Sexagesima February 24, 2019 The Sunday of the Sower
Sexagesima
Luke 8:4-15 & 2 Corinthians 11:19-12:9
February 24, 2019
Puff Out Your Chest? -OR- Pick Up Your Cross?
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
After St. Paul did his work in Corinth, preaching the Gospel in that city, later on some other men came in there and started talking bad about Paul. They called him weak and ineffective. It became a battle for power. Who was better? Who should the people listen to? Well, St. Paul uses a great term for these guys. He twice calls them super-apostles (2 Cor. 11:5, 12:11). That’s right before and right after our Epistle today, he calls them super-apostles.
Today we have all these movies coming out all the time about super-heroes. Men and women with hyper strength and hyper speed and hyper minds. Well, Paul calls these guys hyper apostles. Super apostles. Of course, he’s saying it tongue-in-cheek. He doesn’t really believe they’re super apostles. But they do. They think they’re better than Paul.
So if someone were to say to you, “You’re not as good a Christian as I am,” how would you defend yourself? What if someone said, “Oh, you go to that old, boring Trinity Lutheran Church? Real Christians don’t go there, you know. You don’t really love the Lord as much as we do. You must not be all that serious about your faith.” So what of it? What if someone questions your faith? Because that’s exactly what they’re doing to Paul. Calling him into question. He’s not a super-apostle like they are.
What you and I would be tempted to do is start listing off all the reasons that we’re real Christians and good Christians. “Well, I’ve been going to church since I was born. Well, I pray every single day, morning and night. Well, I joined the church in such and such year and I’ve been going every Sunday since. Well, I’ve served in the church for years as a Sunday school teacher or an Elder or in the Ladies Aid or on the Corn Festival committee. Well, I’ve been through more suffering than most people and I’m still a Christian.”
We’d be tempted to puff out our chest. That’s what we’d say. “Hey, you don’t know who you’re talking to. I’m a great Christian. A better Christian than you. And I’ll tell you why.”
Well, interestingly enough, Paul decides to play that game. He says, “Alright, you want me to act like a fool, then I’ll act like a fool.” And he goes on to list all the things he could boast of if he wanted to. He’s got all the right family lineage. He’s a real Hebrew. An Israelite. Of the tribe of Benjamin. He’s the real deal. And they think they’re servants of Christ? Well, Paul’s been through more. He’s been beaten, imprisoned, lashed, stoned, shipwrecked, adrift at sea, in danger, sleepless, hungry, thirsty, and pressured by all the churches.
And even more than all that. If you want Paul to boast, he’ll boast. If you want to talk about being a super-apostle, then Paul will tell you about the day when Jesus met Him on the road to Damascus. And he was caught up into heaven and given visions and revelations of the Lord. Do you want to boast? Paul will play the fool.
But no. No, he says, I won’t boast of any of that. If you ask me about being a Christian, there’s only one thing I’ll boast of. It’s not how long I’ve been a Christian or what Church I go to or how many people I’ve witnessed to or how many mission trips I’ve been on or how much I love Jesus. If I will boast, I will boast of…my weaknesses.
Boast of his weaknesses? So Paul talks about his “thorn in the flesh”. You all have a thorn in the flesh too. Many of them actually. Your weaknesses. The things about yourself that you wish weren’t there. That you wish were different.
I’m sure you’ve all gotten a thorn stuck in you at some point. Or at least a splinter. And what’s the only thing you want to do with that thorn or splinter? Get it out! That’s what we’d like to do with our weaknesses. Get rid of them immediately. We hate our weaknesses.
What was Paul’s weakness? What was his “thorn in the flesh”? We don’t know. But one theory I find very intriguing is that he had a speech impediment. He complains several times that he’s unskilled in speaking. So Paul maybe didn’t have a good stage presence. He lacked great charisma in the pulpit maybe.
At any rate, what did God say about taking that weakness away? Not a chance. No. God says, “My grace is enough for you, Paul. My grace is stronger than your weakness.” So, Paul says, if I will boast, I will boast of my weaknesses. What about you and me? Will we boast of our weaknesses? We ought to. Because if we don’t, then we’re always in danger of losing.
Here’s how this works. It’s not hard. If you boast of yourself and raise yourself up and how great a Christian you are and how you’re a super-apostle—then what happens to Jesus? He goes down. That’s exactly how pride works. When we puff out our chest and raise ourselves up, then Christ goes down. We don’t need Him. And pride always comes before a really big…fall. This is why pride is the root of all other sins. It’s the foundational sin of raising ourselves up against God.
Now, on the other hand, when I boast of my weaknesses…when I am humbled…when I recognize how great my sin is….when I see all the thorns in my flesh….when I see just how much I need the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ my Savior—then who goes up? Christ does. As John the Baptist says, “He must increase. I must decrease.” That’s how humility works. The opposite of pride. When I am humbled, Christ is exalted. And that’s why you and I must learn with St. Paul to boast of our weaknesses.
You are weak in many ways. So am I. Embrace it. Because guess who else became weak? Guess who else prayed three times, “Lord, take this away from Me?” Who was that? Not Paul. It was Jesus. In the Garden of Gethsemane. With drops of blood sweating from His brow. “Lord, take this cup from Me.”
Did Jesus win the world with a feat of strength? Did Jesus conquer the world with hyper power or hyper speed or hyper mind? No. He won the world in weakness. He won the world by humbling Himself, under the mighty hand of God, so that God might be exalted and the whole human race might be saved from sin.
You don’t like your weaknesses? Guess what. Those very weaknesses are what join you to this One here on the cross. God did NOT take that cup from Him. God said to Jesus our Savior, “My grace is sufficient for you. For My power is made perfect in weakness.” Through the death of Jesus Christ, God saved you and me. Through weakness.
Now then, would you like God to take away all your weaknesses? To remove all your thorns? Careful what you ask for. Those weaknesses and thorns are the exact places where God shows forth His power and grace in you. His grace is enough for you. No matter what your thorn. His grace is enough for you.
Now let’s use the parable in the Gospel reading today to wrap this all together. What makes a good Christian? Are you a good Christian? We already know we can’t boast of ourselves and how super we are. And in the parable of the Sower Jesus is giving that warning. He is warning about the many dangers that will take away faith in Jesus.
So how do we stay humble? How do we learn to live with our weaknesses and even cherish them? How do we ensure that Jesus Christ continues to be raised up in our lives? There’s one sure and certain way. The Parable of the Sower tells us exactly. What is the one thing that will keep you humble and raise up Jesus in your life? The Word of God. The seed.
You and I must live in the Word of God. Not live in ourselves and say, “Look at what a super-Christian I am.” We must live in the Word of God. Every Sunday we must live in it here at Church. Confessing our sins. Praying together. Hearing sermons together. Taking the Lord’s Supper together. All of us coming together with all our thorns and weaknesses and hearing God in His Word saying, “My grace is sufficient for you.”
But we must also live in the Word of God the rest of the week. We must live in it. The devil’s birds are swooping down and eating the seeds. The thorns and cares of the world are trying to choke us out. We must live every day in the Word of God. That goes for every one of you here today.
So at our Council meeting last Wednesday night we talked about that many of us probably struggle with where to start when it comes to reading the Bible at home. I have often struggled with it. But like anything else, if you want to do something you need a plan. And we are so blessed today to have Bible reading plans available all over the place. So on the back of the sermon insert this morning I’ve listed a whole bunch of places that you can find a plan for reading the Bible every day. First, you decide if you want to use your own Bible and look up the readings every day. In that case, you need a list printed out that you can follow every day. Portals of Prayer gives you a list or there’s one in our hymnal, etc. If you’d rather have it all right in front of you that you don’t have to do the looking up, then use your phone or computer. Or buy a book. Whatever you do, you have a plan and have it easily available every day.
The more we’re living in the Word—then the more we learn humility and to cherish our weaknesses—and then the more that Christ is lifted up and exalted—and the more the power and grace and mercy of the Lord rests upon us.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
