The Sermon for July 7th, the Sixth Sunday after Trinity
The Lessons: Ezekiel 2:1-7; Psalm 123; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10; Mark 6:1-6
The Text: 2 Corinthians 12:2-10
INTRODUCTION
Bill Lacovara was fishing near Atlantic City, New Jersey, when he spotted a plastic bag floating in the water. Inside he found about 300 requests for prayer that had been mailed to a local pastor. Most of the letters were unopened. The pastor had died two years earlier, and authorities speculated that the letters had been dumped as garbage after his house was cleaned out.
Some of the prayers were frivolous. “I’m still praying to hit the lottery — twice,” wrote one man. “First $50,000 — then, after some changes have taken place — let me hit the millionaire.”
Many of the letters were heartbreaking. They came from anguished spouses, children, and widows, all crying out to God. Some prayed for relatives who were using drugs, gambling, or cheating on them. One man wrote from prison, saying that he was innocent and wanted to be back home with his family. A teenager poured out her heart on yellow, lined paper, begging God to forgive her and asking for a second chance. “Lord, I know that I have had an abortion, and I killed one of your angels,” she wrote. “There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about the mistake I made.”
Lacovara felt sad that so many prayers had been tossed away unheeded. “How many letters like this all over the world aren’t being opened or answered?” he wondered. “There are hundreds of lives here, a lot of struggle, washed up on the beach.”[1]
— Wayne Perry, Associated Press, “Letters to God End Up in Ocean, Unread” (November 3, 2006)
Why would a pastor leave such prayer request letters unopened? Maybe he did not want to deal with his congregation’s sins, weaknesses, difficulties, and problems. Maybe he had too many of his own to deal with the problems of others. Or perhaps he felt that even praying for these people, that God would hear their prayers, would somehow tarnish his own image of appearing righteous and faithful to God. Perhaps he had even grown tired of being a pastor, not realizing that it is really a lifelong vocation.
PAUL’S ACCOUNT OF VISIONARY EXPERIENCES
St. Paul, on the other hand, took pride in his distresses, persecutions, troubles, and trials for the sake of the Gospel. Here in our Epistle Lesson today, St. Paul briefly mentions the visionary experiences of a man, and most scholars believe he is speaking about himself, who was caught up to the third heaven, which is probably paradise and heard “unspeakable words,” that is, words which God did not permit him to repeat to anyone. Some early Christians used accounts of visions of heaven to make a case for their spiritual authority. Whether St. Paul himself experienced these visions and revelations himself, or simply knew one or two Christians who had experienced them, he did not wish to take pride in them as a means of proving he was a true Apostle of the Lord.
Various saints down the ages have had visionary experiences and others have levitated from the earth during their times of prayer. But they have not taken pride in such experiences as though they were evidence of godliness.
Today in the Pentecostal churches there are a few who claim to have special spiritual authority because they have been to heaven and back, whether they went bodily to heaven, or in spirit. St. Paul warned us against reliance on visionary experiences:
Let no man rob you of your prize by a voluntary humility and worshipping of the angels, dwelling in the things which he hath seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast the Head, from whom all the body, being supplied and knit together through the joints and bands, increaseth with the increase of God.
(Colossians 2:18-19, ASV)
True visions and revelations of realities in the kingdom of heaven are not given to anyone to enable him to boast of these things or to show a sense of superiority to other Christians, but to confirm what the Bible teaches about these things, and to assist one in obeying God’s will in this life.
THE MESSENGER OF SATAN
I believe St. Paul makes it clear that he himself did not have such an experience of being caught up to heaven, when he writes:
Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.
(2 Corinthians 12:5, KJV)
St. Paul’s concern is that no-one should consider him in any other light than what they see of him and hear of him (2 Corinthians 12:6).
St. Paul’s insight into the purpose of “the thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7) which he asked God three times to remove, is that God’s refusal to remove this pain or suffering follows from His purpose of teaching St. Paul not to take pride in or rely on visions and revelations, but to rejoice in his infirmities, and so experience God’s power made perfect in his weakness. This does not mean that St. Paul delighted in suffering for its own sake, but rather in those trials, tribulations, distresses, persecutions, oppositions, and even hard lessons from God, that he endured for the sake of the Gospel. Emphasizing his rejoicing in these hardships, St. Paul could affirm, “For when I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10c).
But how is one strong when cumbered with weakness? It is through being identified with the Lord Jesus Christ in his weakness on the cross, while he suffered such agony. It is through our selfishness being put to death with Christ on the cross, and our pride being done away with, so that the new life of Christ and his love may rule in us.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, all that you endure for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ, though it be your weakness, will you view it as your strength in Christ?
[1] p.306, Craig Brian Larson & Phyllis Ten Elshof (General Editors): 1001 Illustrations that Connect. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, Christianity Today International, 2008.