Is Grace Sufficient?
Sunday, July 9th, 2006
Pentecost 5
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Memory doesn’t tell me the exact date, or the exact characters in the pictures, but the comic strip goes something like this: two little boys are arguing about who is better, and when they run out of things to say about themselves, they begin to move out from themselves, beginning with that person each would regard as the most powerful person in their lives.
“MY Dad can do fifty push-ups in 30 seconds!”
“Oh, yeah? Well, MY Dad can do a HUNDRED push-ups in FORTY seconds!”
“Oh, YEAH?? Well MY dad can beat your dad any day!”
And it goes on from there. Generally in a downhill direction, until the claims being made are as ridiculous as the issue that began the argument. It ultimately draws in the fathers mentioned, and THEY in turn find themselves turning from decent, level-headed family men into snarling fist-clenching warriors ready to knock each other to the ground just to prove what their sons have been telling each other.
Where is it that that streak, that ‘You think that’s good? Watch THIS’ mentality came into being? It is certainly not a uniquely American phenomenon, since I can tell you from personal experience it is very much present in at least three other societies across the globe. From what I understand of sociological research, and myths, and stories, the impetus to outdo each other in order to feel better about ourselves is somehow genetically encoded in us as humans.
If you’ve ever read a book of children’s stories from around the world, it is a recurring theme in stories found throughout civilization.
Folks at the church in Corinth were engaged in spiritual one-upmanship. Paul was confronted with news of what the church had become just a few short months after leaving the city.
Paul knew the people he was writing to. He’d gotten to know them well enough that he knew what would make them sit up and listen. And so he pulls out his secret weapon.
He’s writing to a group of people who have stratified themselves, who have set for themselves layers of importance, of influence, of significance, based on what they call their spiritual gifts. They base their self-worth on the degree to which they are considered spiritual by their fellow congregants. So, they vie for position. “I speak in tongues”, “I speak in tongues AND prophecy”, “I speak in tongues, prophecy AND perform healings!” … and it goes on and on … the degree to which the folks at Corinth went to try to impress each other with their spirituality while completely ignoring the inherent injunction of the gospel against just what they were doing is only surprising in light of the fact that we still see the same thing happening today. They seemed to have lost interest in the Gospel at the point where Christ told his disciples ‘the first shall be last, and the last shall be first’.
It needs to be made clear that in what Paul is saying, it would have been understood by his readers that, even though he seems to disavow it, he is actually the person he is speaking of – boasting of – in these verses. Though the passage cited for this morning begins at verse two, let’s skip back just a couple of verses, to the end of chapter 11, through the first verse of the 12th chapter.
What was going on with Paul??
Why is he boasting when he is at the same time saying ‘it doesn’t do any good to boast!’?
What was happening was that false teachers had moved in behind him at the church in Corinth and had convinced the people who had formed the church that the true measure of one’s status within the church was whether or not one had received certain … qualifications, in the form of visions and revelations, supernatural gifts, and unusual abilities.
What is startling about the passage – about Paul’s revelation of his own experience in the passage, is that nowhere else in scripture do we have any sort of correlating reference to what he’s talking about. It is only here in this passage of his letter to the Corinthians that we read of his being taken up to the third heaven, and given a revelation from God that he is to tell no one about.
This would have been a watershed event in ANYONE’S life, let alone Paul’s. It happened fourteen years prior to the time that he was writing the letter, and Paul has already written to he Thessalonians, the Galatians, this is his third letter to the Corinthians, and yet, it’s the first time he’s pulled out these particular big guns in trying to convince someone of his argument.
The false teachers were telling of revelations and visions in order to establish the authority with which they claimed to be speaking. The Corinthians, being immature in their understanding of the faith, took them at their word, and became so deviated that they lost all sense of perspective between right and wrong.
Paul realized what was happening, and in a way, he fought fire with fire, all the while declaring that the form of argument in and of itself was invalid in the face of the Gospel. What Paul keeps coming back to is this.
It’s not about power. It’s about weakness.
Most specifically, it’s about GOD’S power and OUR weakness.
Paul never brought up the vision he speaks of here in Corinthians because it was not the medium by which Christ had called him to take the gospel to the world. The world already has plenty of prophets proclaiming special knowledge is the only way to enlightenment. That only the few who posses this knowledge – the initiates – those on the IN-side – would be the ones to understand and receive the … power. In the middle of the second century, those people were called Gnostics – and their creed, Gnosticism. Their claim was that knowledge, special, revealed knowledge, passed from one insider to the next, was what ‘made’ you one of the elect, one of the chosen, one of the select few. It was understood that in saying that, there would, of course be far more left out, far more lost and … unteachable … who would remain forever in the dark, on the outside, because they didn’t understand the “truth.”
Paul’s point about the Gospel was that it was the opposite of that. The Gospel was not exclusive, was not unknowable, was not unattainable by the majority of people. The Gospel was for EVERYONE, God’s revelation of God’s self in the person of Jesus Christ was so that ALL might come to know God through him. And Christ’s sacrifice was what broke down any barriers we might try to put between us and God.
Including the question of Grace. I understand, I think, why it is so hard for us to accept Grace, to relax into it, to breathe it in and breathe it out, to make it so much a part of our lives that it becomes our nature. We are not exposed to many instances of Grace in our lives here on earth until we are exposed to the Grace of God in Christ. We go through life understanding that to receive something, you have to either pay for it or earn it. There are no other ways to receive something. Birthday and Christmas gifts might be the only exception, but they are exceptions that prove the rule, but even THEN, We hear songs of “he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake.”
How can we get into the idea that Grace is sufficient when from our childhood we’re always expected to DO something – or NOT do something in exchange for receiving reward or avoiding punishment?
My friend Nick Foster is a great storyteller, and he tells the story of his best friend, Mike, and Mike tells about the first time he experienced grace.
He was a boy of about eight. As boys go, he was into stuff. This particular day, he’d gotten it into his head that the thing to do was to jump on his bed. You understand, of course, that he’s well aware of the rule against bed-jumping that had been laid down by his parents. But he did it anyway. And he enjoyed it. He took his first jump. He went up a ways, and came down on the mattress, and bounced, and he went up further, and was barely able to stay upright, but did, and he flailed his arms to keep his balance, and he came back down on the bed … and he bounced and he went almost all the way up to the ceiling – and he seemed to hang in the air forever – and then he came down and BAM! The frame of the bed broke, spilling him onto the floor and bringing his father running up the stairs.
When his father got to the door of his room, he just stood there and looked at Mike. After a minute, he went over and picked up a piece of paper from Mike’s desk and a pencil, and asked him to sit down on the now crooked bed, and write down what punishment he thought would be appropriate for what he’d just done. His father then stepped out of the room and left Mike alone with his thoughts.
1. No TV for a month … (scratch, scratch) … a WEEK.
2. No allowance for three weeks.
3. No playing in the backyard after school for two months (it was winter, anyway)
4. Take out the garbage for a month … without being asked.
5. Do the dishes and clean the kitchen
You get the idea. He went further down the list, coming up with some more harsh, some less harsh punishments, but all in all, things that he knew would seriously affect his ability to have fun for a long time to come.
After a few minutes, Mike’s father walked back into the room and sat down on the bed next to him. Mike handed him the sheet, and his father reviewed the list of punishments he’d come up with. Mike started to get a little nervous, because he didn’t know if his father was going to choose just one, or several, or all of them. He braced for the worst.
Then his father did the craziest thing. He took the paper and tore it in half, then in quarters, then in eighths, then into tiny bits and pieces, and dropped them in the trashcan next to the bed. He reached over, and put his arm around Mike and hugged him and said “I love you son. Don’t do it again.”
And that was the end of it. And that was the first time Mike got a glimpse of what God’s Grace was like.
What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
Do we live out the fact that we are all a part of this family, God’s family, purely by the grace of God, and not by virtue of being someone in our community? When we join in worship, are we worshipping in truth or wondering who is seeing us here, and who is not? Does the person sitting next to us make us uncomfortable? Do we come to be seen or to actually, truly, take a deep and honest look at ourselves to find what it is God is saying to us on this particular day?
The letter to the Corinthians is a letter of instruction, and it is also a letter of warning. Will we stand on our own power, or will we stand in our weakness on the power of God?
Let’s pray.
Sunday, July 9th, 2006
Pentecost 5
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
2 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. 3And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— 4was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. 5On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6But 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, 7even considering the exceptional character of the revelations. 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. 8Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, 9but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.
Memory doesn’t tell me the exact date, or the exact characters in the pictures, but the comic strip goes something like this: two little boys are arguing about who is better, and when they run out of things to say about themselves, they begin to move out from themselves, beginning with that person each would regard as the most powerful person in their lives.
“MY Dad can do fifty push-ups in 30 seconds!”
“Oh, yeah? Well, MY Dad can do a HUNDRED push-ups in FORTY seconds!”
“Oh, YEAH?? Well MY dad can beat your dad any day!”
And it goes on from there. Generally in a downhill direction, until the claims being made are as ridiculous as the issue that began the argument. It ultimately draws in the fathers mentioned, and THEY in turn find themselves turning from decent, level-headed family men into snarling fist-clenching warriors ready to knock each other to the ground just to prove what their sons have been telling each other.
Where is it that that streak, that ‘You think that’s good? Watch THIS’ mentality came into being? It is certainly not a uniquely American phenomenon, since I can tell you from personal experience it is very much present in at least three other societies across the globe. From what I understand of sociological research, and myths, and stories, the impetus to outdo each other in order to feel better about ourselves is somehow genetically encoded in us as humans.
If you’ve ever read a book of children’s stories from around the world, it is a recurring theme in stories found throughout civilization.
Folks at the church in Corinth were engaged in spiritual one-upmanship. Paul was confronted with news of what the church had become just a few short months after leaving the city.
Paul knew the people he was writing to. He’d gotten to know them well enough that he knew what would make them sit up and listen. And so he pulls out his secret weapon.
He’s writing to a group of people who have stratified themselves, who have set for themselves layers of importance, of influence, of significance, based on what they call their spiritual gifts. They base their self-worth on the degree to which they are considered spiritual by their fellow congregants. So, they vie for position. “I speak in tongues”, “I speak in tongues AND prophecy”, “I speak in tongues, prophecy AND perform healings!” … and it goes on and on … the degree to which the folks at Corinth went to try to impress each other with their spirituality while completely ignoring the inherent injunction of the gospel against just what they were doing is only surprising in light of the fact that we still see the same thing happening today. They seemed to have lost interest in the Gospel at the point where Christ told his disciples ‘the first shall be last, and the last shall be first’.
It needs to be made clear that in what Paul is saying, it would have been understood by his readers that, even though he seems to disavow it, he is actually the person he is speaking of – boasting of – in these verses. Though the passage cited for this morning begins at verse two, let’s skip back just a couple of verses, to the end of chapter 11, through the first verse of the 12th chapter.
30 If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31The God and Father of the Lord Jesus (blessed be he forever!) knows that I do not lie. 32In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas guarded the city of Damascus in order to seize me, 33but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.
(12)It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.
What was going on with Paul??
Why is he boasting when he is at the same time saying ‘it doesn’t do any good to boast!’?
What was happening was that false teachers had moved in behind him at the church in Corinth and had convinced the people who had formed the church that the true measure of one’s status within the church was whether or not one had received certain … qualifications, in the form of visions and revelations, supernatural gifts, and unusual abilities.
What is startling about the passage – about Paul’s revelation of his own experience in the passage, is that nowhere else in scripture do we have any sort of correlating reference to what he’s talking about. It is only here in this passage of his letter to the Corinthians that we read of his being taken up to the third heaven, and given a revelation from God that he is to tell no one about.
This would have been a watershed event in ANYONE’S life, let alone Paul’s. It happened fourteen years prior to the time that he was writing the letter, and Paul has already written to he Thessalonians, the Galatians, this is his third letter to the Corinthians, and yet, it’s the first time he’s pulled out these particular big guns in trying to convince someone of his argument.
The false teachers were telling of revelations and visions in order to establish the authority with which they claimed to be speaking. The Corinthians, being immature in their understanding of the faith, took them at their word, and became so deviated that they lost all sense of perspective between right and wrong.
Paul realized what was happening, and in a way, he fought fire with fire, all the while declaring that the form of argument in and of itself was invalid in the face of the Gospel. What Paul keeps coming back to is this.
It’s not about power. It’s about weakness.
Most specifically, it’s about GOD’S power and OUR weakness.
Paul never brought up the vision he speaks of here in Corinthians because it was not the medium by which Christ had called him to take the gospel to the world. The world already has plenty of prophets proclaiming special knowledge is the only way to enlightenment. That only the few who posses this knowledge – the initiates – those on the IN-side – would be the ones to understand and receive the … power. In the middle of the second century, those people were called Gnostics – and their creed, Gnosticism. Their claim was that knowledge, special, revealed knowledge, passed from one insider to the next, was what ‘made’ you one of the elect, one of the chosen, one of the select few. It was understood that in saying that, there would, of course be far more left out, far more lost and … unteachable … who would remain forever in the dark, on the outside, because they didn’t understand the “truth.”
Paul’s point about the Gospel was that it was the opposite of that. The Gospel was not exclusive, was not unknowable, was not unattainable by the majority of people. The Gospel was for EVERYONE, God’s revelation of God’s self in the person of Jesus Christ was so that ALL might come to know God through him. And Christ’s sacrifice was what broke down any barriers we might try to put between us and God.
Including the question of Grace. I understand, I think, why it is so hard for us to accept Grace, to relax into it, to breathe it in and breathe it out, to make it so much a part of our lives that it becomes our nature. We are not exposed to many instances of Grace in our lives here on earth until we are exposed to the Grace of God in Christ. We go through life understanding that to receive something, you have to either pay for it or earn it. There are no other ways to receive something. Birthday and Christmas gifts might be the only exception, but they are exceptions that prove the rule, but even THEN, We hear songs of “he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake.”
How can we get into the idea that Grace is sufficient when from our childhood we’re always expected to DO something – or NOT do something in exchange for receiving reward or avoiding punishment?
My friend Nick Foster is a great storyteller, and he tells the story of his best friend, Mike, and Mike tells about the first time he experienced grace.
He was a boy of about eight. As boys go, he was into stuff. This particular day, he’d gotten it into his head that the thing to do was to jump on his bed. You understand, of course, that he’s well aware of the rule against bed-jumping that had been laid down by his parents. But he did it anyway. And he enjoyed it. He took his first jump. He went up a ways, and came down on the mattress, and bounced, and he went up further, and was barely able to stay upright, but did, and he flailed his arms to keep his balance, and he came back down on the bed … and he bounced and he went almost all the way up to the ceiling – and he seemed to hang in the air forever – and then he came down and BAM! The frame of the bed broke, spilling him onto the floor and bringing his father running up the stairs.
When his father got to the door of his room, he just stood there and looked at Mike. After a minute, he went over and picked up a piece of paper from Mike’s desk and a pencil, and asked him to sit down on the now crooked bed, and write down what punishment he thought would be appropriate for what he’d just done. His father then stepped out of the room and left Mike alone with his thoughts.
1. No TV for a month … (scratch, scratch) … a WEEK.
2. No allowance for three weeks.
3. No playing in the backyard after school for two months (it was winter, anyway)
4. Take out the garbage for a month … without being asked.
5. Do the dishes and clean the kitchen
You get the idea. He went further down the list, coming up with some more harsh, some less harsh punishments, but all in all, things that he knew would seriously affect his ability to have fun for a long time to come.
After a few minutes, Mike’s father walked back into the room and sat down on the bed next to him. Mike handed him the sheet, and his father reviewed the list of punishments he’d come up with. Mike started to get a little nervous, because he didn’t know if his father was going to choose just one, or several, or all of them. He braced for the worst.
Then his father did the craziest thing. He took the paper and tore it in half, then in quarters, then in eighths, then into tiny bits and pieces, and dropped them in the trashcan next to the bed. He reached over, and put his arm around Mike and hugged him and said “I love you son. Don’t do it again.”
And that was the end of it. And that was the first time Mike got a glimpse of what God’s Grace was like.
What does that mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?
Do we live out the fact that we are all a part of this family, God’s family, purely by the grace of God, and not by virtue of being someone in our community? When we join in worship, are we worshipping in truth or wondering who is seeing us here, and who is not? Does the person sitting next to us make us uncomfortable? Do we come to be seen or to actually, truly, take a deep and honest look at ourselves to find what it is God is saying to us on this particular day?
The letter to the Corinthians is a letter of instruction, and it is also a letter of warning. Will we stand on our own power, or will we stand in our weakness on the power of God?
Let’s pray.
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