Standing Under the Scriptures
July 12, 2009

Dear Fellow Voyagers,

Our readings for this Sunday are:

Amos 7.7-17: The prophet tells off Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, for attempting to curb his prophesying against Israel.

Mark 6.7-13: Jesus sends his disciples to cast out demons, to preach repentance, and to heal the sick, in total reliance on the Lord for their material needs.

Both our readings last Sunday were extraordinary, each in its way. In our first, 2 Corinthians 12.1-10, we saw Paul begin with an experience so personal as well as extraordinary that he could not properly speak about it. Yet from there he proceeds to a truth which applies universally and which moreover makes explicit what the whole of Scripture points to. In our second, Mark 6.1-6, Jesus returns to his hometown. But ironically, instead of welcoming him enthusiastically, the people take offense at him. We considered our second reading only briefly; we were running low on time. But it serves well as an introduction to the first.

In Mark, Jesus’ return follows immediately on his raising of Jairus’ young daughter, the account of which was itself wrapped around his healing of a woman with a twelve-year hemorrhage. The townspeople have heard of “the mighty works wrought by his hands.” And when on the sabbath he begins to teach in the synagogue, they are astonished at his wisdom. But after their initial positive response, apparently, they remember his ordinary origins: as a carpenter and as the son and brother of local people whom they know. And their welcome of him as a hometown hero turns into taking offense at him. Jesus answers with a proverb about prophets being “not without honor” except in their own places of origin and among their own kin and families. He is able only to heal a few sick people there and, marveling at their unbelief, he goes out among the villages teaching.

One question to which this passage gave rise was why Jesus’ power to heal and perform other mighty works was so limited in Nazareth. Our supposition was that his healing power was available there, as it is available also to us today. But the people were resistant to the acceptance of it, as we also in our day resist, which kept and keeps it from being actualized. And the reason at least for our resistance is that we prefer to be in charge of our lives, or to think that we are. Acceptance would require us to admit that we are not.

The passage gives rise to a second question, namely why the townspeople rejected Jesus in the first place. And a similar answer may apply to it, to which a class member pointed by suggesting that it involved jealousy. The display of talents so much greater than their own might have been acceptable in an outsider. But in someone who shared their origins, as Jesus did, it highlighted the meagerness of their own. And just as they did not want to admit that they were not in charge, so also did they not want to accept their own inadequacy, their weakness and powerlessness. We may have encountered such a situation in our own families, as when we are looked down on by our (older) siblings. We may be less aware of doing likewise ourselves. Sadly, the phenomenon is widespread, occurring no less among clergy.

Regarding weakness and powerlessness, we found our 2 Corinthians passage to deal with them in a most extraordinary way. The passage is extraordinary enough in itself. Paul, after pronouncing boasting to be at the same time both necessary and unfitting, speaks---but therefore in the third person---of his experience of 14 years before. In this he was caught up into the third heaven, or paradise, apparently by way of a mystical vision. And there he heard things that were both unutterable and not to be uttered. But he is concerned not to make too much of this experience, saying that he will boast instead of his weakness, desiring to be regarded not for the revelations he received but only for what he can be seen and heard to be. He acknowledges, however, the danger of becoming himself too elated by these revelations. He goes on to say that to guard against this danger he was given a “thorn in the flesh.”

About the nature of this thorn there have been many speculations but no definite conclusions. We supposed that it might have been some physical or even mental ailment but were not able to resolve the question either. Notably Paul speaks of it as a messenger of Satan while also regarding it as an instrument of God, with the necessary implication that God is able to use even evil for the accomplishment of his purposes. Evidently it was a serious matter, for he asked the Lord three times to remove it from him. It is the Lord’s answer which is the crux of this passage, having been arrived at by a sequence of thought which makes us hold onto our hats as we round the turns but the logic of which is nevertheless necessary: “My grace is sufficient for you, for (my) power is made perfect in weakness.”

I submitted, without encountering objections, that in this passage the truth which is implicit in all the rest of Scripture comes to the surface. A similar surfacing is to be found in the Beatitudes, but this is in terms of the blessedness of what is generally regarded as God-forsakenness rather than of the power to be found in weakness. Taking the Exodus, the emergence of Israel’s prophetic movement, and Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection as the focal events of biblical redemption history (as I do in my book---and thereby hangs a tale), we could see how this theme underlay all three. When Pharaoh’s pursuing army trapped the fleeing Hebrews at the Sea, they utterly despaired. But through accepting the impossibility, humanly speaking, of their situation, it was given to Moses to declare: “Fear not, stand fast, and see the salvation of the Lord which he will perform for you this day.” And by the Lord’s hand they were delivered. To the prophets it was given to accept the impending destruction of the nation and exile of the people, first by the Assyrians and then by the Babylonians, from which most averted their eyes, as we avert ours from catastrophes looming over us. And thereby they were enabled to see that this outcome was a matter not of the Lord being unwilling or unable to fulfil his covenant with Israel but rather of the people having fallen short. Thus they preserved the validity of the covenant. Finally, out of Jesus’ acceptance of the utter powerlessness and shame and desolation of death on the cross came the supreme power of his resurrection.

Paul concludes this Corinthians passage with “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.” It must be acknowledged that for us it is not easy to be similarly content with the weaknesses, disappointments, and failures that we encounter. It is not just difficult, it is humanly impossible. It is only through the Lord’s power that we can acknowledge our powerlessness, just as it is only through the Lord’s grace that we can acknowledge our sinfulness. But if we ask him for this power in consciousness of our own inadequacy, he will not fail to grant it.

Faithfully, Fr. Ted