Content with Weaknesses

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

Ordinary 14B

Text: 2 Corinthians 12:2-10

Theme: Accepting our limitations so that we may rely on the Lord

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. 3 And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows— 4 was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat. 5 On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 6 But 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, 7 even 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. 8 Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, 9 but 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. 10 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.”

When is weakness a virtue? In a world that is established on the exercise of power, the predominance of might -- military, industrial and economic -- we are hard pressed to find anyone who would say something to the effect that, “Weakness is a good thing.”

The meaning of virtue was one of the prominent ethical discussions in the writings of ancient intellectuals. So-called "virtue lists" abound in classical literature; they typically commend such traits as piety, reverence, excellence, practical knowledge and patience. One quality of character, however, that one never finds in the Greco-Roman "virtue lists" is the trait of weakness.

You may have noticed how often this quality was mentioned by Paul in his Corinthian letters. We are weak... Who is weak and I do not feel weak? If I boast, I will boast about the things that show my weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest upon me. Not only does Paul champion weakness in himself, he extols the weakness of Christ. For to be sure, he was crucified in weakness... And then he says about us all, Likewise, we are weak in him... The point is this: true holiness is not a matter of personal power—it is a matter of God’s power in the midst of personal weakness.

The city of Corinth, like many ancient cities, was filled with the images of power. The impressive temple of Apollo under the brow of the acropolis greeted all visitors to the city. The biennial Isthmian Games featured contests of athleticism and feats of power. Corinth, the “master” of two harbors, Lechaeum on the North and Cenchrea on the South, was an economic trade center and power-broker for much of the Mediterranean world. Hence, it is not surprising that the cult of power was alive and well among Corinth’s citizenry and even among the Christians who responded to Paul’s preaching. Sometimes the exaltation of power infiltrated even their understanding of the graces and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Because of what he wrote, we can be almost certain that Paul’s critics in Corinth boasted of superior ecstatic experiences, since Paul chose such an experience for his own climactic “boast.” His words, “I will go on to visions and revelations,” indicate as much, and we know from 1 Corinthians that the Corinthian church valued highly the more sensational kinds of spiritual experiences. The ecstatic experience that Paul chose to recount in 2 Corinthians 12 occurred some fourteen years prior, and it happened to someone Paul does not name but says he knew. It becomes clear that the person of whom Paul speaks is Paul himself, since, still in the same context, he shifts from “the man” to “me.”

There is no way to directly identify this experience with any known occasion recorded in the book of Acts or in Paul’s correspondence. Some have suggested his vision on the Damascus Road as a possibility, others his trance in the Jerusalem temple, and still others his near death in Lystra. They are all possibilities, but none is definitively ‘the one’.

In this experience, Paul was caught up to the “third heaven,” to “Paradise.” Both of these terms are known from Jewish and Christian Pseudepigrapha -- religious writings of the time. Heaven, the abode of God, was depicted as multi-layered, usually in a sevenfold way. By entering the third heaven one could stand near the Lord. Paradise was a Persian loanword meaning “garden,” and in Jewish apocalyptic literature it represented the home of the departed righteous.

The irony of this ecstatic experience is that in it Paul heard things that were not possible to describe nor permissible to repeat. It is a further irony for Paul to say, “I will boast about a man like that, but not about myself,” since that man was, in fact, Paul. Instead, Paul contents himself to boast of his weaknesses. If he wished to follow the lead of his opponents in boasting of transcendent experiences, he could do so truthfully. But he chooses not to.

Paul saw an inner connection between the ecstatic experience he had just recounted and another personal situation, this time a debilitating one. Paul suffered from some deep personal affliction, so deep that he compares it to a skolops, which means a thorn, or splinter. While Paul obviously uses a metaphor, the reference is ambiguous. Tertullian, an early Christian Author and historian, thought it was a physical affliction, St. Augustine and Martin Luther thought it was a temptation. Scholars have argued that it might have been migraines, epilepsy, convulsions, ophthalmia, malaria, a speech impediment, rheumatism, fever, and even leprosy.

Whatever the case, Paul certainly understands his experience in a Job-like context. Just as Job’s affliction was dealt by Satan but permitted by God, so Paul understands his own affliction to be a blow from his archenemy, yet at the same time, allowed by God in order to prevent any conceit on his part. If ecstatic experiences might tend toward conceit, the direct refusal by God to answer Paul’s prayer for healing drove him toward humility. Three times he prayed for deliverance, but God declined, only letting Paul know that saving grace was enough and that divine power is brought to perfection in human weakness.

In that divine “no,” Paul understood more clearly the nature of God’s power. If his opponents boasted of spectacular things, Paul was forced to boast of his weaknesses, not because weakness itself was glorious, but because it was the place in which Christ’s power was most clearly displayed. “Therefore,” Paul says, “I delight in sickness, insult, pressing needs, persecution, and distress.” His final declaration is one of the most quotable quotes in the Bible: “When I am weak (in myself), then I am strong (in the Lord)!” Can you imagine how that sounded against his opponents’ misguided philosophy, “When I am strong (in personal power), then I am strong (in spiritual things).”

Holiness often is confused with personal power. A holy person is construed as one who is disciplined. He or she is a person with a rigorous code of conduct. Holiness is believed to be the expression of religious fervor, the measuring of oneself and others by a demanding litany of religious criteria. The problem with this way of seeing holiness is that it misses the very heart of what holiness is all about in the first place.

Perhaps that is why Paul says so much about weakness when writing to the Corinthians. As Greeks, the Corinthians took great pride in their intellectual and cultural history. They were especially proud of the classical virtues of wisdom and power. In their approach to the Christian life, they championed all the ancient Greek virtues that were part of their heritage.

Paul, to the contrary, knew that the message of the cross put all virtues in a very different light. To the Greco-Roman world, the cross was shameful and humiliating - and ONLY that. To the Jew it was the symbol of God’s curse. To the Greek, it was the shame of public disgrace. To the Roman, it was the death of traitors and rebels.

Nothing in the whole structure of ancient culture, either Jewish, Greek or Roman, prepared anyone for the preaching of the cross. It was a stumbling block to Jews and absurd to the Greeks. But to those whom God had called, it was Christ—the wisdom of God and the power of God.

In a contemporary culture that stresses individual freedom and social advancement—even in a Christian sub-culture that at times succumbs to the appeal of political clout—we would do well to more directly conform our minds to the gospel of our weakness.

What does this mean for Jerusalem Baptist Church at Emmerton?

We may need to ask ourselves, do we worship power? That we live in a culture that worships power is, I think, understood. The bigger, the better. Anyone from a captain of industry to a politically persuasive leader, to a militarily powerful leader is considered someone to be admired ... or feared by virtue of the fact that they CAN command anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions to do their bidding.

But are we at risk of bringing that same mindset into the practice of our faith here within our family of faith? Even now, nearly two thousand years after Paul wrote his letter to the church at Corinth, we are still swayed not by stories of weakness, but of strength. We would rather hear about victories than struggles, triumphs rather than defeats. And that goes with our human nature, doesn’t it? we are expected to be ‘strong’. We encourage each other to be strong, we pray for strength, we don’t pray for weakness ... it seems ... out of PLACE to pray for anything else ... so how SHOULD we pray?

First, I think we acknowledge our weaknesses. We accept that we are not doing this under our own strength, we consciously make the decision to be PRIMARILY reliant on God’s strength and God’s wisdom, God’s movement in our life as a community of faith. And we set aside anything that we would like to control. Power, and strength are translated into control. And we do like to control things, don’t we? From the temperature around us to how level the ground is, to how soft our seats are, to how much light we have ... it is a subtle thing, isn’t it?

We pray for grace.

We pray for peace, we pray for acceptance. We pray for Christ to be manifested in us, over and above anything that might draw people to US, we pray that it would be more and more to HIM.

Let’s pray.

With deep gratitude to Dan Lewis, Senior Pastor of Troy Christian Chapel, Troy, Michigan, and guest essayist on journeywithjesus.net.