EZEKIEL 2:1-7

PSALM 123

2 CORINTHIANS 12:2-10

MARK 6:1-6

Sermon – July 6, 2003

“God’s Power is Made Perfect in Weakness”

This morning we hear how three “spiritual superstars” resisted the temptation to worship success instead of God. If whatever a person puts at the center of his or her life is what or who that person worships, then worshipping “success” is a highly popular form of idolatry in our world today, perhaps especially in America. How often are we tempted by the desire to focus our efforts on having more power, more money, more status, more education, more friends, more good looks, more of whatever matters to us than others in our family, our workplace, our neighborhood, among our classmates or whatever reference group matters to us? Ah, but “success” like this can be both elusive and quick to evaporate: a politician can win easily in one election and be soundly rejected in the next, a dot.com star can be a multi-millionaire on paper one year and searching for a job the next, a classmate can be voted “most likely to succeed” as a 12^th grader and look back at 12^th grade as the person’s pinnacle of success. And even when one’s accomplishments don’t disappear, there will be someone else who comes along and accomplishes just a little bit more, making our achievements yesterday’s news.

The temptation then is to focus more fanatically on “success”, to take greater risks, work even longer hours, sacrifice more of whatever in our lives is not measurably part of our “success” plan. Sometimes, people will adopt spiritual disciplines as part of their drive towards “success” – not because they want to be closer to God or more loving to other human beings, but because they think certain beliefs or practices will help them achieve what they want. Faith, prayer, even God himself become means to their objectives.

Some so-called evangelists even encourage this, spouting that “Jesus wants you to be successful” and at least implying that “if you really believe in Jesus you will be “successful.” When the inevitable happens – the person’s “success” is eclipsed by someone else, fades of its own accord, or continues but the person starts to wonder how his or her life became so one-dimensional and meaningless – the person in this case may blame God for “letting them down” or “abandoning them” or may even conclude that God does not exist, whereas it’s really the false god of “success” which has been shattered.

On the other hand, there are people who have never been first in their class, won popularity contests, been on any “fast-track” or perhaps even considered themselves to be “successful” as measured by the usual standards of materialistic society. And they may pray and worship with true devotion and wonder if God ever will – or wants to – make them “successful”.

To people in any of these circumstances I say: let’s meet (in chronological order) Ezekiel, Jesus and Paul. Here are, paradoxically, three of the all-time greats of the Bible – who, in their lifetimes, rarely found “success”.

Our Old Testament reading tells of Ezekiel’s call by God to be a prophet, to be the one who would speak God’s word to the people. God does not exactly give Ezekiel a traditional pep talk. On the contrary, God tells Ezekiel how difficult his mission will be, how little the people of Israel may listen to him, and how much opposition he may face. “Do not be afraid of their words, though briers and thorns surround you and you live among scorpions” does not rank among the all-time cheery recruiting pitches. But God’s point is this: be faithful, whether or not you think you are being successful. God is in charge of ultimate results, not us. All we have to do is be faithful, to do what God tells us to do. If we’re successful, that’s gravy.

Anyone starting to feel relived – or puzzled – or surprised?

Fast-forward to Jesus. If Jesus had been running for office, he would not have carried his hometown, or province. We hear that loud and clear in this passage from Mark’s Gospel. If we thought Jesus’ spectacular “successes” – healing the sick, stilling the storm, enthralling multitudes with his teaching, even raising the dead – would yield landslide popularity, guess again. The skeptics and the scoffers won out over the discerning and the grateful. If you’ve had days like that, Jesus understands, because he had a career like that.

So what did he do? Zap them? Get depressed? Give up? No – “He was amazed at their unbelief” – perhaps thinking, “So what does it take for you guys to get it?” – and “then he went about among the villages teaching.”

He kept on keeping on. The message for us: be faithful whether or not you think you are being successful. God’s “scorecard” is the only one which ultimately counts, and effort counts.

Paul by the time he writes the passage which forms today’s Epistle has reason to be aggravated. He threw away all the status and accomplishments he had as a Pharisee when he became a follower of Jesus, yet now he finds himself “dissed” by a church which owes an enormous amount to him as though his fellow Christians had adopted the Pharisaic mentality he had left of “show me how strong, accomplished and successful you are.”

Paul claims that he can equal or exceed the profound, ecstatic spiritual experiences of his competitors, but that that is not the point. In fact, he then boasts of a weakness, apparently a chronic physical malady!

Although he had prayed three times that the malady be taken away, he now concludes that he received it to keep him from being too “puffed up” with spiritual pride from his extraordinary experiences, and to illustrate a more general point: God does not need his servants to be perfect, or strong, or “successful”. Christ told Paul “’My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness’”.

That stands conventional secular materialism on its head! Godless people worship success, think the only source for success is themselves, and think the only remedy for the short-comings of power is more power. Paul urges us to worship God, to recognize that the decisive power in the world comes from God, and to remember that weakness can be a vehicle for God’s power.

We can see this in life today. We can see it on the big stage of history where 10 years ago a diverse group of powerless, faithful Christians in South Africa effected a spectacular change in that country after decades of what seemed like faithful futility. And we can see it on the very small stage of this altar platform, when an acolyte who was born with an Apgar score of zero discovers how much she can do at the altar despite a disability, and flashes the “thumbs-up sign” to her father.

God’s power is made perfect in weakness.

Anybody here have any weaknesses? Let us be open to discovering how God’s power can shine through our weaknesses, not just our strengths, and the weaknesses of others! Let us never think of ourselves – or others – as useless or as failures but simply as vehicles of God’s love and power, which can be manifested in our greatest abilities – and in our weaknesses. While we are striving to be faithful and not sacrificing our lives on the altar of the false god of “success”, we can be kept company by our strengths and by our weaknesses, confident that God can use them all in ways too wonderful for us to predict.

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church