St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen & Church of the Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
July 8, 2018
Year B, Proper 9: The
Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10
Psalm 48
2 Corinthians 12:2-10
Mark 6:1-13
Weakness and Strength
If
you were here last week, you may remember that in my sermon I talked about how
we live in an age of miracles.
We
really do.
In
many cases, medicine is able to heal what would have disabled or killed us,
even just a couple of decades ago.
Our
computers and cellphones give us the ability to instantly communicate over
great distances, and they give us access to nearly unlimited information.
But,
there’s always a cost, always a shadow side, to any progress we make.
In
our case, one of the costs of this open access to information, this
never-ending flow of news, is that we don’t really focus on any one thing for
very long.
Frankly,
our attention spans are shot.
That’s
why I was very glad that last week The
New York Times devoted an entire special section of the paper devoted to
checking in with people – mostly women, but not all – who had taken the great
risk of publicly telling their stories of sexual harassment and abuse:
The
#MeToo movement.
It
may feel like it was a year ago, but actually it was just a few short months
ago when the monstrosity of one Hollywood producer was exposed, miraculously opening
the floodgates as women found the courage to publicly tell their stories of
cruelty and fear and long-lasting emotional scars.
And,
suddenly, one by one, famous men began to fall like dominos: politicians,
actors, newscasters, businessmen, men who had been widely respected and who had
shaped our national conversation were now publicly disgraced and dislodged from
their jobs.
Of
course, there are still many who have not yet faced their day of reckoning.
And, there are also
“ordinary” women who have their own terrible stories to tell, stories that
rarely, if ever, make the news.
And, so far at
least, the Church seems to have skated by, though we have plenty of our own
stories of abuse – and some of the business of our General Convention going on
right now in Austin is finally facing this most un-Christian legacy, repenting,
and trying to hold people accountable.
So,
yes, as a society and as a Church we have a long way to go, but, nevertheless, seemingly
overnight, the media realized that we’ve had an epidemic on our hands.
Of
course, women have known this all along.
Near
as I can tell, there is no woman who hasn’t experienced sexual harassment or
abuse: from enduring leering and whistling on the street to far, far worse.
In
an effort to make sense of this epidemic, we’ve done at least a little bit of
reflection, a little bit of soul-searching on how and why our society is
infected by this epidemic – or, at least we did that for a week or two until we
moved onto the next headlines.
Fortunately,
it doesn’t take a whole lot of reflection or insight to realize that sexual harassment
and abuse have absolutely nothing to do with love, or even, for that matter, little
or nothing to do with sex.
Instead,
it’s all about weak men desperately seeking power – the insatiable hunger for
more and more twisted and never really satisfying power: the power to make
someone else uncomfortable – the power to inflict pain – the power to turn a
person into a thing – the power to destroy someone’s future - the power to make
someone else do something she really does not want to do.
Needless
to say, this twisted hunger for power – this abuse of power - is most
definitely not the way of God.
God
is the most powerful of all, and yet God never, ever forces God’s Self on us.
Instead,
God freely offers God’s love and healing – freely offers grace - to us, and we
are always free to say yes or to say no.
Today’s
Gospel lesson gives us a vivid illustration of this dynamic: God offers love
and healing, but the response is always up to us.
We
pick up right where we left off last week: Jesus has just healed the woman who
had been bleeding for twelve years and Jesus has just brought Jairus’ twelve
year-old daughter back to life.
Now,
after all this miraculous activity, we’re told that Jesus returns to his
hometown.
Although
Jesus had asked everybody to keep quiet about his healing, you know how people
are, right? So, undoubtedly word has gotten back to Nazareth that their local
boy has been doing good.
We
might expect Jesus to be welcomed home as a hero, that his own neighbors and
kin would want some of that same healing that he’s performed elsewhere, but
that’s not the case at all.
Instead,
the people who looked and sounded like him, the people who had known him his
whole life, they flat out reject what’s offered to them – shocking even Jesus
himself – and we’re told that because of their unbelief Jesus could do almost
nothing in the place he knew better than anywhere.
God
is the most powerful of all, and yet God never, ever forces God’s Self on us.
Instead,
God freely offers God’s love and healing – God’s grace - to us – and we are
always free to say yes or to say no.
After
bombing in his hometown, we’re told Jesus heads back out on the road,
continuing his healing work, and now he also deputizes the twelve, sending them
out two by two, continuing his work.
Well,
we know these people, right?
Not
a particularly impressive group, and they must have looked especially
unimpressive with no bread and just their barebones possessions.
Jesus
knows that some, most probably, will reject these less than dazzling messengers
and their message, so he instructs his followers that when they are rejected,
to move on, shaking the dust from their feet.
God
never forces God’s Self on us, and, on top of that, God usually chooses the people
who seem the weakest and least impressive to do God’s work.
We
can hear that in today’s second lesson, in Paul’s second letter to the
troublesome church in Corinth.
If
you were paying attention and thought Paul sounds a little defensive in this
passage, you’re probably right.
The
problem seems to have been that there was another group of teachers teaching a somewhat
different Gospel than Paul.
And,
these teachers (Paul facetiously calls them “super apostles”) seem to have been
more appealing than Paul himself – maybe they were more eloquent, or better
dressed, or maybe even healthier.
In
the passage we heard today, Paul writes openly about his “thorn in the flesh.”
There’s
been a lot of speculation about what that thorn was exactly, but it seems to
have been some kind of ailment – maybe a spiritual problem or maybe something
involving his eyes or maybe a speech impediment.
We don’t know. But,
this “thorn in the flesh” was something that would have made it harder for
people to accept Paul’s message – that would have led people to turn away from
Paul and to turn to those who appeared healthier, who seemed to have their act
more together, who seemed more
powerful.
This
must have driven Paul bananas. Yet, here in his letter, Paul revels in his weakness,
understanding the great truth that God chooses the seemingly weak for the most
important missions.
Paul
writes, “For whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”
God is the most
powerful of all, and yet God never, ever forces God’s Self on us.
Instead,
God freely offers God’s love and healing – God’s grace - to us – and we are
always free to say yes or to say no.
And,
God usually chooses the seemingly weak to do God’s work.
So,
we shouldn’t be surprised when women who had lived in fear and resignation for
so long are finally able to stand up, boldly declaring “me too” and begin to
bring down seemingly powerful men, and start to unravel a rotten culture.
And,
we shouldn’t be surprised when God sends us – seemingly weak us – we shouldn’t
be surprised when God sends us out to call seemingly powerful people to change
their ways.
And we shouldn’t
be surprised when God sends us out – seemingly unimpressive us – out there, to freely
offer God’s love to absolutely everybody.
Amen.
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