Power in Weakness

Friday, July 3, 2009 -- Week of Proper 8, Year One

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 972)
Psalms 140, 142 (morning) 141, 143:1-11(12) (evening)
1 Samuel 13:19 - 14:15
Acts 9:1-9
Luke 23:26-31

Important Note: On Sunday I travel to the General Convention of the Episcopal Church. For the next two weeks I will be sending reports from the Convention to the Morning Reflection email list. To be on that email list, send your email address to secretary@stpaulsfay.org

Much of my focus will be on sermons, meditations, reflections and insights that happen there. I'll also report on the business and decisions of the Convention. My next Daily Office Morning Reflection will be July 20.

To follow my General Convention blog, please go to http://generalconvention.blogspot.com/


This Sunday's Epistle reading is a fascinating passage from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians. It opens: "I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven -- whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows. And I know that such a person -- whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows -- was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat." (1 Corinthians 2f)

It may be that Paul was remembering the incident that we read today in Acts, his conversion and call on the road to Damascus. Luke (the author of Acts) includes several details -- the flash of a light from heaven, the voice of Jesus who questions and calls him. These details are not included in Paul's later letter. In fact, Paul says nothing to the Corinthians about this remarkable experience of being caught up to the third heaven, except to reflect on his own weaknesses, and to ground his faith in this word from God: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." Christ's grace is sufficient and is most powerfully manifest in times when we are weak.

Paul knows what he speaks of. Three weeks ago when we were reading from 2 Corinthians, Paul listed the persecutions, jailings, beatings, shipwrecks, insults and calamities he has endured for Christ's sake. He knows himself to be strong when he is weak, and he knows it is Christ's power and presence that strengthens him.

After the mystical experience on the Damascus Road, Paul was left blind. He had to be led by the hand and cared for by others. In his weakness, he had have his first experienced of being welcomed into the Christian fellowship. In spite of his reputation as an enemy, he was cared for.

How nice that Paul's story of his vision and blindness which inaugurated his call to ministry is paired with the story of Simon of Cyrene, another story of another road. Simon is a bystander on the road that Jesus is walking with the cross. Simon is taken, apparently by random and without his permission, and he is forced to carry Jesus' cross. Apparently Jesus' weakness had become so extreme that he could no longer bear his own cross. He needed help to carry it.

We hear no more of Simon in the New Testament accounts. But it is likely that he continued within the community of the early Church, for his name is remembered when the Gospel accounts began to be written some forty years later.

In his weakness, Jesus needs Simon. Being at the wrong place at the wrong time, Simon is forced to do the ugly and strenuous job of carrying a stranger's means of criminal execution. Simon bears Jesus' cross, and he is remembered now two-thousand years later. The words Paul heard are not inappropriate on this road to Golgatha: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

Jesus' cross is God's power made perfect in weakness. In the words of the recently published proposed statement on Interreligious Relations, the cross is "the Christian symbol and act of self-emptying, humility, redemptive suffering, sacrificial self-giving, and unvanquished love." Whenever we participate in these acts of weakness, we are also bearing the cross of Christ. We are experiencing the presence of the crucified and risen One. We too can know that God's grace is sufficient for us, for power is made perfect in weakness."

Lowell

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About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html


The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas