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The Ecstasy and Agony of God’s Claim Sermon by Cynthia A. Jarvis August 10, 2008, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Jeremiah 1:4-10 II Corinthians 11:16-12:10
Though Paul was not running for election to political office in ancient Corinth, I think it fair to say our text is the apostle’s response to a protracted season of attack ads. Swift boat in character, the ads had been launched by rival apostles who were vying for the theological and financial loyalty of the church of God in Corinth. And despite the fact that the media was in Paul’s day was primitive, suffice it to say the tactics used to discredit a person publicly have not changed in two millennia! Having taken the high road for as long as he reasonably could without putting the gospel at risk, Paul succumbs to the tactics of his attackers and reluctantly writes what is thought by some to be the “stern letter” mentioned earlier in the compilation of letters that is Second Corinthians; writes what is identified by others as simply the “Fool’s Speech.” Paul’s quaint characterization of his response to these detractors is the “boast,” a strategy he will fundamentally redefine by the letter’s end. But before turning to Paul’s boast, we first must read between the lines in order to discern the character of these detractors whose message so mesmerized the Corinthians. Likely they were charismatic itinerants from rural Palestine who came preaching, healing, exorcising and claiming general authority over spirits. [Gerd Theissen] As Jesus had sent the disciples out with no means of support, so these self-appointed apostles appeared and presumed upon the generosity and hospitality of church members. From Paul’s perspective, they were “in the pocket” of those in Corinth who had financial means. Likewise, we can only deduce the content of the theological claims they made on behalf of themselves and against Paul with one exception. Early on in the letter Paul repeats one of their charges: “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak and his speech contemptible.” Who, they ask rhetorically, is the real Paul? Is he an invention of words that disappoints in person? A persona who, in fact, is not up to apostleship? Given the extra-biblical description of Paul as “small in size, bald-headed, bandy-legged, well-built with eyebrows meeting, rather long-nosed,” I imagine him as the Danny Devito of the early church! In contrast, his rivals must have appeared strong, charismatic and self-assured. Yet mere physical appearances were not the point of their slight. Paul, they implied, was a weak sister when compared to the strength of character they embodied. Paul goes on to confirm his opponents’ sense of themselves, noting that these imposing figures were preying upon the Corinthians, taking advantage of them, putting on airs, giving them a slap in the face, making of them slaves! In other words, the Corinthians had been taken in by appearances, says Paul, and now were themselves mindless victims in the pocket of manipulative preachers. A second claim, I kid you not, had to do with race. While Paul’s opponents were of “pure” Jewish descent, they portrayed Paul as a Diaspora “Hellenist” born outside the borders of the “holy land” whose theology was tainted by Greek philosophy. Given his origins, they claimed he also was not qualified to be an apostle because he had no first-hand experience with Jesus or his disciples. Moreover they insisted only a full-blooded Hebrew could be a descendant of Abraham and a true heir of the New Covenant. In a sense they were purveyors of religion rather than preachers of the gospel. Their intent was to establish a human institution defined and secured by an exclusive relationship with God rather than call out a community destined to live in God’s love and by God’s grace toward all people in Jesus Christ. In the third place, Paul’s rivals claimed that their extensive visions and revelations were the guarantors of their religious authority while Paul had no such experience. According to exegete Ernst Best, “Such experiences were viewed in the ancient world in many religions as a special sign of God’s favor.” This more than anything else they said or did must have impressed the Corinthians because it occupied the bulk of Paul’s boasting as he countered their claims. It is the claim that seduces us still as we assess another’s religious credibility or even when we evaluate our own. In sum, Paul’s opponents presented themselves as strong and authoritative, as racially pure and heirs of the one true covenant, as spiritually equipped to proclaim a gospel other than the gospel Paul had proclaimed from the first. One by one Paul takes on their accusations and claims in this foolish speech. He boasts! First and financially he says, he is not in the pocket of prosperous Corinthians (a fact that infuriated them) because he will take not a denarii of their money for himself; second, he assures them that his strong words will ring true, in spite of a weak appearance and contemptible speech, when he visits them next; third, he is a Hebrew of Hebrew parents and as pure a Jew as they, raised in Jerusalem and educated by the Pharisees. He is, in other words, the equal of these itinerate preachers. But (and here the turn begins) with regard to service and suffering for Christ’s sake Paul boasts, “I am better.” He boasts of what the Corinthians, in their cultural comfort, most fear: he downright glories in the ignominy his detractors have sought to expose. The litany of his labors, imprisonments, floggings, stoning, shipwrecks; dangers from bandits, Jews, Gentiles; danger in the city, the wilderness, at sea; hunger, thirst, nakedness, and poverty not to mention the daily pressure he feels because of his anxiety for all the churches, this litany is breathtaking, literally! “If I must boast,” he concludes, “I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” What does Paul mean and what does it matter to us as we seek to discern God’s claim upon our own lives and upon the life of Christ’s church of God in Chestnut Hill for such a time as this? “What must have surprised the Corinthians,” writes New Testament exegete Murray Harris, “was that Paul seeks to establish his superiority in Christ’s service by tabulating his adversities rather than by appealing to his success in founding congregations in strategically important centers around the Aegean, or by referring to the number of converts won, or by citing miracles performed. Rather, appeal is made to evidence of his shame and dishonor.” To be shamed and dishonored in a Middle Eastern culture is to be declared as good as dead. I fear we have read this so many times that we no longer hear the radical challenge Paul’s boast poses to the church and the world. Paul is not talking about the shame of personal moral or social or economic failings. Rather he catalogues the shame he has experienced because of Jesus! We cannot fathom this because, for the most part and especially in the church, we are preoccupied with keeping up appearances. We cannot conceive of risking our reputations (let alone our lives) for Christ’s sake. We are more intent upon being religious than being faithful, more concerned with being right than standing with those who have been wronged, more impressed with being holier-than-thou than humbled before a love none of us has deserved. Therefore Paul takes on our veneer of religiosity and addresses the most powerful boast of all according to the Corinthians: the boast of spiritual superiority. “It is necessary to boast,” he begins; “nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.” Can you not sense how distasteful this is to him? For the man who preaches not himself but Christ crucified, the necessary laying bare his own religious experience is pointless. As another commentator notes, “the episode [he reports] did not change him in any way, and did not provide him with any information that he could use.” He leaves unsaid that the same is true of his opponents’ spiritual experiences! Nevertheless he goes on to speak of himself in the third person-- “putting a space between himself and the man” who was caught up into Paradise--in order to assure the Corinthians he has as many spiritual credentials as the next preacher. Yet as soon as the ink has dried on these words, Paul tells of a thorn, given him in the flesh lest he think too much of his encounter with God. Speculation on the exact nature of Paul’s thorn has been legion! We know it was something that had incapacitated and humiliated him for fourteen years. Three times he asks Jesus to remove the thorn. At last Jesus replies with words God likely said in Gethsemane as he prayed that this cup might pass from him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” “…what is this weakness?” asks Karl Barth and answers, “…it is what is left of his Christian existence after deducting the religious experience of which he might reasonably and truly boast, i.e. [it is] humiliations, emergencies, persecutions, distresses for Christ’s sake. In these [Paul] sees the power of Christ dwelling in him.” The word Paul uses for Christ’s dwelling with him brings to mind the prologue of John’s gospel. Paul writes that Christ pitches his tent around him in his weakness. Therefore when he is weak, he is strong. Of that alone he will boast because he is boasting not of himself but of Christ with him. Longing for Christ, he glories in his weakness. This, my friends, is the heart of the matter: not only for Paul but for you and me and for Christ’s church. The Christ who pitches his tent around us is what is left after we deduct every good deed, every pious act, every claim to moral high ground, every correct doctrine, every spiritual experience, every hint of inherited status before God and so deduct every moment in our lives that might lead us to think we might have something significant to offer God when we lie to die. Rather, says Harris at the end, “It is the ‘weakness’ of humble, suffering service [of self-emptying, of self-forgetting, of self-giving] for the corporate good…not private ecstatic experience that forms…the true sign of apostleship.” “Oh miracle,” exclaims the faithless country priest of Georges Bernanos’ exquisite novel, “thus to be able to give what we ourselves do not possess, sweet miracle of our empty hands!…Lord, I am stripped bare of all things, as you alone can strip us bare, whose fearful care nothing escapes, nor your terrible love!” “I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak then I am strong.” Thanks be to God! |