Weakness and Strength

By the Rev. Dr. Paul S. Nancarrow

This sermon is based on 2 Corinthians 12:2-10. An audio version of the sermon is available here.

“When I am weak, then I am strong.”

That statement, from our Epistle reading this morning, is one of those paradoxes of the Gospel, one of those statements of the Good News that seems self-contradictory on the surface, but with meditation and reflection reveals a deeper meaning — like “The last will be first” and “Blessed are the poor” and “Whoever loses their life will save it.” “When I am weak, then I am strong” on the face of it makes no sense — especially in a culture and a society like ours that values being strong and being independent and being able to take care of yourself and getting yourself whatever you want whenever you want it. To us, becoming weak in order to reveal a deeper strength just doesn’t add up.

But that is what Paul is talking about, in this second of his letters to the church in Corinth. It seems that sometime after Paul established the Corinthian church, when Paul himself had gone on, traveling further to plant new churches, some other traveling preachers arrived in Corinth — and these other preachers apparently wowed the Corinthian Christians. These preachers would speak about the revelations they had received, and the miracles they had done, and the signs and wonders they had performed. After a while of this, the Corinthians began to think, “Well, Paul wasn’t all that impressive, was he? He didn’t tell us about all the great things he had done. Maybe Paul’s teaching wasn’t all that good, either. Maybe we should be listening to these other preachers, maybe we should believe things their way, instead of the way Paul taught us.”

It was to answer that challenge that Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthians. And in that letter Paul explains, rather patiently, that when he was with them he didn’t draw attention to himself, to his revelations and signs and wonders, because as an apostle it was his job to draw attention to Christ, not to himself. It was his job to draw attention to the Holy Spirit, not to himself. It was his job, not just to talk about the Spirit, but to help the Corinthians experience the Spirit for themselves, so that it would be their revelations and their miracles and their faith that would be their connection-point to God. Paul says, If you want boasting, I can boast: I can tell you about my vision of the third heaven, I can tell you about all the times I’ve spoken in tongues, I can tell you about the unclean spirits I’ve cast out and the people I’ve healed. But what would be the point?, Paul says. The Good News about the Spirit forming Christ within us doesn’t come just by words, Paul says, it comes by experience. And for us to experience that together, Paul says, I have to set my own accomplishments aside, so that we can discover what Christ will accomplish among us. I have to put my own strength aside, Paul says, I have to put my own power aside, so that the Spirit can strengthen all of us and empower all of us, so that we can be more together than any of us can apart, so that God can do more with us than we on our own could ever ask or imagine.

When I am weak, Paul says, I open the space for God’s strength — and that is when I am strong.

And that same truth speaks to us, too: in our personal lives, in our spiritual lives, in our life together as a parish, as a community, as a nation: when we rely too much on our own strength, our own powers, our own abilities, then we are weak, then we are unsure of ourselves, then we can be consumed by the anxiety that we are not good enough. But when we can admit our weaknesses, when we know our need for help, when we can make room for God’s grace, then we are strong, then we are empowered by a power greater than our own, then we become able to do the work God gives us to do.

I knew a woman once who was a recovering alcoholic — and she would talk quite frankly about the path that led her to recovery. She said that for a long time she knew she drank “too much,” she knew she had a drinking “problem” — but she said she would never accept the words “addict” or “addiction” for herself or her situation. She said she always believed she was strong enough to stop drinking whenever she wanted — she just didn’t want to. She said that, looking back, she realized as long as she thought she was strong, then she was too weak to do anything about her drinking. It was only when some close friends did an intervention, when some people who cared about her deeply brought her face-to-face with the evidence of her own addiction — only then could she admit her weakness for alcohol — and only in admitting that weakness could she find the strength to trust her friends, and trust a treatment program, and trust that she could turn around and get clean and live a new life as a sober person. For her, too, it was when she was weak that she could open the space for God’s higher power, and only then could she become strong.

And I think there is a lesson there for our church, as well. I just heard yesterday that the House of Deputies of the General Convention, now meeting in Indianapolis, has voted to sell the Episcopal Church Center office building at 815 2nd Avenue in New York. That is a hugely expensive building, but that building, at that address, has served for a long time as a symbol of the prestige and importance and social position of our church. Not having that address will look to a lot of people like a big step backward. One person commented that “as a business owner” it looked to him like a failing enterprise “slowly selling off assets” before going under. I’ve never been to 815 myself, so I can’t comment on its merits as an administrative center. But I do know that giving up a prestigious address does look a lot like an admission of weakness, it does look like the Episcopal Church admitting to not being on the top of the social heap like it used to be. But there are many people in the church who see this admission of weakness as really an opportunity for strength. One deputy said that 815 was a “relic of our delusions of being an established church from an imperial era.” A lot of people think the old image of the Episcopal Church being “the upper class at prayer” (when I was a kid growing up in Michigan, I once heard someone call the Episcopal Church “General Motors at prayer,”and even as a kid I wasn't sure I liked that corporate image) is actually harmful for us today, because that notion of us being the church of the “upper crust” gets in the way of our doing Christ’s mission, it gets in the way of our reaching out to everyone, and making a tent big enough for everyone to come in, and standing with the poor and the outcast and the marginalized, and laboring for the transformation of our society to be less like a consumerist shopping mall and more like the Peaceable Kingdom of the Reign of God. As a church, our job is to draw attention to Jesus, not to ourselves; and maybe not maintaining a big expensive central office in New York will help us do our job better. Admitting our church’s weakness in institutional reach and social prestige may well be a way for us to become stronger in our on-the-ground work for the mission of Christ. On the national level, or even on our own local parochial level, thinking less about our institutional footprint and more about equipping every member for their mission might be a weakness that reveals a deeper strength.

So for Paul and for the church and for us, the same paradox of the Gospel holds true: when we are weak, when we know our need for grace, when we can put aside our pride and our boasting and our being too full of ourselves, when we can open space for God — then we become strong, then we are filled with a power greater than our own, then we become able to do more than we had ever thought was possible.

That is the Good News for us today. That is God’s invitation to us to live in the Spirit’s strength every day. Amen.