"For Power is Made Perfect in Weakness"

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas
July 5, 2009; 5 Pentecost, Proper 9, Year B
Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(2 Corinthians 12:2-10) – 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. On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. 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, 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. 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." So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 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.
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It's a miserable time for Paul. Some new apostles have come into the little congregation he started in western Greece in the city of Corinth. They've challenged Paul's authority. They say of Paul, "His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible." They are taking for themselves money that Paul intended to use in his campaign on behalf of the Jerusalem church. They are bragging about their spiritual powers and consuming the congregation's resources. These are proud, powerful, persuasive preachers, and Paul is afraid that they will destroy the church he has so carefully nurtured.

But Paul is an ocean away in Ephesus, and he can't get back to Corinth any time soon. So he writes a "severe letter," defending his apostleship and attacking those others whom he sarcastically calls "super-apostles."

I am poor and I am weak, Paul writes to them. I was so weak that I didn't even ask you for money to support my living among you, though I could have. Instead I provided for myself with my own labor. But I am a fool. Yes, I am nothing, but Christ is everything.

I came to you first – bringing the good news of Christ – and you responded so lovingly. But it wasn't me, it was Christ.

Now you have these super-apostles with you, and they take advantage of you, and put on airs, and make you slaves. I was too much of a fool to do that. They seem so impressive and powerful. But have they endured the labors I have? Imprisonments, floggings, near death, beaten with rods, stoned, shipwrecked three times, in danger, hungry and thirsty, sleepless nights, cold and naked. And now, I am under constant anxiety for my churches, and especially for you Corinthians. I am the weakest and poorest of apostles. I cannot boast.

But if I were to boast...
"I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven..."

And Paul goes on, in the reading we heard just a few moment ago, to tell of being "caught up into Paradise," of hearing "things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat."

He could boast, he says, on behalf of that vision. That was real. That was God in Christ. But then he says no more about it. He offers no details. Unlike other contemporaries who wrote extensively about their complicated visions and mystical experiences, Paul is remarkably quiet. It is as if language fails him. He can say that he was caught up to into Paradise, but he falls silent before the mystery of the experience. If he were to boast, he could boast about that revelation, but it is more than he can speak of.

So he returns to his weakness. As if to balance the elation of such a vision, Paul tells of his suffering from something chronic – he calls it his thorn in the flesh – that he prayed God to deliver him from. He gets an answer from God: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." Now Paul has words for this revelation. He can say exactly what God has told him. "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

So Paul boasts. He boasts of his weaknesses. Because what he has experienced is that whenever he has been weak, Christ has been present as his strength. "For whenever I am weak, then I am strong," he says. It is in his weakness, not in his strength, that Paul has most intimately known the presence of Christ empowering him.

An Episcopal priest named Ken Kaisch tells of a time of great weakness for him. He was in college, and a close friend and classmate had been killed in an automobile accident. Ken was devastated. He wondered how a good God could allow something like this to happen. He could feel the bile rising in him and the depression weighing him down.

Ken was walking heavily down a road one evening, thinking about his friend, how alive and vital he seemed; how dead he was. When the stars in the sky seemed to advance and come closer. Then it was like the heavens began to roll back from the center, almost like a theater curtain, to reveal an infinite openness. And Ken heard a voice that he identified as his friend who had died saying, "Ken. Don't be sad. It's all right. I'm just fine." And Ken felt an overwhelming sense of peace come over him. Then he looked again, and everything in the night sky was simply normal again.

Trusting his friend's message, Ken was able to release him, and live anew, without the bile and depression. In his weakness, Ken had been given new strength. (1) "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

I hear stories pretty regularly about people who have found themselves at the end of their rope, and when they let go they found a bottom to the floor right below their feet. Stories about times, when having reached the limits of their resources and control, they have surrendered and prevailed nonetheless. I have watched people whose bodies are wasting away and disappearing but whose being and soul and spirit is powerful and transcendent nonetheless.

Over and over in my own life, on ordinary days, when I back off a bit, when I quit trying so hard and worrying so much, something happens – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows – and things work out or they rearrange in an acceptable new way.

But I am so resistant to the surrender. I spend so much energy trying to make things happen the way I think they ought to be. I worry and struggle so. I fret and fume, like Paul agonizing over the Corinthians. I can tell when I'm getting extreme, my back starts to spasm and I wake up in the night thinking about all that stuff.

I can imagine Paul waking up at night, helpless in Ephesus, worried and frustrated. Composing and recomposing in his head the letter he would write. But then in the midst of the anxiety, his mantra comes back to him. "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

Last Wednesday, preaching for our memorial service for our former curate Bill Stroop, Bishop Maze quoted from the mystic Meister Eckhart: "In the end, there is only God." Bishop Maze said that phrase often sustained him during his thirteen years as bishop. When he was up to his collar in problems, he would say to himself, "In the end, there is only God." That puts a bit of perspective on your troubles, doesn't it?

Our twelve-step friends will say, "Take it Easy. Let Go and Let God." The little child in us sings, "Jesus loves me, this I know." Written in the margins of my mother's high school algebra textbook are the words: "This too shall pass." The mystic Dame Julian saw in a divine revelation that "All shall be well; ...and all manner of things shall we well."

Yes, life is difficult. We cannot control it. Often we are tragically powerless when what we love is threatened. Even in the ordinary times, the drip-drip-drip of demands and needs can shrink our perspective and exhaust us.

Each of us needs a mantra that rings true for us to give us strength in weakness – a Word that brings perspective, surrender and hope to the challenge of the moment: "Ken, don't be sad. It's all right. I'm just fine." "Jesus loves me, this I know." "Take it easy. Let go and let God." "This too shall pass." "All shall be well." "In the end, there is only God." Whatever works for you. And today we hear Paul's contribution to that wisdom tradition. As we anguish with Paul in his struggles with his beloved congregation in Corinth, we hear his remarkable revelation from God: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

"Let it be unto me, according to your word."
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1. Ken Kaisch, Finding God. (I'm trying to write this account from memory because I can't find the book. I've lost or lent it. So I have no idea how accurate, if at all, my version is to what Ken actually experienced and wrote about. I've reordered the book, so maybe I can correct this; but not today.)
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