Sermon Title: “A Thorny Problem”
Grace and peace to you from the God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
One of my favorite devotional writers is a Chinese Christian Pastor who was martyred during the long reign of Mao Tse Tung. His name is Watchman Nee and he has many superb devotions based on scripture. To illustrate the principles of strength being made perfect in weakness, which St. Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians, Nee tells the story of a peasant during the mid 1960’s of China’s “cultural revolution.” For those of you who don’t remember what was happening, the “cultural revolution” was a purging or purification of things that were not strictly Marxist or Communist. Artist and intellectuals were persecuted, ridiculed or imprisoned and Christians were a particular target of the Commissar and Party bosses.
This poor peasant farmer in central China tried to live out his life in peace. He was a Christian surrounded by Communists. His family had been Christians for generations since Westerners had introduced Christ more than a century before. This farmer grew rice in a paddie he shared with several other farmers. Each morning he’d get up and irrigate his rice fields by operating a foot pump that drew water up from the ground. It was arduous work. He spent several hours doing the pumping and just when he was finished, his communist party boss neighbor would make a hole in his irrigation ditch and drain all the pumped water into his field, his field being at a slightly lower elevation.
The peasant farmer was furious, but also powerless. His neighbor in affect was in a position to force him to irrigate his fields. His communist neighbor exploited his hard work and made him his slave. As you can imagine, this was soul killing to the Christian farmer. He asked his Pastor, Watchman Nee what to do. Nee replied, “You can do nothing, but God can do anything. You must pray for your neighbor and concentrate on Jesus’ teachings about enemies. Jesus taught to do good to those who despitefully use you and if they strike you on the right cheek, turn the other cheek to let them strike it.”
We have all had people who have hated us and would take delight in our misfortune. Paul speaks generically in our lesson today about a thorn in the flesh that he had asked God to take away. The word that we translate as “thorn” can also mean splinter – like a little sliver of wood that gets in under your skin and causes pain and irritation. This same word “skolon” can also mean a stake – like a stake you would drive into the ground to hold a tent up. Paul might be saying that this thorn, splinter or stake is a condition which has in a sense immobilized him, tethered him into a particularly awkward and painful spot. He talks about it and says that Satan uses it against him. He calls it a “messenger of Satan”.
We have no idea what he is speaking about. But we all have little “messengers of Satan” which put us to the test. Perhaps your thorn is a physical condition. A friend is a diabetic and loves to eat but has to watch every calorie and the kind of calorie that goes into her mouth. Eating isn’t just eating for her – she can eat the wrong things, go into an insulin shock, a coma and even die. Her condition caused her horrible anger which would erupt in her at times and she’d be surprised. She had to make peace with her condition, or else live in torment.
Another person had a reading disability. No matter how hard he tried, or what remediation he sought, reading was like sloughing through three feet of mud for him. It was slow, hard work, laborious. It limited his life and restricted him. Thorns, splinters, and Satanic stakes come in all varieties.
We’ve all had the impossible to please: a boss, or a neighbor or co-worker who was ever ready to pick a fight. Some thorns are natural and some are perverse and the result of deliberate sin. We would all like peace and quite, plenty and prosperity but we also know that isn’t to be expected too much in this life. Everyone gets thorns, splinters or Satanic stakes. How we deal with them teaches us a great deal about Christ and about grace.
Sometimes, our thorns are also gifts. When I was in seminary, one of my classmates had a brilliant theological mind. He was so smart that he and our systematic theology professor often had a half hour dialogue in class and the rest of us mere “mortals” had trouble even making sense of what they were talking about. While gifted, he had no patience with others who were not as smart as he was, and he seemed horribly arrogant. Seminary is a four year process and during his internship, he was told that unless he dealt seriously with his “gift – thorn” he could never be ordained because he lacked the basic compassion and sensitivity necessary to do pastoral ministry. Emerson once said, “As no man ever had a point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had every a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him.” He was told that if he wanted to be a Pastor he had to spend a year doing chaplaincy in a mental hospital with the profoundly retared. He did and he came out a changed being. His great brain was of no use to him in this setting. He had to learn to react and communicate with his heart, with his feelings. After a year of humility he became a dazzling pastor.
St. Paul says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. It will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me for when I am weak then I am strong.” We cannot control all things. We cannot by the sheer force of our will bend all conditions to our volition. Today’s wisdom from St. Paul seems paradoxical. Sometimes we are simply told to trust and rely on God’s power, not our own, and to have faith. There’s an old proverb which says “Let go, and let God”. It means that we are to have faith that God will do what we cannot.
Jesus had to do this also. On the cross he stretched out his arms and with hands opened up to God, nailed helplessly to the cross, Jesus let go. From his act of submission, God healed the world of all its sin and rescued us from death. This is God’s power at work in the world.
Yield to this power
Trust in it.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen
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