“Strength vs. Trust”
A sermon by Sid Burgess for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
July 5, 2009
Text: 2d Corinthians 12.2-10
St. Paul made headlines this week. Dateline: Rome. Pope Benedict announces that the first-ever scientific test on what are believed to be the remains of the Apostle Paul ‘seem to confirm’ that they do indeed belong to the saint from Tarsus. Benedict reports archaeologists have recently unearthed and have opened the white marble sarcophagus--a stone coffin--located under the Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls in Rome. Church tradition has long held this to be the site of St. Paul’s tomb. Benedict says scientists have now conducted carbon dating tests on bone fragments found inside the sarcophagus. These tests confirm that the bones date from the first or second century. Positive ID is impossible at this late day but surely, says Benedict, tradition plus science equals apostle. And there is more. The Vatican has also announced having found St. Paul’s “mug shot.” Well, not exactly, but considering the 2,000-year interval, a fresco--that is, a painting on plaster--dating from the late 4th century bearing what is thought to be St. Paul’s image, comes as close to an official portrait as the world is likely to ever see.
It seems to me that these late-breaking developments confirm the character of St. Paul as he is presented in the New Testament--Paul is as “tough as nails!” We first meet him in the Acts of the Apostles where he is persecuting the early church, “dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison”(8.3). Paul even pursues them to foreign cites (26.11). At his conversion on the road to Damascus St. Paul has a visionary encounter with the Risen Christ and does an “about face”--from persecution to profession of faith. His zeal is dramatically redirected. Now his energy and determination will make him the most effective missionary of early Christianity. His strong grounding Hebrew scripture will enable him to become the church’s first theologian. He will suffer physical abuse, endure prison, and survive a shipwreck. St. Paul, sometimes called the “second founder” of the Christian faith, is the epitome of strength. And yet today, St. Paul concedes unspecified weaknesses, including a proverbial “thorn in the flesh.” Paul only hints at what this “thorn” might be-- perhaps, something related to his appearance or his delivery. Earlier in 2d Corinthians Paul has quoted his critics as saying, “His letters are weighty and strong but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.” (Who knows, maybe St. Paul had “bad knees” and a Southern accent!)
To be sure, in our own time, strong is in and weak is a never-has-been. Hale spirits and hearty bodies are all the rage. There is no market for a fragile body or a feeble mind. Weak teams lose, and weak companies normally fail. And yet, every human alive has some weakness. Some of us have physical limitations, others have learning difficulties. Some of us find relationships elusive; others are plagued by obsessions and compulsions. Everybody’s got something. Some ailment, some anguish, some doubt. Even St. Paul, the super apostle.
Note that Paul doesn’t accuse God of sticking him with this “thorn.” The thorn is a given. Everybody’s got something that hurts. We are human, and not divine. Bones break, joints wear out, disease develops, organs fail.
But, says St. Paul, where the pain is, there, too, is God. So, count up the divine dwelling places, Paul says. Every ache and pain, every fear and frustration, every rejection opens up another venue for Holy God. Don’t go looking for trouble, but wherever there are “weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities” there, too, is Christ our Lord, offering divine assurance: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” Everybody’s got some flaw or some frailty. No use denying, or trying to cover it up, to pretend it isn’t there, or to overcompensate hoping no one will notice. Quite the contrary according to the great missionary apostle, to cover up our weaknesses is to cover up the presence of Christ within us, and among us.
In the fledgling church at Corinth, Paul’s competition is apparently belittling him for his shortcomings. Paul turns the tables on his opponents saying, a person with his obvious flaws is able to endure life only by the grace of God. Paul wants us to see his weaknesses as proof that God is present with him. How else to explain his survival through hard times! Wherever he is weak, Paul says, Christ is there to make him strong. The man from Tarsus--mere mortal that he is--does not become a saint trusting in his own power. Rather, Paul is able to spread the Good News of Christ throughout the known world by trusting in the power of God--a power made known to him even in Paul’s weakest moments.
Commenting on this reading from Corinthians, Christian educator Carolyn Brown says, for persons of faith, the opposite of weakness is not strength--it’s trust. We don’t overcome our weaknesses by lifting weights--as in the weight of our pain, the weight of the family on our shoulders, the weight of the job on our backs, or the weight of the world on our minds. Rather, we overcome our weaknesses through trust: trusting Jesus who asserts, “My grace is sufficient for you . . . .”
Imagine being able to hear it and believe it: “My grace is sufficient for you.” Popular culture says, not so. Only wealth and power are sufficient. Fame is fleeting, knowledge is relative, but wealth and power provide assurance of the “good life.” By contrast, God calls for trust. Developing this trust in the grace and mercy of God is the first and foremost task of all Christians.
We have celebrated the recent birth of Keira Alyse Bergdoll, the first of six babies scheduled to be delivered to this congregation this year. The very first challenge Keira and her nursery mates will have is to develop trust in their parents. Trust is the principle goal of the first stage of human development. A baby awakes all alone in his or her crib, hungry and wet, The child cries out in the darkness. The piercing screams of the infant reflect the urgency of the situation. To the baby it appears that life and death hang in the balance. At the outset, the infant does not yet have the confidence that his or her parents are going to always respond. Always be there for him, for her. He or she doesn’t yet know that there is plenty of food and drink to go around. That he or she will never be left alone..... That God’s creation is good, and good people will provide this child’s needs. Developing all this trust takes time. Keira Alyse, just three weeks old, is already working on it. And for this child, the system is working. Her parents are listening for her cries in the night, and they jump to tend to this little person’ needs. She cries; they come. And the result is that Keira is developing trust--the first and most critical task in life.
Elsewhere, a baby cries, and no one comes. She cries until she is exhausted, and no one comes. It was as she feared. She’s all alone in the world. No one cares about her. There is no one to meet her needs. There is a critical shortage of food and drink. Left alone, abandoned, the infant soon stops crying when she’s hungry. What’s the use? No one will come. In the extreme, the infant who does not develop trust will curl up and die.
This insight comes from world-renown psychologist Erick Erickson who has divided human life into a series of eight stages of development. Infancy is the first stage, and Erickson says the very first human developmental goal is trust. As it is in life, so it is in faith: the first developmental goal is trust. Trust in God’s goodness, love, and justice. Without trust, you gotta have strength--power, money, muscle, looks, position, privilege, health--all of which can vanish in the blink of any eye. With trust, with faith, the Word of Christ rings true in our ears: “My grace is sufficient for you....”
I suspect that for most of us--certainly for me-- developing this trust-- trust in the all-sufficient grace of God--remains a work-in-progress. Truth be told, negotiating that first stage of faith development is a lifelong challenge. But that’s okay St. Paul says we don’t have to be perfect. Faith of the matter is, we can join St. Paul, saying, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”
To the God of all grace,
who calls you to share God's eternal glory
in union with Christ,
be the power forever! 1 Peter 5:10,11
Amen.