Sufficient
20150705. Sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida. July 5, 2015, 6th Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 9. 2 Corinthians 12:2-10. The Rev Tom Weller
2 Corinthians 12:2-10 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
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.
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My mother was raised Southern Baptist, and I grew up with a deep affinity for that church, and in a home where learning Bible verses was part of my life -- I think more for me as first and oldest than later for my brother and sister. From Second Corinthians 12 this morning I’m going to reveal to you my own Life Verse of Holy Scripture. You may be seated.
Hearing St. Paul to Corinth, some Bible believers will insist there are several heavens, at least three heavens or three levels of heavenly attainment. I am more likely to think Paul was caught up in the Age of Aquarius, but take your pick, it’s a bizarre passage understood and interpreted only in a cloud of smoke, and I do not. For me, the closest might be what C.S. Lewis imagines in his book The Great Divorce — at the beginning of the story those who have ridden the overnight bus from hell up to heaven and by the end of the book decided to stay have ahead of them thousands of miles and untold but not endless ages of working their heavenly way “farther up and farther in,” before they see the living God face to face.
“Farther up and farther in” is an expression Lewis uses in The Chronicles of Narnia, especially The Magician’s Nephew, his wonderfully theological Genesis in the series, when Aslan sings creation into being, Word in Song, the power of God.
Bible stories become your personal property at your Baptism into the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ -- but also, if you claim them, the modern fantasy fiction stories not only of C.S. Lewis (who called Narnia “pre-evangelical”) but also Tolkien; and yes Harry Potter, whether you and J.K. Rowling see it or not — but Rowling does see it, though it’s buried deep. Don’t be blind, be on guard: modern fantasy fiction writers may try subtly to lead you to Christ.
We have no idea what this Third Heaven is in today’s reading. We have no idea either what was this “thorn in the flesh” of which Paul speaks. Some scholars have worked with it and come out suggesting Paul was crippled and hobbled with a crutch or cane: we do not know that.
Others have said Paul was grotesquely ugly in face and twisted body, but there are no pictures or paintings of Paul, only the imaginations of latter day artists.
Still others have insisted it means Paul was gay, homosexual, and that explains why he never had a wife; and consider themselves very sophisticated, modern, and bold. That is unscriptural conjecture, a view that betrays an obsession with a modern concept that had no meaning in Paul’s New Testament Age.
What then was Paul’s thorn in the flesh? We do not know, and neither does any Bible scholar, but if you remember Acts 8:58 and Acts 22:20, Paul standing there approving the stoning of Saint Stephen, and holding the coats of the murderers, maybe Paul’s thorn in the flesh was his knowledge that he persecuted and murdered Christians before being thrown to the ground, struck blind, and confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus. Saul, why do you persecute me? Who are you, Lord? I am Jesus, whom you persecute. The guilt of Paul’s murderous past would have tormented any man with a conscience, especially a man as charged and changed as Paul was after Saul coming to Christ.
This reading, this entire passage from 2nd Corinthians is so mysterious, and as I read down, it also and always takes me to a dark time of my own life in ministry.
A Christian, an American, husband, son, father, naval officer, priest, and many other things in life, I know myself most intimately as the doting father of beloved girls, and as one whose deepest identity is with other men who are fathers of daughters whom we love more than all that is, more than everything under the sun.
I’m thinking of a day, a Sunday morning a quarter century ago.
Linda and I were at Trinity, Apalachicola, where I was the priest for years. At coffee hour after church that day, a parishioner told me about a tragedy in our little town. Apalachicola is only about 2,500 people, and everybody knows or knows of everyone else. The day before, Dr. Jim Padgett, our dentist in town, had been out on the Apalachicola River in his boat with Monica, his daughter. Monica was 19, the same age as my Tass, who was away at college in Virginia, and whom I missed so agonizingly that it was almost unbearable. As Monica and her dad head into the river, the boat motor sputters, and he turns to see what the problem is. In the split second of his inattention, the boat runs into a piling, throwing Monica overboard and slamming her into another piling, for major head trauma and probably breaking her neck. At hospital, her devastated, desolated father has to give consent to turn off life support.
We internalize these things, you know, when they happen to other people, and all I could think about was that he loved her, the apple of his eye, just as I love Tass, both daughters the same age. The moment was emotionally overwhelming.
The Padgett family were not members of my church, or any church I found out later, and I barely knew them except that he was my dentist. And after church that day, I got in my car as always and drove home to Panama City, for my weekly visit with my mother.
Monday afternoon I returned to Apalachicola and as I walked up the front steps of the rectory, Linda said, “You need to sit down,” and I did, in a rocking chair on the rectory porch. Linda said, “Dr. Padgett wants you to officiate Monica’s funeral.”
Oh my God. It was the heaviest moment of my life. Stunned, burying my face in my hands, I wept, “I cannot do this. His daughter. She’s Tassy’s age. I cannot do this. Tell them to find another minister.” Linda said, Dr. Padgett asked the funeral director what minister in town should officiate her funeral, and was told, “Absolutely nobody but Father Weller.”
The funeral was a few days away, and they wanted it to be in Trinity Church, my church, and me officiate. How could I do this, how would I hold together? Composure is essential, because at a funeral, the minister’s task is not to weep but to minister, and it can be heavy in a situation of such grief, to be the one person in the congregation who is composed, calm and professional no matter how he is feeling inside.
That evening I met with the Padgett family at the funeral home, prayed with them at the open casket, and over the next day or so I did all my usual funeral preparations. But the funeral itself: I knew I would never be able to carry it off. The burden was intolerable. It was my moment in Hell.
The afternoon before the funeral, the phone rang in the church rectory. It was my friend Joe, retired Presbyterian minister. There was no Presbyterian church in Apalachicola, but Joe often served their churches in Port St. Joe and Wewahitchka, and also Grace Presbyterian and St. Andrews Presbyterian in Panama City. Joe and his wife Ruth lived across the river in Eastpoint. Ruth’s sisters and their husbands were members of Trinity, Apalachicola, and Joe and Ruth often came to our services. On the phone, he said, “Tom, I want to come over and pray with you. I know you are distraught about Monica’s funeral tomorrow. May I come pray with you?”
I said, “Yes, Joe. Please.”
He arrived a few minutes later, and I asked him, “How did you know?” He said “I know how you are about children. Everybody in town knows how you feel about Tass. The girls are the same age. And I know this is more than you can handle alone.” As we sat on the sofa in the rectory living room, he prayed,
God, our heavenly father, Tom is struggling with the hardest thing he has ever faced in your ministry, something he is not able to do. Tom is not sufficient to the task before him. Tom is not sufficient. But, Lord, you are sufficient. Tom is not sufficient, but you are sufficient, your Grace is sufficient, and your power is perfected in our weakness. Lift the burden, Lord, and pour down your sufficient grace upon Tom as he ministers to this broken family, and to our town tomorrow. Your grace is sufficient in all things, and we turn it over to you in Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Prayer changes the world, and in that moment, everything changed for me. My nightmare cleared, and with Joe’s prayer over me, and Sufficient Grace, the next day I was adequate to the task of officiating the funeral of a man’s beloved daughter.
I’ve conducted hundreds of worship services, preached a thousand sermons and more, and officiated dozens of funerals since that day and that year. I have done children’s funerals, including the suicides of teenage boys, for their devastated parents. Once, leading a young father and mother into the church, I carried down the aisle before them, the tiny casket of their infant daughter. I have done that. The burden of Christian ministry can be heavy. Joe’s prayer is always with me. Since that day a quarter century ago, Second Corinthians 12:9 is my Life Verse. With Sufficient Grace, and God’s Power Perfected in my Weakness, I have never again felt inadequate to a ministry task before me.
This is about you, you know. Every Baptized Christian is a minister of the Loving Gospel of Jesus Christ. In your Baptismal Covenant, and every time you renew that covenant here in church, you promise to do certain things. It’s impossible. But you see, it’s a covenant, you are not alone, it’s a covenant, a two-party contract between you and God. Promising to do these things, you say, “I will, with God’s help,” and in the Bible, God promises you, as he promised St. Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you. For My power is perfected in weakness”. The promise of Second Corinthians 12:9 is all you need to live out your life as a follower of Jesus Christ.
Sermon posted not proudly, but simply keeping a promise to a friend. TW+