The golf course was crowded with golfers one pleasant fall morning. Bob was standing in front of a tee preparing to swing at his ball. He visualized hitting a beautiful shot that would carry hundreds of yards. As he was standing there lost in his thoughts, an announcement came over the public address system: “Would the gentleman standing at the women’s tee please back up to the men’s tee?”
Bob ignored the announcement. He continued his pre-shot routine.
Again, the announcement came across the PA system: “Would the gentleman on the women’s tee please back up to the men’s tee?”
This announcement seemed incredibly rude to Bob, particularly since it was directed at him. He turned toward the clubhouse and shouted, “Would the announcer in the clubhouse kindly shut up and let me play my second shot?”
My guess is that this was not going to be a great day for Bob, if his first shot got him no farther than where the women tee off. We all have days like that, don’t we? Of course, some of those days are nothing to laugh about.
David Heller wrote a delightful little book from which pastors love to quote. It’s titled, Dear God: Children’s Letters to God. Inside that book are some witty observations from the lips of young children:
“Dear God, What do you do with families that don’t have much faith? There’s a family on the next block like that. I don’t want to get them in trouble, so I can’t say who. See you in church. Alexis (age 10).
Dear God, Want to hear a joke? What is red, very long, and you hear it right before you go to sleep? Give up? A sermon. Your friend, Frank (age 11).
Then there is one that is more thoughtful than humorous. It goes like this: “Dear God, I have doubts about you sometimes. Sometimes I really believe. Like when I was four and I hurt my arm and you healed it up fast. But my question is, if you could do this, why don’t you stop all the bad in the world? Like war. Like diseases. Like famine. Like drugs. And there are problems in other people’s neighborhoods too. I’ll try to believe more. Ian (age 10).” (1)
Many of us struggle with the same questions as Ian. Any thinking person does. St. Paul certainly struggled with these questions. And yet it is evident that his faith allowed him to resolve many of these issues. And it wasn’t because Paul had not known his share of suffering. He had. But rather than destroying his faith, suffering had deepened it.
Listen to his words in our lesson for the day beginning with the seventh verse: “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore,” Paul continues, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Not many of us could delight in insults, hardships, persecutions, and difficulties. But St. Paul could. Paul had had some unique spiritual experiences. He was proud of those experiences. They had nourished his faith in a wonderful way. He knew that because of those experiences he was tempted to be puffed up with pride. But Paul had a condition, probably a physical condition that carried with it some degree of humiliation and shame. Some scholars speculate that he suffered from epileptic seizures. We don’t really know. Paul simply called it, his “thorn in the flesh.”
Some of you are gardeners. Some of you grow roses. You know what it is to get a thorn in your hand or arm. It’s uncomfortable, painful. You pull it out as quickly as possible. Scholars suggest that Paul’s thorn was much more serious than one from a rose bush. Scholars say Paul’s thorn was more like a large, sharpened wooden shaft jabbing into his flesh. This thorn caused him great distress. And there was no way that it could be removed.
Paul said that he asked the Lord three times to remove the thorn from him. In other words, the pain, whether physical or mental, had on three occasions nearly overwhelmed Paul to the point that he pleaded with God to help him. That says something about Paul’s faith right there. You and I would plead with God far more than three times. Most of us would turn to God night and day. But not St. Paul. After three times of making his plea, Paul turned it over to God. And in the process, Paul discovered something quite wonderful. He heard the voice of the Lord say to him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
What a powerful sentence. “My grace is sufficient for you . . . my power is made perfect in weakness.” Paul discovered two things in suffering with his thorn in the flesh. First, he discovered that God’s grace is sufficient. And, second, he discovered that God’s power is made perfect in weakness. Let’s talk for a few moments about the first of these: The sufficiency of God’s grace.
Life is difficult. That is something about which all of us will agree. I read a humorous story recently. It was about an event that occurred one time in a production of the opera, Carmen, in a very prestigious theater crammed with thousands of theater patrons.
This particular night the singer playing the character Don José forgot to bring his stage knife for the stabbing scene in which he murders Carmen. Imagine that. He’s on stage in front of hundreds of theatergoers. He is supposed to murder Carmen but he’s forgotten his knife. What does he do? What would you do in such a situation? Here is what this resourceful actor did. Since he didn’t have a knife, he decided to strangle her. That makes sense. However, he didn’t have time to warn the singer playing Carmen. She didn’t know what he was doing with his hands around her throat, so according to an eye-witness account, she fought back like a tigress. Here’s what’s amazing to me. Somehow, she managed to go on singing throughout a prolonged and somewhat muted strangulation! (2) In the process, the opera house patrons got a show they didn’t expect
Sometimes life has caught me off-guard like that poor opera singer and I, too, have reacted with surprise and dismay, and maybe with anger. Sometimes I have been able to keep on singing. Sometimes I have not. But that’s life. Sometimes it catches us off-guard. We didn’t schedule sickness on our Day Planner, but there it is. Our smart phone didn’t warn us that the company was downsizing. We didn’t see it coming that our teenager would have an accident. Life is sometimes very difficult.
Some people handle life’s adversities better than others. Psychologists speak of resiliency. Some people are more resilient than other people even as children. By their very nature, some people take life in stride. No one knows why this is true of some people, but not others. As the old adage goes, the same sun that melts butter hardens clay. People differ in how they react to life, even in the same family.
Once there were two brothers whose last name was Bulger. These brothers grew up in an impoverished family in Boston. James Bulger drifted into crime, went to prison, escaped, and eventually was put on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
Meanwhile, his brother William went to college, then entered politics, and eventually became president of the University of Massachusetts.
How do you explain that? Same parents. Generally the same early experiences. But one was a stunning failure while the other was a stunning success. I must add this sad footnote, however. William was forced to resign as President of the University of Massachusetts in 2003 after being accused of concealing information that might lead to his brother’s capture. (3) How sad that he had to pay for his brother’s misspent life.
People differ in their reactions to life’s difficulties. Some people are more resilient than others. Paul was one of those resilient people. But his resilience grew out of his faith in God. “My grace is sufficient for you . . .” Paul heard God say.
Pastor Chuck Swindoll tells of attending a memorial service for a friend several years younger than he who had died with liver cancer. Talk about a thorn in the flesh. This man’s cancer certainly was more like a sharp wooden shaft. Swindoll compares it to an arrow piercing his friend’s flesh.
However his friend did not let the disease defeat him emotionally or spiritually. He didn’t curl up in a corner with a calendar and put Xs on days, says Swindoll. On the contrary, the news of his malignancy only spurred him on to drain every ounce out of every day.
His physician had told him he would probably be gone before Thanksgiving. “Says who?” his friend mused. Not only did he live through Thanksgiving, at Christmas he threw a party. The following Easter was delightful. A fun picnic on the Fourth of July was a gas and he had a special celebration in the planning stage for a second Thanksgiving. He didn’t quite make that. However, a close friend of Swindoll’s told him that the last time they talked, this friend had made an appointment to have his teeth fixed. A dying man doesn’t make an appointment to have his teeth fixed, but this man did. He was resting in the sufficiency of God’s grace. (4)
“My grace is sufficient for you,” Paul heard God say to him. “I am with you,” God was saying to him. “Whatever your need is, I will help you through.” Then God adds, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” What does that mean? God’s power is made perfect in weakness.
It means at least two things. First of all, it means that adversity strengthens us for service. We grow by overcoming our weaknesses.
The story is told of a Renaissance artist who made the world’s most prized vases. A visitor came to observe his method. After laboring for many weeks with one piece of clay firing it, painting it, baking it he placed it upon a pedestal for inspection. The visitor sat in awe at this thing of unspeakable beauty. But it appeared that the artist was not yet finished. In a shocking and dramatic moment, the artist lifted the vase above his head and dashed it against the floor, breaking it into a thousand shards. And then, quietly, he reconnected the pieces by painting the edges with a paint of pure gold. Each crack reflected invaluable gold. In the end, this magnificent, but imperfect, piece became the most valued piece in the collection. (5)
Some of you know what it is to have your life almost shattered. But with God’s help you have picked up the pieces of your life and today you are stronger than ever. Adversity strengthens us in a way that a life of ease never can. But even more important is the effect that overcoming weakness has on those around us.
The power of God is never more apparent than when a believer is made strong by his or her relationship with God. When you are confronted with a situation which you know you cannot handle without God’s help, then your life becomes a living testimony to God’s presence in the world.
Some of you are old enough to remember Roy Campanella, a catcher for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. Campanella won the Dodgers’ Most Valued Player award many times; he played on baseball’s All Star Team and in 1955 his Dodgers won the World Series.
In January 1958, Roy Campanella’s baseball career was cut short after a car crash left him a quadriplegic. The unthinkable had happened to him. This is the point at which so many people would give up on God and life, but not Campanella. After he was injured, he spent a lot of time in the Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in New York City.
One day he stopped to read a gold plaque upon one of the walls. This plague resonated deeply with his Christian faith. Some of you will recognize these words:
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.
I was made weak, that I might learn to humbly obey . . .
I asked for health that I might do great things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things . . .
I asked for riches that I might be happy,
I was given poverty that I might be wise . . .
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of others.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God . . .
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things . . .”
In response to these words Roy Campanella wrote, “I got nothing I asked for, but I received everything that I had hoped for.” (6)
Roy Campanella inspired more people off the field than he ever could have on the field. This is the mistake we often make. We think it is the perfect athlete who makes the best spokesperson for God . . . the glamorous actor . . . the polished speaker . . . the successful business person. People want to be just like them, we reason, including appropriating their faith. This leads us to think our witness is somehow inferior because we’re not athletic, glamorous, polished or successful. Nothing could be further from the truth. The best witness for Christ is authentic Christian living in the face of daunting adversity. It is when we allow God to lead us through the rough times, and in all things we give God the praise, then people will see the power of God made manifest.
Paul prayed that the thorn might be removed from his flesh. He heard God say to him, “My grace is sufficient for you . . . my power is made perfect in weakness.” That’s all Paul needed to become one of the most powerful witnesses for God who ever lived. My friends, that’s all we need as well.
1. Bantam, 1987. Cited by Dr. David E. Leininger, http://lectionary.org/Sermons/Lein/Mark/Mark_06.14-29_WhenEvil.htm.
2. Hugh Vickers, Even Greater Operatic Disasters (London: MacMillan, 1982), p. 41.
3. Edward Cornish, Futuring: The Exploration of the Future (Kindle Edition).
4. Charles Swindoll, Day By Day (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2000), p. 93.
5. Rev. Dr. Robert M. Franklin, http://day1.org/1328-strong_in_the_broken_places.
6. Gary Dennis, http://www.lacanadapc.org/transcripts/sm041104.html.