Strong in the Broken Place

7.8.12

2 Corinthians 12:2-10

Proper 9

Someone once made the comment to me that “you can tell how much fun someone had as a kid by how many broken bones they have.”  I guess I had a pretty tame childhood-- because despite having several fairly nasty bike wrecks and rollerblading accidents and ice skating accidents and car accidents-- I’ve never had any broken bones. But people that apparently had more fun growing up than I did tell me all sorts of stories about the bones they have broken. I knew a man that dropped a very large filing cabinet on his toe on the day that East Tennessee’s biggest blizzard ever rolled into town-- without fail, the man could predict when it was going to snow.  Other people will tell me that old injuries will start acting up when the weather is changing.  But one of the most fascinating things I’ve ever heard about broken bones is that sometimes they fuse themselves together in a way that is much stronger than it was to begin with.

Now, that makes no sense at all to me-- because I know that if I drop a vase, and it shatters-- even if I can get it all back together, that it won’t be nearly as strong as it was.  The slightest movement will likely cause it to break again.  And forget it being watertight ever again. But some bones, not all, have the potential to heal in a way that is the strongest ever.  Earnest Hemingway said “Life breaks all of us, but some of us are strong in the broken places.” 

That seems to be what Paul is saying-- but what a strange tactic Paul employs!  He says, “On behalf of myself, I will not boast, except of my weaknesses.” That would be like me standing here and telling you everything that was wrong with me.  Well, for starters, I’m not a very good secretary-- I always catch the errors in the bulletin after they’ve been printed.  And some days, I feel like I don’t have much to say.  Oh, and I definitely don’t sing very well.  I could go on, but if I don’t stop, you might invite me to take a permanent vacation.  You might realize that you could do better than a thirty year old--maybe someone with several degrees and loads of experience. Or maybe someone that always had a warm apple pie ready at the manse, just in case anyone stopped by.  To tell you about all my weaknesses sure doesn’t inspire confidence in me as a leader. 

But Paul has a big battle to fight-- because these “super apostles” were running around selling a bigger, more dramatic Jesus.  Their conversion stories were always amped up.  They had these huge visions of God speaking directly to them.  And many, they knew how to package Jesus up in a way that made everyone want to hop on the next donkey toward the church. There’s an episode of a PBS show where a local priest of a small Church of England church is forced by his superior to invite another pastor in to share worship space for a time.  The first Vicar is very traditional, but the invited Vicar is a very contemporary pastor.  He wears jeans and shows up with a crew to bring his white leather sofas for the worship service. The superior guy who orchestrates all this starts comparing the small church pastor to the second mega-church guy and says, in essence, “You need to be like him.  Your church is barely making it.  You need more people, and to do that, you need to get a cappucino machine.” 

Ok, the scene was pretty funny.  But ouch. Do we need a cappucino machine to entice people into coming to church? Does Jesus need to be made more exciting and dramatic so people will like him? Obviously this is a caricature intended to make us laugh, but maybe it’s only funny because we worry that there is a small amount of truth to it. 

I don’t know of any church that takes it to such a level as the scene I just described, but maybe we do similar things.  Every small membership church worries that it isn’t enough to attract people to come.  “You have to have kids to get kids” is a frequent mantra. Or maybe we worry that we don’t have enough programs to attract young families.  We don’t say it outloud, but sometimes the secret fear of our hearts is that folks will go to other places-- places with contemporary music, places with full sunday school classes, places with a mother’s day out program, places that just have more to offer than we do. Sometimes, without meaning to, we sort of apologize about the size of our church to those that we invite to come-- it’s like if we can warn them on the front end, they won’t be disappointed when they come.  It’s not that we think Jesus could use some beefing up, but maybe worry that the church could use some. Whether it’s obvious to any of us or not, we’re just as anxious about super-apostles as Paul was. 

But imagine with me for a second-- what if this church was everything that we collectively wanted it to be?  What if we did indeed have Sunday School classes that were so full that we were scrambling to find more space? What if we had a huge youth group?  What if we had a huge pipe organ and a full choir? What if we had a coffee bar outside our sanctuary, so that people could grab a frappacino on the way in? What if you had a preacher that made everyone feel so good that the pews were packed out every Sunday?  Gosh, all of that would be lovely.  And it would be an awful lot of fun to tell people about all those wonderful things.

Here’s the funny thing though-- at least as I’ve noticed it from over-hearing all sorts of conversations over the years. Those things become the focal point.  Those things become the church’s identity.  And when people invite others to that church, those are the things that get said. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve heard like that where Christ is never mentioned at all.   It is heartbreaking! When I was in college I volunteered at one of the biggest Presbyterian churches in Knoxville, and when my class schedule permitted, I’d go hang out with some of the youth wherever they were hanging out. And more than once, I’d heard this kid or that invite his or her friends to church-- which was great, but here’s what they’d say.  “You have to come.  We have a gym where we play basketball and other games every week, and the youthroom has a pool table and fooseball. Every year we go on a ski trip.  And there are some smokin hot girls.”  Oh, the church had a lot to offer alright. But they had so much to offer, that at some point, they quit offering Christ.

Perhaps, this is what Paul was talking about when he said he had a thorn in the flesh that kept him from being too elated.  We don’t know what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was, but whatever it was, it kept him from thinking more highly of himself than he ought. He knew that the only reason he had anything at all useful to offer the world was because of Christ living through him.  He himself had nothing to boast about.

And it’s only then that Christ’s words could be powerful.  “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 weakness... for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”  

Think about it this way-- people that are swimming along happily don’t ever call out for someone to come save them.  It’s only once they realize they are swept up in a current that is bigger than they can handle that they cry out for help.  People that float along merrily merrily don’t think they need a savior, but people that realize they don’t have the strength to keep treading water alone are grateful for any help that comes their way.   Christ’s grace keeps us from drowning in the world, but we’re only grateful for the help once we realize we need it.  We don’t boast that we pulled ourselves out of a mighty current, we loudly proclaim that God’s hand rescued us.  That’s the strong power of Christ at work when we are weakest. 

Not only is Christ’s grace sufficient, it changes who we are.  There’s a popular Christian song out that says this,

 “When I am down and, oh my soul, so weary;

When troubles come and my heart burdened be;

Then, I am still and wait here in the silence,

Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;

You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;

I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;

You raise me up... To more than I can be.”

The point isn’t that we’ve been raised up-- as if we’ve somehow magically ascended to some lovely place.  The point is that Christ, while we were still weak, raises us up, not that we may boast of our own strength, but that we may boast of Christ’s strength.

Christ’s grace is sufficient for us.  We, too, are strong in the broken places.