His grace is sufficient for you.
Pentecost 6, Proper 9
July 4, 2021
Fr. Tim Nunez
In today’s passage from Second Corinthians, we join Paul as he is wrapping up what is known as his “Fool’s Speech.” It is called that because in the preceding chapter he said he would boast as a fool. He says that because he is trying to navigate between two important factors.
First, the church at Corinth has been disrupted by a number of false teachers who have visited and shared false teaching about God and Christ. These false teachers tended to claim special visions that conflicted with Paul’s testimony and that of the other Apostles. So Paul has affirmed his authority as an Apostle. He does not approach that as an issue of status, but rests entirely on the truth of what he says as consistent with the other Apostles.
He shares about a vision, but the vision he relates is not his own. Someone else that he knew was caught up into the third heaven fourteen years prior. What is the third heaven? The first heaven is basically the atmosphere, the unreachable expanse above them where the birds fly, clouds float and rain falls. The second heaven is beyond that, outer space, where the sun, moon, planets and stars – to their eyes – move. The third heaven is where God is. They didn’t think God was beyond the stars physically, but rather what we would now call another dimension.
Paul’s testimony is vague. He didn’t know if it was a bodily ascension like Jesus promises on the Last Day or a spiritual one like when Jesus told the thief on the cross next to him that, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” And he doesn’t claim any secret knowledge.
That raises an important point about Christian faith. There are no secrets. Everything I’ve learned in seminary or in the church is open to you and anyone else. There is nothing the Pope knows, nothing our bishop knows, nothing all the pastors in town know, that you cannot know. I’m your neighborhood professional, but it’s just a matter of how we spend our time.
Second, the church at Corinth has not taken his guidance, corrections and rebukes very well. They are irritated with him, which Paul knows creates a stumbling block preventing them from receiving his help very well. So Paul pairs his authority with self-deprecation. He cannot let himself become the issue.
And so he talks about this thorn. We do not know what the thorn was. It may have been a physical ailment like sciatica or diverticulitis. It may have been the cumulative effects of his beatings, shipwrecks, trials, imprisonments, snake bites and so on – which will surely wear a person down over time. Or it may have been a persistent personality trait or characteristic that came back to bite him time and time again.
Maybe he was a task-oriented person that sometimes stepped on a few toes to get jobs done and regretted the damage that needed to be repaired later. Or, maybe he was too much the philosopher and thinker and so irritated people because of things left undone or overlooked. There are lots of different thorns, each of us has our own. Some come with your name, Social Security number and current home address so they can be delivered on time, every time, and right where it hurts most.
Whatever the nature of his thorn, his admission of it is humble and his witness to it profound. Paul prayed to the Lord and ask that it would leave him. The Lord’s answer is, “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. (2 Corinthians 12:9)
We tend to think of our weaknesses and pain as projects to be completed; and they are. Jesus healed so many people with a variety of physical, emotional and spiritual ailments primarily to show us what will happen for each of us in the Kingdom of God, where “God will wipe every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 7:19) and “where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.” (BCP 499) That is where we go when we are caught up into the third heaven. And our Gospel passage today reminds us of the danger and cost of the unbelief that is a barrier that prevents Jesus from accomplishing his work in people.
It’s one thing to look for Christ’s help in our struggles. It is quite another to “boast all the more gladly” in our weakness because they urge us to Him. And in urging us to Him, they form the basis of our daily walk in faith. It’s one thing to give thanks for being able to see; it’s quite another to give thanks for the blindness – physical or spiritual – that drove you to Christ. But that is Paul’s point, “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.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)
That is hard, especially when the pain is real and chronic, when it just won’t let up. It’s hard when the diagnosis is daunting or the care-giving is exhausting. It’s hard when you’re struggling with that very issue that you’ve fought your whole life and it is causing that same trouble again.
Yet we need to be on our knees, figuratively, and so Paul gives thanks for everything, everything, that which drives us to our knees and thereby closer to Him.
Remember the two primary goals of our faith. One is to love God, which is to grow in our knowledge and love of Jesus so that day by day we are becoming more and more like him, with the ultimate realization of his promise that we will be like him and with him forever. The other is to love our neighbor as our self, which is to enact this grace such that their challenges bring them closer to Christ.
I’d like to close in prayer. Please turn to page 832 in the Book of Common Prayer. Let us pray together the Prayer of Self-Dedication, number 61, which begins at the bottom of the page. You can modernize the language for your own use, but this morning since we are using the Rite I liturgy, let’s use the thees and thous:
Almighty and eternal God, so draw our hearts to thee, so guide our minds, so fill our imaginations, so control our wills, that we may be wholly thine, utterly dedicated unto thee; and then use us, we pray thee, as thou wilt, and always to thy glory and the welfare of thy people; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. (BCP 832, Prayer 61)