SERMON OF JULY 5, 2009
M. Bruce McKay
Pilgrim - St. Luke=s United Church of Christ
"Dependence Day"
Mark 6:1-13, 2 Corinthians 12:2-10

On this 4th of July weekend most of the nation has been celebrating Independence Day by grilling in the backyard, picnicking in the park, going to the beach, attending parades, or watching fireworks.  These festivities are all designed to celebrate the declaration of our independence from Great Britain 233 years ago.
While Independence Day is certainly worth celebrating, it has little to do with celebrating the Good News of the Gospel.  On the 4th of July we turn to the flag as a symbol of our freedom and strength as a nation, and we come to church today to hear the Good News as it came to Paul..."My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
The 4th of July is a celebration of our national strength, national power and national independence.
On this 5th Sunday in the Season of Pentecost, we hear Paul remind us that our strength isn't found in our economic power, military might or political institutions. 
In Paul's view our strength doesn't lie in our declaration of independence, but comes from accepting, in fact celebrating, our dependence - our dependence on the grace of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
Now if you're like me, this doesn't initially sound like particularly Good News – especially on this Independence Day weekend. 
If you're like me, you place a premium on being independent - on being able to  meet your own needs and having sufficient strength to deal with the struggles that life brings your way.
Some of the most heart wrenching times in my ministry have been with older members of the church as they transition from living on their own to being dependent on others for their daily needs.  Their fear of giving up their independence and being dependent on others is often almost palpable.
 And yet, the Good News that came to Paul nearly 2,000 years ago and comes to us today is, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
 "Celebrate your weakness, as it reveals God's strength."
“Celebrate your dependence on the grace of God!” 
At best, this "Good News" sounds un-American, especially on the 4th of July. 
At worst, it sounds like a bad joke.  At least to those of us who prefer discovering God's strength, without being reminded of our own weakness.  If you're in that group then you have plenty of company, including Paul.
In today's passage, using the third person to describe his own experience, Paul presents the joy of being "caught up to the third heaven" and "caught up into Paradise."  How this happened only God fully knows, as Paul readily admits, but it's clear that through this experience Paul knew he was in the very presence of God.  Through this experience Paul knew the holiness of God present in Christ.
While most of us wouldn't say that we've spent much time in the third heaven or taken a trip to Paradise, my guess is we know something of what Paul experienced.  We know something of what it means to be in the very presence of God. 
When a child's smile melts your heart.  When a glorious sunset lifts your spirit.  When a piece of music seizes your soul.  When a friend offers you living hope in the face of devastating despair you catch of glimpse of the glory of God – the glory that Paul described as Paradise – the glory that only God fully knows or fully understands.
 
It was Paul's experience of the divine that made his human weakness so difficult to accept.  If Christ could carry him into the third heaven, why couldn't he remove a simple "thorn in the flesh?"  After all, this would help him in his work to spread the Gospel.  It would help him do the Lord's work in the world, or so he thought.
There's a story about a man named Androcles who lived not long after Paul.  George Bernard Shaw made him famous in his play Androcles and the Lion.  Androcles was a Roman slave who became a Christian.  He befriended a suffering lion by removing  a thorn from the lion's paw.  Later, when Androcles was gathered up with other Christians and taken to Rome to be fed to wild beasts for sport, the same lion spared his life.
 
Paul pictured himself like the lion in this story.  He wanted Jesus to remove his thorn in the flesh, as Androcles had done for the lion, so he, in turn, could express his gratitude by more effectively sharing the Good News of the Gospel.
Isn't that how most of us feel, most of the time?  Given a choice in the matter, wouldn't most of us like the Lord to be like Androcles, and simply remove whatever thorn is piercing our flesh or plaguing our lives?
There's been much speculation about Paul's "thorn in the flesh."  Some say he had epilepsy - others say it was eye trouble.  Some say he had malaria - others say it was a speech impediment.  No one really knows what it was.  All we know is that it was a source of suffering and that Paul wanted very much to have it removed. 
My thorn in the flesh has been more emotional and psychological than physical.  Sitting in seminary classrooms during my first semester I would often break out in a cold sweat and my heart would start to pound so rapidly that I was sure the person sitting next to me could hear it.  I’d have trouble catching my breath, making anything I attempted to say barely intelligible.
 In those first few weeks of seminary I came across today’s text from Paul for the first time and I would return to it time and time again, to remind myself that God’s grace is sufficient for somehow God’s presence and power were being revealed in my weakness.
 Going to seminary at the age of 27 was the first major decision in my life that was fully my own.  And here I was having panic attacks in the classroom.  With the help of a pastoral counselor and of professors who mercifully seldom called on me to speak, I got through that first semester.  After taking a few summer courses I left New York City to become the student minister at a small Presbyterian church in the Catskills.
 Many of you know that my anxiety about speaking in front of others hadn’t disappeared by the time I stepped into a pulpit for the first time. 
 On a September Sunday in 1977 I was leading my first service at the West Delhi Presbyterian Church.  To get through this I didn’t want to leave anything to chance – so I wrote everything out from my opening greeting to the final amen after the benediction.  I mean everything – expect the Lord’s prayer.
 In the middle of the prayer “give us this day our daily bread”  just wouldn’t  come to me.  And the sanctuary was filled with the deafening sound of silence.  After what seemed like forever I said, “…forever and ever, Amen!”
 After the service no one said anything to me about my memory lapse, except one of the farmer’s wives.  “Bruce, you seemed to have a few butterflies this morning,” was all  she said.
 Walking back to the parsonage I prayed to the Lord to remove this anxiety from me or I’d remove myself from the embarrassment of trying to be a pastor.
 My prayer that day was never fully answered, but I never followed through on my threat to leave the ministry – in part because in the months ahead, through the loving acceptance and affirmation of the Presbyterians in this parish I came to understand, along with Paul that God’s grace was sufficient for me – for God’s power was somehow made perfect in my weakness.
 Many years and lots of Lord’s prayers later, after I’d been here at Pilgrim-St. Luke’s for some time, my spirit seemed drained and my world began to close in around me in a way that had never happened before.  The cloud cover felt like it was almost within reach and getting out of bed became the first major chore of the day.
 While I did my best to hide this from everyone I could there was no way I could hide it from myself.  The words of Dante capture something of what this experience for me was like: 

Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost.  To tell
 About those woods is hard – so tangled and rough.

And savage that thinking of it now, I feel
 The old fear stirring: death is hardly more bitter.
 And yet, to treat the good I found there as well

I’ll tell what I saw…

From The Inferno of Dante, Robert Pinsky, trans. – Quoted in Let Your Life Speak, Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker J. Palmer, p. 56

What I saw was a pastor from down the street come to my office one day here at the church within an hour after I called him.  I’d told him that I was having a tough time and wondered if he could stop by.
What I saw was his active listening as I spoke about how hard it was trying to pretend I was someone other than who I knew myself to be. 
He asked me what I was afraid of. 
I said that I was afraid of being found out.  I was afraid of what people would think having a pastor who got depressed.
He asked me how I felt about parishioners who dealt with depression. 
I told him that I loved them the way I loved those who didn’t. 
“Don’t you think the people here can do the same thing when it comes to loving you as their pastor?”  he asked.
What I saw in the dark woods, with the right road lost, midway through my life’s journey, was the grace and goodness of people who loved me for who I was not for who I pretended to be.
What I saw more clearly than I ever had before was that God’s grace is sufficient  for me for somehow God’s presence and power were being revealed even in my weakness.
A week ago last Wednesday morning I was sitting in the basement of the Lutheran Church of the Reformation, a few blocks east of the Capitol in Washington, DC.  Fifty organizers were waiting for 13 buses to begin arriving from across the country for a day devoted to moving Congress closer to adopting health care reform legislation that would make adequate and affordable health care available for all Americans.
Dennis Jacobsen, a Lutheran Pastor from Milwaukee who has preached here at  Pilgrim-St. Luke’s, led us in a time of reflection before the buses began to arrive. 
“Why are you here,” he asked.  “Why is this issue important to you?”
 
He began the responses by saying that his younger daughter has dealt with clinical depression throughout most of her life.  A combination of psychiatric care, medication and counseling helped get her through high school and she’d just finished her first year of college.
He said that he was there that day because she will lose her health insurance and prescription drug coverage when she graduates from college.  Given this preexisting condition, she won’t be able to get the treatment and medication that’s helped keep her alive if no universal health insurance is available.
Another organizer spoke about her older sister who’d had a stroke a few months ago.   She was between jobs and had no health insurance.  She’s now paying her medical out of her 401(k).  In a matter of months she will have spent every penny she’d spent her life setting aside.
An organizer in her 20’s had a tumor removed a few years ago, at a time when she had no health insurance.  She will be paying off the $50,000 that this operation cost for years to come.
A pastor from Kansas City told about his nephew who’d done mission work in equatorial Africa and returned with a small lesion on his thigh.  When he got back to the States he didn’t see a doctor because he had no health insurance.  After he found a job it took a few more months for his health insurance to take effect.  When he finally went to a doctor he learned that he had a very malignant form of skin cancer.  It had spread to the point where there was nothing that could be done.   He has 3 to 6 months to live.
As these stories continued to be told it became increasingly clear that we were on holy ground in the presence of the One who knew the suffering that was being described  - the One whose grace is sufficient for us – the One whose power is made perfect in our weakness – the One whose passion is for justice to “roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!” (Amos 5:24)
As the buses began to arrive and people began pouring out of them, including 10 people from Pilgrim-St. Luke’s, I continued to sense the presence of the God in whom we all “live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28)
The God who asks us to both “do justice and love kindness” on our life’s journey. (Micah 6:8)
The God whose grace is sufficient for us and whose power is always present even in our weakness – the God whose light always continues to shine, even in the darkness.
In his poem Sweet Darkness David Whyte writes:

When your eyes are tired
the world is tired also.
When your vision is gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure you are not beyond love.
The dark will be your womb
tonight.

 
The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.
You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in…

 The world was made to be free in – free to see God’s light even in the deepest darkness – free to know God’s life and God’s love even in the face of death – free to experience God’s grace and God’s power even in our own weakness!  
That's the Good News on this Independence Day weekend!
It's not found in the words of Thomas Jefferson, but in the word of God, who speaks to us about discovering God's strength in our weakness, and God's presence in our pain.
I have some Good News today!
We worship a God who can always use the thorns in our flesh to reveal God's power, by reminding us that we can't bear these thorns through relying on our own strength alone - and we don't have to. 
I have some Good News today!
Our Lord Jesus was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God.
I have some Good News today!
God's grace is sufficient for us, for God's power is made perfect in our weakness!
I have some Good News today!
Thanks be to God!  Amen!