Dr. David D. Young
June 26, 2005
Job 26
II Corinthians 12: 1-10
“Perfecting Your Power Stroke”

For those of us who have been using the summer to improve our stroke, whether in rowing, swimming, kayaking, golf, tennis or whatever – there has certainly been plenty of beautiful, warm weather to do so. How many of you remember power lunches, power breakfasts, power colors and power ties? Now we have power drinks and power bars. Just the other day, I took a power nap.

Ever since the beginning of human kind there has been a desire for power. Adam and Eve believed that if they ate the forbidden fruit – they would gain great knowledge and be almost as powerful as God. As though there is a simple formula for getting power – simply eat an apple or wear a certain tie – or drink a certain drink. And then there are those who spend an entire life-time pursuing control and power.

One of Disraeli’s admirers speaking about him to John Bright, said: “You ought to give him credit for what he has accomplished, as he is a self-made man,” “I know he is,” retorted Mr. Bright, “and he adores his maker.” You see, the danger of the myth of the self-made man – women is that it brings with it the potential pitfall of pride.

Whatever degree of power we have known in our life – I suspect that at sometime we have all fallen prey to the danger of pride – somehow thinking that we were better than we really were. That mid-life turned Christian, C.S. Lewis, offers this helpful insight in his book, Mere Christianity,

In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that – and therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison – you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud, you cannot know God. A proud person is always looking down on things and people and, of course, as long as your are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.

The apostle Paul struggled with balancing his tendency toward pride and the recognition that he was not better than others. The first three words of our Corinthian passage are, “I must boast.” Paul tempers this by saying, on my own behalf I will not boast – but for this other who has been caught up in vision and revelation. This other man was most probably Paul himself – only 14 years earlier. But even still, Paul refrains from sharing the revelations because he literally wanted to “spare” those to whom he was writing.

What Paul does want to boast of in this passage is his weakness.

Charlie Brown: “I hate having so many faults – I’d really like to be a better person. I wonder what it would be like to know that you were perfect?”

Lucy: “Take if from me, it’s a great feeling!”

Even with his rather large ego, Paul knew that he was far from perfect. Like Charlie Brown and like us, he too had many weaknesses and struggles.

The first clue from our text this morning is that life involves struggle. The power-game, on the other hand, promises the illusion that if we can just get enough control – we can rise above the struggles and hardships of life and eventually avoid weakness altogether.

I had a man come in off the street several years ago by the name of Gene. Gene was about 45 and a 4 ½ year old Christian whose business had gone bankrupt in Michigan. He was trying to get assistance as he was passing through town needing to get his family back to Pennsylvania – where they had other family to help them. He explained how he had looked up his church affiliation in the phone book – and upon calling the Four Square Gospel Church and explaining his problem to the pastor – the pastor replied and get this – he said, “Christians don’t have problems.” And so finding no help there, Gene had come to our UCC church where fortunately we were able to offer some assistance.

For even as people of faith – when we are honest and not seeking escape – we know that there is much suffering to go through.

The apostle Paul interprets his “thorn in the flesh” as a daily and bodily reminder of his weakness – helping him to avoid growing conceited and prideful. From Calcutta, the late, Mother Theresa shares an encounter,

“Once I was with a woman who was dying from cancer,” she said. “Never have I seen anyone suffer so. I told her that suffering was a gift from God and that pain is but a kiss from Jesus. The woman pulled me to her and said, “Please, Mother, have Jesus stop kissing me.” She gave me such a smile.

Suffering is such a mixed bag. It is not wonderful to be weak and to struggle. To be human is to struggle. To avoid struggle is to avoid being human. People struggle against life, against the odds and against the stream. People struggle with problems, with pain, with others, and with themselves. People struggle for balance, for strength, for relationships and for faith. To struggle is to be human.

From the Tales of the Hasidim, Rabbi Martin Buber shares a poignant story,

“A man who was afflicted with a terrible disease complained to Rabbi Israel that his suffering interfered with his learning and praying. The rabbi put his hand on his shoulder and said “How do you know, friend, what is more pleasing to God, your studying or your suffering?”

For Paul, the suffering, the weakness, the struggle provided balance from a prideful sense of power. In verse 7 we read,

“And to keep me from being too elated by the abundance of revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh.”

We don’t know what that thorn was – but we do know that it caused Paul to struggle with weakness.

We all have our own thorns – those things we struggle with most deeply – those things which limit us or make us feel helpless. Perhaps we struggle with accepting a painful truth about ourselves – or another person or about our life situation. The fact is there are things in our lives which makes us aware of our weakness – and so we struggle. And yes, we would probably rather not have to deal with them – if we had our choice.

Paul did not want his – he asked the Lord three times to remove his thorn. And the Lord replies in verse 9 with, “My grace is sufficient.” – which leads us to our second clue this morning – from struggle to support!

A gang of county-road repairmen were way out in the country to fix a road when they discovered they had left their shovels back in town. They phoned the county engineer to report their plight. “I’ll send the shovels out right away,” said the engineer. “Meanwhile, lean on each other.”

That’s not quite the kind of support we’re talking about. Whenever we struggle – we seek support – the key is where we find it and what kind it is. More often then not, the world tells us – we get it by using other people or by turning to self.

For instance, back to sports – if you are struggling with your stroke – you are told to develop better support and strength so that you can improve your power stroke. The problem is that the idea of perfecting your power stroke can get shifted over to your life’s struggles. And so, self-improvement, self-betterment and perfection become the goal again, a life without struggle and weakness.

Once when the great boxer, Muhammad Ali was in his prime, he was about to take off on an airplane flight and the stewardess reminded him to fasten his seat belt. He came back brashly, “Superman don’t need no seat belt.” The Stewardess quickly came back, “Superman don’t need no airplane, either.” Ali fastened his belt.

And yet, when we recognize our weakness and limiting factors – we can allow that which ultimately sustains us to support us. “My grace is sufficient for you.” Sometimes it’s hard to trust that kind of support when we’d rather not deal with our weaknesses and struggles or when we’d rather just fend for ourselves and handle it alone. God cannot help or use such a self-sufficient person.

One day a small boy was truing to lift a heavy stone, but he couldn’t budge it. His father, passing by, stopped to watch his efforts. Finally, he said to his son, “Are you using all your strength?” “Yes, I am,” the boy cried, exasperated. “No,” the father said calmly, “You’re not. You have not asked me to help you.”

In this way a weakness, a struggle can help us to sense our need for God. In Paul’s case, his weakness kept him from pride and made him ready to receive God’s grace, support and power.

“In thy word, Lord, is my trust, to thy mercies fast I flye; though I am but clay and dust, yet thy grace can lift me high.” So, penned the 17th century poet and theologian, Thomas Campion.

This brings us to our third clue for this morning – strength. Not the strength which comes from developed self-discipline, but the paradoxical strength that comes from weakness.

The world tells us to perfect our power stroke through self-improvement and doing away with weakness – minimizing our handicaps as it were. Whereas Paul tells us – to deal with our struggles – yes – but to balance that with relying on the Lord’s support. In verse 9 the Lord says,

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

That’s a different kind of power stroke. For Paul goes on to say,

“ I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”

The strange truth is that it is through suffering, brokenness, and struggle that God brings forth redemption, renewal, and strength.

In his book, A Farwell to Arms, Ernest Hemmingway wrote,

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong in the broken places.”

The kind of strength our text lifts up this morning is a total reversal of the world’s definition of strength. Our plea as followers of Christ is not for strength without weakness – but that we might have no more adversity than we can bear, and no more strength that we can stand – without becoming prideful. We need to remember that we are dust and ashes and at the same time that we are children of God.

In the mid- 1970’s, Adrienne Rich wrote a poem called “Power,” a section of which concerns Marie Curie, the French scientist who discovered radiation. Here’s how part of the poem goes: “Today I was reading about Marie Curie. She must have known she suffered for radiation sickness. Her body bombarded for years by the element she had purified. It seems she denied to the end the source of the cataracts on her eyes. The cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil. She died a famous woman denying her wound. Denying her wounds came from the same source as her power.”

How ironic isn’t it? The glow in the radium she spent a lifetime discovering was the glow in her struggle – a struggle that cost her her life. How she allowed a power greater than herself to support her in a struggle dearer than life itself.

Perfecting your power stroke in this way means following the way of the cross. For in it Christ was made weak and vulnerable – and yet the miracle and mystery of our faith affirm what we are pointed to – and that is the resurrection. And what is the resurrection – but a sign of power, of strength coming out of weakness – all for the energizing of new life.

As the late statesman, Dag Hammarskjold, so aptly put it in his spiritual journal entitled, Markings, “The irredeemable in a person of power: vice versa, the power of the redeemed.”

Struggle! Support! Strength!

These are the three clues to perfecting your power stroke. Life involves struggle! “ I will boast of my weaknesses – in fact a thorn was given me in the flesh,” said Paul. And in the midst of the struggle the Lord will support us.

No matter how deep the waters – no matter how devastating the weakness – the Lord says, “My grace is sufficient for you.” And then strangely – a strength is available that only God can give. “For my power is made perfect in weakness.” says the Lord. And as Paul concludes our text. “For when I am weak, then I am strong”

The secret to perfecting your power stroke is that you can’t – only Christ can – working in and through you! “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me,” wrote Paul.

In closing, I share with you a piece by the 17th century poet, Edmund Waller,

“The Soul’s dark cottage, batter’d and decay’d, lets in new light thro’ chinks that time has made; stronger by weakness, wiser we become as we draw near to our eternal home.”

In the struggles of life – if we will but let in the support of God’s grace we will be strengthened for whatever happens to us – as we seek to follow in the way of Christ!

So be it! Amen!