Channeling Grace--July 8, 2024

Channeling Grace--July 8, 2024

"Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong." [2 Corinthians 12:7b-10]

You want to know what kind of people Jesus chooses to work through? The ones with weaknesses.  The vulnerable ones.  The people labeled 'damaged goods' by the world.  The ones that the blowhards and bullies call "losers" who "aren't tough enough."  You know... all of us.

At least that's what the apostle Paul had come to recognize by the time he wrote these words to the Christians in Corinth: God's way is not so much to get rid of our weak places but to work through them.  And that means recognizing that God accepts us as we are, not merely in some future idealize version of ourselves when (or if!) we get around to fulfilling our greatest potential.  Maybe even the notion of having to become "better" (as in "stronger," "tougher," or "greater") is wrongheaded in the first place. Maybe instead, God would have us see the things we think of as flaws instead as channels through which God's power and grace can flow.  Maybe like the old Leonard Cohen lyric puts it: "There is a crack, a crack in everything--that's how the light gets in."

While we don't know the particulars of what Paul's "thorn in the flesh" entailed, we do know that Paul didn't like having it.  Some have posited that it was a chronic sickness, others a diagnosis of vision loss, others a season of depression, and still others think it was a person in Paul's life that he just couldn't get along with!  But whatever it was, Paul's approach to coping with this "thorn" grew and changed over time.  He went from first assuming that the "right thing" for God to do was to take it away to a new perspective in which God worked through the malady that Paul had only been able to see as weakness.  He went from seeing this affliction as something to be gotten rid of to seeing it as something to be understood, accepted, and yes, even valued as a means of God's goodness to be at work.  And his prayer life changed about it, too.  After a season (or, as he recounts it, three different times in his life) of praying that God would take away the "thorn," Paul came to a point instead where he listened instead to God's response.  And in that listening, he learned that God was going to work through the thing Paul could only see as a negative.  What he had seen as a weakness was instead the conduit for God's power.  What Paul thought made him unworthy and unacceptable was actually the way grace would get through--to Paul, and then through Paul to others as well.

Now, I don't think Paul is the exception to the rule. I don't think he tells this personal story to the Corinthians because he's the unique one-off case that will never be repeated--I think Paul wants us to know that this is how God works for all of us.  Instead of seeing ourselves as inadequate because of whatever list of "weaknesses" we see in ourselves, Paul would have us see those as the very channels through which God's power for good can be seen all the more.  Instead of thinking it's God's job to erase the things we see as flaws in ourselves, Paul would have us understand them as the cracks where the light gets in.  

And once we make that shift in our perceptions, then our understanding of who "matters" or "counts" among the people of Jesus changes, too.  We will no longer think of Jesus' community being limited to all-star saints or supposedly perfect people, but we'll see that Jesus only and always works through people with clay feet, broken parts, and weak places.  We'll see that we are the people, just as we are, through whom God's grace can flow.

What weaknesses or wounds that you and I have been trying to hide can we bring out into the open now, and even to offer up to God, because of that change of perspective?

Lord Jesus, take our weaknesses and wounds--not away, but take them into your transformative hands and let them channel grace.