Sunday, June 24, 2012

The Wind Ran Out of Breath

Mark 4:35-41
4th Sunday After Pentecost
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Rev. Tricia Dillon-Thomas


Intro

I know I’ve shared this story with some of you; but seeing as it was several years ago, our congregation has doubled, and you’ve probably forgotten anyway, I wanted to share it again.

Clay and I used to live in Sitka, an island in southeast Alaska. Our house was on Galankin Island, which meant we commuted a mile by boat every day to town and then a mile home at night.

When we initially told people we had decided to rent a house on Galankin, folks would ask what kind of boat we had… a 16 foot open aluminum skif—not exactly a rough seas kind of boat...and then usually followed with tantalizing tales of rough waters, flipped boats, how people who had frozen to death in the icy waters. I heard the word green a lot. We were very green.

Clay, never the one to do anything without lots of research, outfitted us with survival suits, which are these huge orange suits that extend your time in the water, should you fall in. Clay would also drill me. At any random moment while I was in the survival suit, he’d come up behind me and shake me, yelling for me to “light the flare,” “blow the whistle” and “call for help” on our waterproof radio. Yes, we Thomas’s know how to have fun!

About 6 months after living on the island we looked out the window and debated whether we should cross. There were mixed seas that day, which meant the ocean swells were coming in from one way, and wind was blowing from another. It often felt like you were at the whim of the sea on these days. I adamantly said we should not cross (I can be kind of a wimp), Clay reasoned we’d already missed work one day that week and convinced me we could make it. So we put on our survival suits and headed down to the dock. I remember my heart pounding. The boat was being violently blown around. After I got into the boat and untied the stern, I had to hold onto the dock with all my strength, so when clay untied the bow, he would have time to jump into the skiff before the winds blew the boat and me away.

We were almost across, trying to keep the boat at an angle, but were being pushed all around, when the boat got caught in a swell, and we were totally out of control. Clay was driving the boat and I was sitting facing him trying to block the spray from his eyes so he could navigate. The way he tells it, a swell lifted the boat up, and the wind somehow got underneath it. Just then another wave came along and slammed the boat back down into the water. The boat had been in the air and apparently so had I. Clay says he saw me floating and thought for sure I was going overboard. Let me tell you, when we safely reached the dock, there has never such a big “I told you so.”

I can’t listen to any story of a boat in a storm without thinking about that frightful day. Today’s lectionary passage comes from Mark 4: 35-41. Let us hear how the Spirit is speaking to her church.




On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. 37A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”




The gospel of Mark is by far my favorite gospel. Because most scholars believe Mark is the first gospel to be written, and that Matthew and Luke both used it as a source for their books, this gospel feels bold to me. I love it’s to the point exactness. There isn’t unnecessary commentary in Mark’s gospel, he means every word he says, and like poetry, a reader can peal away layers of meaning with a small phrase or by the placement of a story.

Our lesson begins, “On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”

Jesus and the disciples had spent all that day on the sea as Jesus told parable after parable about the kingdom of heaven. Folks had heard about Jesus’ mighty power and some had come from miles to see him, the miracle worker. I do wonder how disappointed some of them were. Here sat “the great teacher,” a man dressed like a commoner speaking as one with authority not from a throne or mighty terrace, but an old battered boat in the middle of a lake. Not exactly the stuff we expect “the Son of God” to be made of.

Those who came to perhaps see another mighty miracle, instead listened to confusing parables conveying that the most awesome reality in the universe, the kingdom of God, comes in whispers that were “no more outwardly impressive than a seed” and whose message was so vulnerable it “could be snatched away by birds.”[1]

36And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was.”
“Just as he was.” Remember, Mark doesn’t waste time with fluff language, so this phrase is intriguing. Like the crowds gathered around him waiting and wanting to see miracles, accepting Jesus “just as he was” was perhaps a challenge for the disciples as well. The Jews had been waiting for lifetimes for a messiah who would be a mighty king. Jesus was about humility and self-sacrifice, he led a life of quiet service to the glory of God. The challenge for the disciples and those gathered on the shore was to look at THIS man and see God.[2] Regardless of the healings Jesus had already done, regardless of his confusing stories, the disciples just couldn’t grasp that this man was the messiah.

37A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. 38But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

I don’t know if the disciples took swim lessons when they were youngsters, but regardless, there are no lifejackets in the boat and Mark doesn’t tell us what’s happened to the other boats that were once alongside them. But we are told it is dark. Waves are coming out of nowhere, crashing so hard into the boat that it is full of water and about to sink.

As Jesus lay peacefully sleeping with his head on a cushion—I mean the man is exhausted from preaching! Amen?!—the disciples fear for their lives knowing that any wrong move can lead to death. Finally, I’d love to know the conversation that took place here, they yell, “Jesus, is it not a worry to you that we are going down? That we are going to die?”

39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 40He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 41And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

We must remember that “water held unfathomable mystery for the ancients; it was forceful and unknowable and entirely unpredictable.”[3] Think to the stories of Noah and the flood, to the Exodus when God held the waters back from the Israelites as they were being pursued by Pharaoh’s army, Jonah and the seas that force him overboard into the belly of the big fish…or any of our psalms including today’s call to worship that name God as mighty ruler of the seas. The only one who could control this symbol of chaos was the ruler of the cosmos, Lord over all.[4] In the Gospel of Mark, while the identity of Jesus as Messiah is boldly pronounced to outsiders (like the man with the demonic spirit), it is always a whisper to the disciples. Remember, “just as he was”? They never quite get who Jesus is. So when they ask, “Who then is this, that even the cosmos listen to him,” they know they have somehow been in the presence of God. If God is the controller of chaos, then certainly Jesus controlling the waters here is a clear sign that he is the Messiah, God with us, and it is then that they are truly filled with awe and fear.

Another thing I love about this gospel is how Mark intentionally and mysteriously patterns and sandwiches his stories. It adds more of that layered meaning I mentioned earlier. Our story comes smack at the end of a string of parables (the parables of the sower, growing seed, and Mustard seed) and at the beginning of a series of miracles (the healing of the Gerasene Demoniac, the woman with the heavy flow, and the girl restored to life).[5]

One scholar puts it this way: Mark 4 is surrounded by a remarkable set of contrasts. One the one hand, the kingdom of God, though powerful, looks weak to those who can only look at it with secular vision. On the other hand, Jesus no sooner says this than he performs miracles, which reveal his cosmic Lordship. This simple carpenter’s son somehow is able to tame creation, root out the demonic, conquer death, rout disease, feed the hungry.” [6]

And yet, they still shout to Jesus, fearful of perishing as He peacefully sleeps knowing and trusting in the Father. Why didn’t they get it? Why did they still not know who Jesus was?

Why don’t we?

Our own Richard Diebert has written a commentary on Mark, and remarks that the rebuking of the disciples from Jesus isn’t about their fear; it’s about their lack of confidence. He says, “Mark forces the question: Are you convinced yet, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, [nor principalities] nor height, nor depth, nor any other chaos threatening creation can separate you from God? Or have you still no faith?” [7]

After the disciples witness Jesus bring an instant calm to the storm, there can be no confusion. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is God with us, and God is with us in the storm.

Eugene Peterson in The Message translates verse 39 “(39He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.”) to :”he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, "Quiet! Settle down!" The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass.

The wind ran out of breath. It lost all its power.

The presence of Jesus in that boat is not merely about a God who shares our predicament amid the storms of life. This isn’t a strategy for coping—that’s just not enough. The presence of Jesus in that boat is about the power of Jesus, who can do something about the storms, who offers us a promise of salvation[8] just “as he was.”

With Jesus, the wind runs out of breath.

This last week I was with our youth and advisors in Montreat as we discerned what it means to be “perfectly imperfect.” We are some broken people. We have suffered loss. We are fearful about our future, we aren’t sure in the world or in ourselves. We give the wind a mighty power.

But I’m reminded by something my mother-in-law says. She says everyone is walking wounded. Do you know one night at our devotion as we gathered I asked for them to raise their hand if they felt somehow broken. Do you know not a single hand stayed down? And I imagine that if I asked the same question here, most of you would also raise your hands.

I have a friend whose teenage daughter was in ICU and who needed to have a procedure done that could risk her life, but if wasn’t done was even more of a risk. My friend stalled going in and talking to her daughter because she didn’t know what to say, and she was scared what she did say would be the last words her daughter heard.  When she finally went into the hospital room her words were this: I love you and God loves you.

She made the choice to trust in the Lord with all her heart and all her soul and all her might. She trusted in the resurrection and stood firm in the hope that no matter what the outcome nothing could separate her daughter from the love of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

She allowed Jesus to be in the boat with her and giving him the power to take the breath out of the wind.

Friends, so long as Jesus is in the boat, during calm and in the squalls we have hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ…that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, [nor principalities] nor height, nor depth, nor any other chaos threatening creation can separate us from God.


Let us pray:

And so Jesus, please come now. We invite you right into our boat. Will you please give us your very own peace? It's so much stronger than the storms of this world and the storms of our hearts. Please come to every anxious mind and make us still. Through every scary experience, through every hard challenge, keep us with you till the night is over and the storms have passed and your morning comes again. In your name we ask it. Amen.[9]



[1] Van Hern, Roger E (ed), The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday’s Texts, Eerdmans Publishing (Gran Rapids: 2001), 206-9.
[2] Ibid, 208-9.
[3] Deibert, Richard, Interpretation Bible Studies: Mark, Geneva Press (Louisville: 1999), 46.
[4] Ched Meyers, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus, Orbis Books (Maryknoll:1988) 194-7.
[5] Van Hern, Roger E (Ed), 207.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Deibert, Richard, Interpretation Bible Studies: Mark, Geneva Press (Louisville: 1999) 45.
[8] Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa, Newsome, eds, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV-Year B, Westminster/John Knox Press (Louisville: 1993), 401.
[9] http://day1.org/1110-a_word_for_the_wind_and_the_waves

Sunday, June 17, 2012

The Prodigal Father - Luke 15:11-32

The Prodigal Father
Luke 15:11-32
June 17, 2012
Rev. William J. Kemp


I can't remember if it was in college or seminary, but one of the first things I learned about the Bible is that, contrary to common understanding, it is not a story about humanity searching for God.  Rather, it is a story about God searching for us. 
Yes there are many calls in the Bible for us to seek out God: 

"Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near."[i] 


"Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you."[ii]


The fact remains, however, if all the seeking were left up to us, we and our Creator God would pass each other like the proverbial two ships in the night.   When reading the prophets in the Hebrew Scriptures, there are times when you can feel God's frustration with us. 

"I've made myself available to those who haven't bothered to ask.  I'm here, ready to be found by those who haven't bothered to look.  I kept saying 'I'm here, I'm right here' to a nation that ignored me.  I reached out day after day to a people who turned their backs on me, people who make wrong turns, who insist on doing things their own way.  They get on my nerves, are rude to my face day after day, make up their own kitchen religion, a potluck religious stew."[iii] 

Totally exasperated by Israel's shepherd-leaders because taking care of themselves was a higher priority than taking care of God's people, the Lord speaks through Ezekiel, "From now on, I myself am the shepherd.  I'm going looking for them ... I'll go after the lost, I'll collect the strays, I'll doctor the injured, I'll build up the weak ones and oversee the strong ones so they're not exploited."[iv] 

The parable which is traditionally called The Parable of the Prodigal Son is preceded by two shorter parables, one about a shepherd who leaves 99 sheep and searches for one lost sheep, until he finds it; and the other about a woman who turns her house upside down looking for a lost coin, until she finds it!   And when the lost sheep and coin are found, there is unbelievable joy in heaven.  God is like that.  

That God should seek us is a major theme of the Bible.  It is made clear almost on the first page.   We hear the Lord pass in the rustling grass,[v] calling out to each one of us, wherever we are:  "Adam!  Adam!  Adam, where are you?"  We reply:  "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked.  And I hid."[vi]   That's so like us, hiding from God, yea, running away from God.
Once I grasped this as a major theme of the Bible, a hymn I remember from growing up in the church suddenly made sense: 

I sought the Lord and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek him seeking me
It was not I that found O Savior true,
No, I was found of Thee.[vii]

It's not a very catchy tune.   Even though the tune is called Peace, which should endear it to this congregation, it doesn't compare to the all-time favorite:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind but now I see.[viii]

Note the passive voice!  The point is that God initiates our relationship. “This is love:  it is not that we loved God but that [God] loved us..."[ix] It’s not that we find, but that we have been found.  "Our hearts are restless till they find their rest in Thee," claimed St. Augustine.  I also believe there is an even greater truth when you invert that quote:  "God's heart is restless till we find our rest, our home, in God."

Love caused Your incarnation,
Love brought You down to me;
Your thirst for my salvation
Procured my liberty.[x]

That's how one of our Advent hymns puts it.   Not only do our souls thirst for God,[xi] God thirsts for us!   How can we miss?

Which brings us to The Prodigal Father.   I like identifying the parable that way because Jesus introduces it by saying, "There was a man who had two sons."  The Father clearly has the lead role in this story.  Also, not only is the younger son a prodigal (wasteful, extravagant), so is the elder son and so is the Father a prodigal (generous to a fault, extravagant, spendthrift). 

Sometimes when burdened by life's persistent questions, people will say, "When I get to heaven, I have a lot of questions for God..."   When I get to heaven I'm going to ask, "When you consider the human race and how we have thumbed our noses in your face and how we have defaced this beautiful world you gave us to care for, why have you wasted your time and your very self on us?  Why didn't you just wash your hands of us, as Pilate did of Jesus?  I suspect God's answer might be heard in the words of Hosea:  "How can I give you up ... My heart winces within me; my compassion grows warm and tender ... I won't act on the heat of my anger ... for I am God and not a human being, the holy one in your midst..."[xii]

So the Father in the parable does not greet the younger son who wasted his inheritance on wild living with these words:  "You good for nothing blankety blank.  How dare you spend your money like you did.  How dare you ask for your inheritance, which really means you wished I were dead!  Don't come around here looking for forgiveness."  Instead, the Father leaves the house and runs down the path, makes a fool of himself in view of the neighbors, embraces his son and orders his staff to prepare for a welcome home party that makes Nik Wallenda's celebration pale in comparison.

Nor does the Father turn to his elder son and say:  "You self-righteous prig!  All this time I thought you served me out of love, but it was only out of a sense of duty.  You look down your nose at everyone who doesn't see things as you do.  You have no sense of joy.  And why don't you?!  The farm has been deeded over to you.  I can't give you anything more me than I already have."  Instead, the Father leaves the party to seek out the elder son, who was just as much a lost soul as his brother, and begged him to swallow his pride and to come inside, to join the party and discover how life was meant to be.

That's just how thirsty God is for us and how persistent is God's pursuit of us.   David Goldman's herculean effort to be reunited with his son, Sean, reflects such thirst and persistence.  The story unfolded nationally about two years ago.

At the age of 4 Sean was abducted by his mother and taken to her native Brazil where she remarried and tried to erase the Goldman lineage from her son.  Thinking that his wife and son were on a short visit to be with her family, David received a phone call to say that they arrived safely and everything was fine.   Then David received a second phone call, on Father’s Day no less, saying that their life together was over.  Even though she admitted that David was a great father for Sean, she said she met someone else and was going to begin a new life in Brazil and would keep Sean with her.

Time does not allow more details, but if you are interested, you can Google the story.  When Bruna died while giving birth to another child, her family still laid claim to Sean and tried all sorts of legal shenanigans to keep him there.  As you might expect, the whole experience left David Goldman emotionally and financially drained.  But David never gave up and he succeeded in bringing Sean back home to New Jersey just in time for Christmas 2009.

A few weeks ago, a month before Sean's 12th birthday, Meredith Viera interviewed him on Dateline.[xiii]  During the five years he lived in Brazil, Sean said he was confused.  "Where's my dad?" he wondered, often to himself, lest he make his Brazilian family angry at him.   Yet he never forgot his dad.  Meredith talked to him about the nice life he had in Brazil (the family was quite wealthy) but Sean replied, "but I didn't have my Dad."   When he and his father finally were allowed to meet, he admitted wondering where his Dad had been for four years.  He never knew his dad was looking for him.    "How did you feel when you saw your Dad?" Meredith asked.  "Just joy and happiness."  If only he knew that his dad was looking for him, perhaps he would have been less anxious during those five years he had to wait.

I deliver Meals on Wheels once a week.  One of my clients has had a particularly hard life.  She's quite infirm and gets out of her chair only with great difficulty.  She is divorced and finances are always an issue.   She has two daughters.  One lives in the area but they often don't get along.  The other lives up north.   She also lost a 3-month-old and a 10-year-old at some earlier time in her life. 

A couple of weeks ago she told me that her daughter in the north was diagnosed with breast cancer.   That was not good news, but cancer is not necessarily the death sentence that it once was.  Last week, however, she told me that the bad got worse and the prognosis for her daughter was about a year and a half at best.  Life sure has dumped on this woman. 

I was caught off-guard, however, by what she expressed as her major concern.  "I don't think my daughter has found the Lord," she said.  "I know where my younger children are because they died before the age of responsibility, but I'm not so sure about my daughter."

Why, I thought to myself, of all the burdens she had to carry, why did religion have to be one of them?   She needed a word from Jesus:  "Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest."[xiv]   If only she could know that God was on the lookout for her daughter.  Since there were 17 hot meals in the trunk waiting to be delivered, I only had time to say, "I believe God will never stop looking for your daughter until he finds her, if not in this life, then surely in the next."

One of the most insightful meditations on any passage of scripture is Henri Nouwen's, Return of the Prodigal Son:  A Story of Homecoming.   His reflections were motivated by his study of Rembrandt's painting of the same name at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia.  The book was published twenty years ago and tells a most poignant spiritual journey.   “Here is the God I want to believe in,” says Nouwen,

a Father who, from the beginning of creation, has stretched out his arms in merciful blessing, never forcing himself on anyone, but always waiting; never letting his arms droop down in despair, but always hoping that his children will return so that he can speak words of love to them and let his tired arms rest on their shoulders. His only desire is to bless.[xv]

Nouwen emphasizes that this is no story of cheap grace or easy forgiveness. 

What I am called to make true is that whether I am the younger or the elder son, I am the child of my compassionate Father.  I am an heir ... Indeed, as child and heir I am to become successor.  I am destined to step into my Father's place and offer to others the same compassion that he has offered me.  The return to the Father is ultimately the challenge to become the Father.[xvi]

We are called "to be merciful, just as our Father is merciful."[xvii]  That's no call for cheap grace and easy forgiveness, but neither is it a turn to burdensome religion with all its infinite rules and regulations, doctrines and dogmas.  It is clearly a call to life, "a more and better life than [we] ever dreamed of." [xviii]



[i]           Isaiah 55:6
[ii]           Matthew 7:7
[iii]          Isaiah 65:1-3, The Message
[iv]          Portions of Ezekiel 34:11-16, The Message
[v]           See the hymn, This Is My Father's World
[vi]          Genesis 3:10, The Message
[vii]         Author unknown; Tune:  Peace
[viii]         Hymn #280, The Presbyterian Hymnal, 1990
[ix]          1 John 4:10
[x]           Paul Gerhardt, 1653; Hymn #11, The Presbyterian Hymnal, 1990
[xi]          See Psalm 42
[xii]         See Hosea 11, Common English Bible
[xiii]         April 27, 2012
[xiv]         Matthew 11:28
[xv]          Henry J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, (Doubleday,  1992), p. 95-96.
[xvi]         Ibid. p. 123
[xvii]        Luke 6:36
[xviii]       John 10:10, see The Message

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Beyond Our Brokenness



June 10, 2012

2 Corinthians 4:5-12; 16-5:1
2nd Sunday after Pentecost
Elizabeth M. Deibert

Sometimes we forget what the Apostle Paul put himself through to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which had so transformed his life.   He spent 20 years traveling thousands of miles by land and by sea to start churches in cities all over the northern lands of the Mediterranean Sea.  Grant and Gail can tell you that is a large area as they recently traveled there.   Paul’s cruise ship did not have all the amenities and comforts of a modern one, nor did he really know the places where he was going.   He started churches and wrote follow-up letters of encouragement and thanks to those letters and the work of the Holy Spirit, we are still being encouraged to this day by the one who could not stop proclaiming the Gospel, even when it landed him in prison several times.   Hard as Paul worked on this mission, courageous as he was, there were still some low moments.   We read a several weeks ago the opening of 2 Corinthians, a scripture which alludes to Paul’s despair over life when Paul reminds himself and the Corinthians that the hard times help us to be comforters of others when they go through difficult days.   This passage is similar in that Paul is speaking of trials and talking himself and the Corinthians into trusting that our weakness, our suffering, our dying is purposeful, because through it, the light of Christ and the eternal hope of our resurrection with Christ can shine more brightly through the cracks in these our fragile earthen vessels.

Listen for the Holy Spirit speaking to her church through these words from 2 Corinthians:



2 Corinthians 4:5-12; 16-5:1


For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.7 But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.
8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair;persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. 11 For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.

16 So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. 17 For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, 18 because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.   5:1 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (NRSV)



Old clay jars were often used to store valuables in Paul’s day.   The jars were dispensable.   The valuables were not.   We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.    These bodies of ours are like clay.   We can sculpt them.   We have influence over what goes in them and how strong they are, but ultimately, they will wear down.  They will get dropped and broken in the hardships of life.   Over time entropy has its way and we fall apart.    The Corinthians thought that was bad.   They did not approve of weakness at all.  In fact, they thought the Apostles’ weakness was a sign that God was not with him.  

Now, the average life span was about half what it is today.   People in the 1st Century knew few people who lived long enough for their bodies to slowly fall apart.   Many did not survive childhood, and to live beyond 50 was rare.   Paul was one of those.   Anyone who is close to or beyond 50 can tell you that the body at 50+ even more so at 75+ is not like the body at 25.   This will be evident when seminary intern Marilyn and I arrive in Montreat on Thursday evening to join the youth.    All the teens will be still going strong.   Jenny may still look good, but Chip Schaaff, I predict will be a little haggard by sleep deprivation.

These bodies of ours are falling apart.   Some people prop them up with plastic surgery, but the fact remains, we are aging.   And Paul says, this is good.   It’s not the jar that really matters.   It’s what is in the jar.   In the book Peoplemaking by Virginia Satir, she uses the term low pot to refer to the feeling of emptiness.    We say our glass is half-empty or half-full to tell people whether we have a pessimistic or optimistic view of life.  

Paul uses this metaphor of the earthen vessel, the clay jar, a useful but expendable item, to point to the greater value of Christ’s living in us.   It is not the outward appearance of things, but what’s inside.   He says that our apparent weakness is an opportunity for God’s strength to shine through.   In fact, you have to wonder if a shiny beautifully glazed, fully adorned and perfected exterior is problematic for an effective witness to God’s goodness and power.  

Some of you may remember that this text is one of the ones we read at Gretchen Frueh’s memorial service.   Not only did Gretchen value this scripture, she helped us as she was dying to see how God renews the inner nature while the outer nature wastes away.    There were very hard days for Gretchen as there are for anyone who has a terminal diagnosis.   It did not seem a slight momentary affliction.   In fact slight momentary afflictions are kind of like minor surgeries.    You know the truth about minor surgeries, don’t you?    Minor surgeries are surgeries happening to someone else.   If it is happening to you or someone you really love, minor is not the adjective of choice and momentary is not the length of time.

Paul says, “While we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake.”   Is that how you think of your life?   You are always being given up to death and it is for Jesus sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in you.   Richard studied this passage in depth while working on his PhD.   He tells me that the Greek word for death here in verse 10 is a rarely used one.   It is the root from which we get our word nekrosis, corpse.   It is a graphic word there in verse 10 as in rotting flesh, gangrene.   We are always carrying in our bodies, the dying flesh of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be seen.

This reminds me of a story Sherry Robinson told me about a conversation she had with one of our younger Peace participants, not quite school-aged, but very bright.   Sherry was putting the plants outside after worship, working hard as the members of the Property work crew do each Sunday while some of us are enjoying fellowship time, and this little one approached her and asked why.   And she said that the plants needed God’s sunshine so they can grow, just like little boys need to play outside she said, so they can grow.   To which he replied, you’ve already grown a lot and she said, “Yeah, do you think I’m old?” And he said, “Yeah, because look, my skin is nice and smooth, and your skin is wrinkly.”   She said “Yes, and what does wrinkly skin mean?  He said, “That means you’re old.”   Sherry told that story at the last Ministry Team Leaders meeting and all of us were laughing so hard we almost cried.

It’s not the temporary tent of our earthly bodies, but the permanent home we have with God.   I must say that as I watch my mother age, I am so amazed at how little she complains.   Her arthritic knees lock when she stands for a little while, and I see her grimacing as she tries to get them unfrozen to move again.   Her feet and toenails require the untrained but careful attention care of my hands every time we are together.   Her neck locks as badly as the knees, and she is three inches shorter than she used to be.   But all of these weaknesses are opportunities for the light of Christ to shine through her weakness, her increasingly fragile body.   She spoke to me this visit of the grace required in letting other help her when she is unsteady on her feet.   She says, “You know you are old and frail-looking, when everyone in the airport offers to get you a wheelchair.”

Henry Nouwen, author of the Wounded Healer, says in his book The Inner Voice of Love that we must learn to acknowledge our own powerlessness in order to fully receive the power of God.   The more we focus on divine power, the freer we become in accepting our own weakness, which ultimately makes us stronger, calmer, healthier people.

The lyrical phrases “afflicted . . .but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” remind us of the reality of suffering but tell us that suffering never gets the last word.    In moments of deep pain, there is always hope.   Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope, says Paul in Romans 5.   Only one who has suffered and maintained hope can make such claims with integrity.  

In our short life as a new church, we have experienced the strength that comes in weakness.   The strength of relationships less than a decade old, formed in a church that wasn’t always sure it would survive.   The strength that comes from trusting God’s ability to provide when we are not sure how we will build a church home with the resources we have available.   The strength that comes from a spirit of gratitude and generosity, such that all of us feel compelled to do our part in giving and serving, instead of being pew-sitters, consumers of religious services.

Beyond brokenness is the capacity to not only be a greater comfort to others who suffer, but to shine the life-giving power of Jesus Christ.    Paul goes on in chapter 12 of 2 Corinthians to refer to his “thorn in the flesh” which he describes as some physical infirmity given to make him more humble, to keep him from being too elated.   He prays for the removal of this problem, but God says to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”   And Paul then says he is content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ, because when he is weak, then he is strong.

Why do we try to cover all the cracks in our clay jars?   Why do we try so hard to dress up our clay jars, so no one can see the holes?   Why do we waste so much energy working to hide our brokenness?   Brokenness is a reality for all of us who are honest with ourselves.   And beyond brokenness is the power of God to live and shine more brightly because of the gaps in our lives, where there is no room for pride.    When all opportunity for pride and boasting is removed from us, then the real life of Christ in us is made visible.