Shady
Grove Presbyterian Church
July 5,
2015
Psalm 123
II
Corinthians: 12: 2-10
Prologue:
“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we
think we’re supposed to be and embracing who we are. Choosing to be authentic
means: cultivating the courage to be imperfect, exercising the compassion that
comes from knowing that we are all made from strength and struggle and
nurturing the connection and sense of belonging that can only happen when we
believe that we are enough.” (Brene’ Brown: The Gifts of Imperfection)
Sermon
According to ancient Christian legend, God created the angels
to worship and serve God. Then God created the world and human beings. “Serve
humans and worship me,” was God’s command to the angels.
To the angels, this was a strange command. They were pure
spirit. So why should they defer to lesser beings? Why should they mingle with
earthly matter?
Now, as it happened, there was one angel who was the most
beautiful and brilliant of all the angels. His name was Lucifer, known as the
“light-bearer.” Lucifer, immersed in his own brilliance and enamored of his own
beauty, declared, “I will not serve humans!”
And so it was that Lucifer and his followers were cast out of
heaven and into a place created for devils.
In commenting on this popular story, St Augustine observed,
“It was pride that changed an angel into a devil; it is humility that changes
men into angels.” (Kurtz & Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection)
“Have mercy, upon us, O Lord! Have mercy upon us!” The
psalmist prays, telling God, “We have had more than enough of contempt. We have
had our fill of scorn.” As people of faith we realize that when we pray this
prayer in all sincerity, God is most likely in her wise and merciful way to put
a mirror before our faces. Because she is most interested in our spiritual
growth and maturity, she invites us to see how we have shown contempt for
others, how we have been scornful, arrogant and full of pride. Few of us are
pure victims and none of us are innocent.
If we pay attention, if we take our spiritual life seriously we
learn to pray, “Have mercy on us, Lord! Have mercy on us in spite of our repetitive failings, in spite of our pettiness, in
spite of our insistence on comparing ourselves to others.”
In today’s epistle reading from Paul’s second letter to the
church at Corinth we read Paul’s defense of himself. The Corinthians are being
seduced by prophets, men who claim to have special powers and mystical
connections with Christ and heaven. At one point, Paul refers to them as “super
apostles.” He is defending himself as an apostle and he is trying not to boast
in an effort to differentiate himself from the boasting super apostles. It’s
tricky. He doesn’t want to fall into the pattern of his opponents. And yet he
must steer clear of ugly accusations and blaming. That can be so demeaning when
we’re trying to look dignified and righteous. After all, this is the church. It
is the early church and we can only hope that early Christians abstained from
impertinence and pettiness in their relationships with one another. Right?
Wrong. Humans have always been humans, in the church and everywhere. Paul is as
human as you and I as he defends his position as an apostle.
A story: One night the pastor of a Presbyterian Church, in a
frenzy of religious passion, rushed to the front of the sanctuary and fell on
his knees. Beating his breast, he cried out to God, “I’m nobody! I’m nobody!”
An elder in the church, impressed by this example of spiritual humility, joined
the pastor on his knees, crying, “I’m nobody! I’m nobody!” The church custodian
was watching from the hallway. He joined the other men on his knees, calling
out, “I’m nobody! I’m nobody!” At that point the pastor nudged the elder, “Hey!
Look who thinks he’s nobody!”
Humility is not self-abasement and it is not self-exultation.
To be humble is NOT to make comparisons. It is to recognize the reality: Each
of us is no better or worse than the one next to us. We are who we are and on
our own particular spiritual journey, trying to connect with the best of
ourselves more often than not. We hope to do the least harm and, if we’re
fortunate, to find ways to help ourselves and others find God and live in peace
together.
We like to blame other people when things do not go to suit us
or when things go badly wrong. It’s those immigrants. It’s the city council!
It’s the police! It’s the Republicans! We find somebody to blame and that
allows us to feel more secure, superior. But blaming is counterproductive to
progress as individuals, as a church and as a society.
Andrew Aghapour recently wrote an article on this topic for
“Religion Dispatches,” an online magazine. http://religiondispatches.org/our-failure-to-understand-ferguson-a-cognitive-explanation/?utm_source=Religion+Dispatches+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b9e6fbdafc-RD_Daily_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_742d86f519-b9e6fbdafc-42422221
Included in the article is a short film that shows the NYC
subway stop on 36th Street. There is something absolutely unique
about that subway stop. One of the steps in the staircase leading up to the
street level is a fraction of an inch higher than all the other steps. The
video shows person after person tripping on that difference. Black people, white people, men, women, young,
old, a man carrying a baby, a woman carrying a briefcase…people trip. Fast-paced
piano music underscores all the people tripping and catching themselves. (It’s
funny!)
James Bording observes: “On its own, when you see one person
slip, you automatically assume that person who slipped was clumsy or not
playing attention. But when you look at the aggregate, you realize that the
failure isn’t on the individual at all, rather the structures that cause
certain people to fail with almost no fault of their own. And yet, without this
data, people will very quickly ascribe the mistake to themselves.” I must be
clumsy.
In the case of this subway step, it would be inaccurate to
solely blame each individual for tripping. Only by observing the aggregate can
we see how a social structure—here, the design of a stairwell—is a more
powerful cause of what seem like individual errors.
We all trip. We all deal with larger surrounding forces that
throw us off balance from time to time. All of us make mistakes. We get it
wrong and have to try again. We’re imperfect. And because that is true, it just makes good
sense for all of us to let up on the blaming and our attempts to one-up the
other guy. It makes good sense to find ways to value ourselves and our neighbors. It makes good sense to work together to right wrongs and to leave the world in better shape than it was before we got here. It makes good sense to realize we all need to lean on the mercy of God.
There’s something more, something bigger, wiser and filled
with more love than we are able to imagine out there. That something is the God who created each
one of us. While we make mistakes, God does not make mistakes. So it is safe
for us to trust that we are who we are meant to be—even with our flaws and
shortcomings. We are God’s creation and so are our neighbors. It is as much a
mistake to judge and condemn our neighbors as it is for us to allow the
negative judgments and condemnations of our neighbors to overwhelm us with
shame. Our neighbors’ opinions are nothing in the light of God’s creative
brilliance and love for each one of us.
Paul tells the Corinthians that he has struggled with a thorn
in his flesh. Maybe he is referring to a chronic sinus infection. Maybe the
thorn is a particularly annoying person in Paul’s life, somebody toward whom he
cannot feel kindly. Maybe Paul is referring to an attraction for men. Some
scholars think Paul dealt with homosexuality. We do not know what the thorn was
but we do know that Paul was courageous enough to be vulnerable. He models for
us authenticity and vulnerability. Something about himself was not what he
would have chosen for himself. Repeated prayers received this response from
God: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
Accept who you are and have faith. It is so simple. We find
that kind of simplicity so difficult to trust.
Paul concludes by realizing that he is grateful for his weakness, this
thorn in his flesh. It is his weakness (an intentional
gift from God) that leaves an opening, a place to connect with all that is
good. “Just as I am.” Paul might start singing. He was well loved and put to
good use by God—just as he was. Just as I am. Just as we all are.
Amen
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