Proper 9, Year B. Sermon from 2 Cor. 12:2-10
Synopsis: Paul encountered some other “apostles” who tried to undermine his ministry citing grand spiritual visions. This reading is his response to them.
In the 1750s there was a worldwide conflict known to us as The French Indian war. The British and French battled for Quebec. Admiral Phipps, commander of the British fleet, received orders to anchor outside Quebec and wait for the British land forces. His job was simple; provide protection while the troops came ashore.
Admiral Phipps ran a well-oiled machine, his sailors were disciplined; hence, his Navy arrived to the scene early. The longer the admiral waited, the more annoyed he became by the statues of the French saints that adorned the towers of a nearby cathedral. In his rage, he commanded his men to shoot at them with the ships’ cannons.
No one knows how many rounds that Phipps fired or how many statues he knocked down, but what we do know is that when British ground forces arrived Phipps was of no help… He spent all his ammunition shooting at the saints.
It’s not fun to be in the crosshairs
I think Saint Paul understood what it meant to be in the crosshairs of his opponents. He was dealing with the collective firepower of various, self-proclaimed “apostles.” Their goal was to undermine Paul’s authority in the church he established.
Paul’s letter makes it clear that he was dealing with spiritual children. They watched until Paul left and suddenly swooped in to tell everyone that Paul was not on the same spiritual height as they were.
These rival missionaries were very convincing. They had all the canned answers. They were masters of rhetoric and boasted of revelations and visions from God. They captivated the Corinthians as they told stories of their vast spiritual experiences.
They targeted Paul’s ministry with cannonballs of deceit. “Paul, well, ya know… he’s okay, he has met with the other apostles in Jerusalem, but we are so filled with the Spirit that God speaks personally to us. He has given us special revelations that are not accessible to Paul.”
Sometimes the Pastor has to flip the script
This is the occasion for our epistle lesson this morning; Paul couldn’t be physically present to defend himself, so he sent a letter. His language was firm, his sarcasm was apparent, and we can tell that his patience reached its natural limits. He banters with them; “I could boast of revelations that God has given me, but I won’t. I could tell you how much I’ve endured; shipwrecks, floggings, beatings, death threats and days without food, but I won’t go there either.”
“Oh, you think visions are the measurement for spirituality? Well, I know a man God called to the third heaven; there he saw things that God forbade him to speak. Sure I can tell you about those things, but I’m not!”
Instead, Paul employed one of Jesus’ most successful tactics; he turned the argument upside down. “You want me to boast about my accomplishments? Well, let me tell you about this thorn I have, it keeps me humble!”’
Paul’s Thorn
I respect him even when I do not agree with him. He took the Gospel all around the Mediterranean world. He even changed the essence of the church to include non-Jews. I want to know what this thorn in his flesh was. Maybe then I can take him off a pedestal and let him be the human being he was.
Part of me wants to know his secret struggle. This thorn has been a hotly disputed issue by scholars for centuries. Some say Paul’s struggle was his eyesight, or maybe his sexuality. Others say he suffered great shame because he formerly oppressed the church.
What are our thorns?
Some have suggested that Saint Paul suffered from seizures. That hits close to home. I know what it’s like to stand in front of people, hoping that I don’t zone out for a few seconds.
We want to know what this thorn was, and why it injured him so thoroughly. However, I think it’s a powerful statement that Paul’s thorn remained unknown. Had he put a name on it, perhaps all of us couldn’t identify with it. As it stands, most of us can categorize that one thing that constantly plagues us.
Maybe you have prayed for God to fix over and over and over. But God doesn’t fix it. Thorns… are spiritually exhausting!
Sometimes the thorn can even make us question God’s goodness or even God’s love. Living with a thorn is emotionally draining and spiritually exhausting.
We all have thorns, even Paul. He even prayed that God would remove it. Repeatedly he sought God’s intervention. Finally, God replied, “My grace is sufficient.”
Paul says in his letter, “Those super-apostles want to boast… I’ll boast that my thorn has taught me more about God’s grace than all their visions combined.”
Consider that for a moment. Paul was a man of keen intellect and persuasive powers so strong he founded multiple churches around the Roman world. He was the most educated of the apostles. Paul was one of the privileged few who studied under Gamaliel. Some credit as the founder of Christianity.
He could have “patted his own back.” Yet his bragging point, his measuring stick, was his frailty, a weakness that taught him to rely on Christ.
Is Christ present?
Relying on Jesus assures us that God will sustain us through difficulty and distress. God’s grace will keep us resilient through pain, penalty, and personal tragedy. God’s love will support us, stand with us, and supply a peace that surpasses understanding!
The real miracle is not when God removes the thorn… but when God gives us the grace of the Holy Spirit and we grow despite the thorn.
The thorn hurts, and that pain tells us we should call on God.
Paul told the Corinthians, “It hurts that you’re allowing these other “super apostles” to gossip, but I deal with a thorn that is much worse. As such, I know that God’s grace is sufficient in this current struggle because I’ve endured so much before this even happened.”
The petty people don’t matter anyway…
There’s something in this lesson that’s able to change our lives if we can internalize it: Just as the thorn is unnamed, so are Paul’s opponents. They, and the cannons they fired at Saint Paul, fade into the first-century obscurity. No one remembers them; parishes do not bear their names. Yet churches around the world display the name of a man who boasted of strength built in weakness.
After all, God chose the hideous mockery of the crucifixion and turned it into an abundance of grace. Let us always be mindful that God’s grace IS sufficient.
Amen.
Sermon for Proper 17 year A by Fr. Rian Adams
Text: Matthew 16:21-28
Since February of this year, the People’s Republic of China has removed and destroyed over 900 crosses from Christian churches. If that wasn’t enough, to display a cross on a place of worship is a crime against the government. If congregants disobey, the government can try them as insurrections.
The cross is offensive.
I read an article in an academic journal a few months ago at Sewanee that informs this sermon. The author called for the historic Christian churches in New York City to remove the crosses because they were invasive and not in the spirit of inclusion. She said crosses might offend the non-Christian tourists who visit the beautiful churches.
The cross is offensive.
In today’s Gospel lesson, Jesus says the cross is the way to God… “Anyone who wants to come after me, let them take up the cross and follow me.” When his most loyal and exuberant disciple heard such, he had to correct his Rabbi’s ignorance. It caused a rift between them that even made it into the Gospels.
The cross is offensive. The apostle Paul called it a stumbling block. That’s true for the Chinese government, a clergy person in New York City, and Simon Peter, the fisherman.
Because this a heavy subject, I’ve used some satire… today’s sermon is about Why Peter Was an Idiot. Why do I say that Peter is an idiot in this passage?
Because Peter Denies Difficulties.
Last week Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter said, “You’re the Christ, the son of God.”
Peter hit a home run! That was the first time in Matthew’s Gospel that the disciples came out and said that Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus praised Peter, gave him a new name, Petros, rock, and gave him the “keys to God’s kingdom.”
It gives us a sigh of relief. The tension subsides, and we no longer have to wonder if Peter will ever “get it.” Finally, after 15 chapters, the disciples realize that Jesus is the Christ.
Immediately following those verses, Jesus reveals what it means to be the Messiah, “I’m going to Jerusalem to die on a cross.”
That was too much for Peter!… “Jesus doesn’t know what he’s talking about… I agree with him on everything else, but this idea is absurd.” So Peter decides to enlighten him, set him straight, as it were.
Have you ever had to deal with a know-it-all? Few things are as succulent as when you can prove them wrong! I heard that the best way to handle a know-it-all is to tell them that “Know-it-alls should know that nobody likes a know-it-all.”
Peter musters his best professorial voice, “Jesus, I’m not saying that you are ignorant of interpretive method, but your ideas are incongruent with conservative and informed interpretations.”
Here’s the bottom line, Peter acts the fool in this Gospel passage because he has no room for other opinions, interpretations, and especially no room for Messianic difficulties.
Why is he an idiot? Secondly,
Because he doesn’t trust Jesus.
Jesus isn’t in the mood for Peter’s foolishness and his dedication to an easy way out; he says to him, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me.”
Well… that escalated quickly! Everyone is having a good time, then Jesus has to talk about the government killing him. Peter just can’t stand that much ignorance, so he tells Jesus just how stupid the idea is, then Jesus fires back by calling Peter the one name that’s the ultimate insult, Satan.
Do these two need a training seminar on family systems and pastoral relationships? “Lesson # 1, No name-calling, especially ‘stupid,’ and ‘Satan.’” Lesson # 2, don’t fight in front of disciples who are middle management.”
Before we excommunicate Jesus, it would be helpful to know what the word Satan means. It means tempter, adversary, stumbling block.
The word is scandalon in Greek; it’s where we derive our English word scandal. “Peter, your suggestion that I can bypass the religious and governmental powers that revolt against a message of love, hope, healing, mercy, and inclusion is scandalous.”
Remember what the apostle Paul said in his letter to the Corinthian Church, “We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but for the ones who follow Jesus it is the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Peter wanted a Messiah without a cross… Such a Christianity does not exist. When we preach that love and inclusion hold hands, we can expect resistance and retaliation.
Then we reach a turning point in the text. What Jesus says next is ground-breaking…, and it changes the theological scope of Jesus’s ministry, and should inform our own.
He says that he must go to Jerusalem, be crucified, die, and rise again. He says that it’s God’s will for this to happen.
There are a couple of different ways to understand this: 1) God willed Jesus’s torture and death to satisfy himself. That view tells you how people understand the nature of God. There is another interpretation; 2) That Jesus’s suffering and crucifixion were an inevitable result of a God-filled ministry that called the systems, “the principalities and powers of this world,” into accountability.
Because Peter doesn’t trust Jesus, he’s trying to subvert the Holy Spirit’s work of convicting the world of sin. Peter wants to take over the world’s system so he can be a beneficiary of it, Jesus wants him to increase the value of people.
The Backward Kingdom
People around the world know of the book, Alice in Wonderland. In that classic work, Lewis Carrol took us inside ourselves to see our journey out of childhood.
But Carroll followed the book with one of his most brilliant pieces, Alice Through the Looking Glass. The story takes us through the journey, the adventure, of growing into our own souls.
In the book, everything is backward. To find her destiny, she goes backward to go forward, and she goes left to get right. It’s an upside-down kingdom!
The kingdom of God is upside down… its an upside down kingdom where the cross is right-side-up.
Amen.
Sermon for Proper 17, Year A
The Blessing of Hardships. Sermon 10th Sunday After Pentecost
Intro: Since this Gospel reading is intense, I thought I’d begin by admitting something kind of funny about it. When I read it this week, I pictured Jesus at a Charlie Daniels concert singing, “Fire on the mountain run boys run.”
It also made me wonder, “… how am I supposed to preach this?” It speaks of fire consuming the earth, and about teenagers hating their parents. Well, maybe that one’s not a stretch.
But I’d rather preach about the prince of peace than a man who wants to set the earth on fire. Jesus should follow the agreed upon rubric like he said in John’s Gospel, “Do not let your hearts be troubled or fearful because I leave my peace with you.”
This Gospel reading is not the prince of peace, and it made me say, “I’ll just preach the Old Testament lesson from Isaiah. And then I read it. The prophet said God was tired of a vineyard not producing grapes, so God tore down the wall around it, and withhold rain so the vines die. The Psalmist even said God burned the vineyard down.
That’s not quite as happy as a Joel Osteen sermon. But I decided that priestly integrity requires the bravery to preach difficult passages too.
As I pondered the Gospel lesson, I realized fire is not always a destructive force. In the 1stcentury, fire was an essential element of survival. The flames of an oil lamp provided their only light at night. Flames cooked their meals and warmed their children, fire tempered their metals, and hardened their pottery.
So, fire was a coin with two sides; it can destroy, but it can save lives too. The sermon today is about The Blessings in Hardships.
Let’s look at some fiery encounters with God.
When Jesus said, “I’ve come to bring fire on the earth,” the disciples would have filtered that image through Jewish history. They didn’t hear flames as just a destructive force. In the Old Testament, fire represented encounters with God.
When Moses was a fugitive on the run from the Egyptian police, he escaped to a remote desert. Then he noticed a bush on fire. God spoke to him from the bush and told him to go back to Egypt. His encounter with God was a humiliating calling because he had to return to the family who exiled him.
Yet, that call held the liberation a nation.
Jesus’s disciples also heard the story of Elijah the prophet. Their scriptures said Elijah tried to turn Israel back toward God, but they refused. They needed Baal, a god they could see and touch, instead of a God that required faith. Elijah challenged the pagan priests to a divine duel by fire; the god who sent fire won. The priests prayed, but fire didn’t fall. Elijah prayed and God sent fire from heaven to light his sacrifice.
That imagery even extends to the Gospel of Luke, and into the book of Acts. When the Holy Spirit came in the upper room, the writer called it, “Like tongues of fire.”
Jesus said, “I’ve come to bring fire…” Fire is hot, but fire can bring refinement. No matter what our circumstances are, no matter what the hardships that life forced on us, we can find God at work.
We tend to judge our success or failure by our position in life. If we made it as far, then we must be a success, if we didn’t reach our goals – or the ones someone set for us – then we failed.
Moses would differ. He would probably tell us what Dumbledore told Harry Potter; “It matters not what a person is born, but who they grow to be.”
The rough times in life are opportunities to encounter the divine.
If hardships are opportunities to encounter God, they are also opportunities for transformation.
Jesus knew that hardships mold and form us into new, stronger people.
He also knew how painful a crucible can be. He said in this passage, “I am under stress until I am baptized into the fire.” It seems he knew that crucifixion was a foregone conclusion.
But he seemed to know that change – resurrection – followed the fires of his suffering.
Sometimes the hardest times in our lives are opportunities for change. As I look back at my life can see that catastrophes turned into crucibles. Fire melted certain elements of self, and I collided with God to create a new identity, a new way of existing in the world.
But, change can scare people. Jesus even mentions that too. He said, “Children will not understand parents, and parents will not understand children after a change occurs.”
I grew up in and around the sandy pine forests of north Florida. Growing up, we would have what’s called a “controlled burn.”
The underbrush on the forest floor and steal water and nutrients from the pine trees.
After we burned the underbrush, the trees were free from the vines, and the bushes that held them back from reaching their full potential. Ironically, the ashes the fire left behind served as fertilizer for the pine trees. They had to go through the fire, but they were better for it.
Carl Jung said, “The person who has not passed through the personal inferno of their addictions and fears can never overcome them.” Jung knew that a crisis is a chance for change.
Jesus knew it too. He knew that faithfulness to God, even in disappointment and failure, could bring hope. To paraphrase, “May you all experience the blessing that comes by fire.”
Refinement
There’s a show on the history channel called “Forged In Fire.” They usually have four contestants who are experienced bladesmiths compete against one another to make a knife, or a sword, or a suit of armor.
What stands out to me is the temperature required to mold metal. The forge heats the metal to 2700 degrees. That’s when it surrenders to the fire allows itself to be shaped. But raw metal doesn’t go into the forge and come out a perfect reproduction of the Braveheart sword. There is a process. There’s always a process.
The bladesmith pulls the raw metal out of the fire with tongs and he puts it on a machine press. He folds it over into itself so it will stay together as it becomes a sword. After he folds it, he puts it back into the fire, heats it to temperature again, then removes it to an anvil.
He purposefully and carefully strikes it with his hammer. He hits it hundreds, even thousands of times shaping it into a sword.
It goes between the heat of the fire and the hammer of the anvil dozens of times during its birthing process.
When he’s pleased with the shape, he takes it to the grinder. That’s where he smoothes the rough edges and grinds away the unneeded pieces to sharpen and polish the blade.
By the end of the show you watch fire turn a rusty car spring into a marvelous piece of art worth thousands.
Jesus said he came to send fire on the earth. The blessing of hardships is how fire refines us into inclusive people who choose the way of Jesus; The way of hope, mercy, faith, and love.
Amen.
Sermon: 10th Sunday After Pentecost.