’t measure up to the ideal of perfection. Truth is that I have been so encouraged by you in my ministry and I am so thankful. However, we may know leaders here or beyond who are being nibbled to death by criticism. What if we were to be a people who did our best to look for the gifts in others, and to be encouragers…to celebrate the gifts of others rather than complaining about the gifts we wish they’d have.
How might that make a difference for all of us?
