“Great Endurance” Colchester Federated Church, June 23, 2024, Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (2 Corinthians 6:1-13)

There’s a great story I once heard in a leadership training about frogs.  So, there were two frogs who loved to hang out around a farm.  One morning, the frogs were jumping up and down on the shiny, clean floors of the dairy house—just having a grand old time.  But then the wife of the family saw these two frogs hopping around and understandably had a fit, especially since they were contaminating the shiny, clean floors.  She found a broom and tried to chase those frogs out of the dairy house.  The frogs panicked, but saw that there was a good hiding spot in the corner, and conveniently a place where the broom couldn’t reach them.  The frogs hopped away as fast as they could and jumped as high as they could over a wall until they landed in a big bucket of fresh cream, cream that was recently drawn off the milking pail.  One of the frogs immediately lamented, “Well this is it!  We’re done for.  There is no chance we are getting out of this one.”  But the other frog wouldn’t give up hope yet.  That frog instructed his friend to keep paddling until we figure a way out together.  “We will think of something.  Don’t give up!”

The other frog began to complain about how tired he was from all that jumping up and down on the dairy floor.  Plus, he had to jump the highest he had ever jumped in his frog life to even make it over the wall and into this pail.  The frog said, “I don’t have anything left in me to keep paddling in this bucket of cream.  There’s no use.  We’re done for.  We are not going to get out of here.  It’s too thick to swim in and it’s too thin to walk on and it’s too slippery to crawl out of.  There is no use!”  The frog ended up giving up, sinking down to the bottom of the bucket, and died. 

Though his friend kept on paddling.  That frog would not give up.  That frog paddled all through the night, alone.  He sometimes felt like giving up and joining his friend down at the bottom of the bucket, but something inside of him forced him to keep going and to keep on paddling.  Eventually the sun rose, and a new day dawned.  The frog who wouldn’t give up looked down at the cream through his froggy sweat and tears of exhaustion.  (Do frogs cry?  This one did, okay?!)  To his amazement, the frog was standing on a mountain of butter that he had churned all through the night.  In the light of a brand-new day, the frog left the dairy house behind and made his way home.[1]

Isn’t that a good story?  I have thought of that story about frogs sometimes when aspects of work or life in general require endurance.  Because sometimes we may be tempted to give up.  It’s understandable when the going gets rough and everything feels overwhelming.  Yet we may have other moments when we feel somewhere deep inside us that we need to just keep going.  Because whatever situation we find ourselves in is going to get better eventually.  It’s just that we need to persevere.  Something inside us compels us to not give up, and we somehow have great endurance against all odds.

As we continue our exploration of Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians this morning, we can perhaps feel that this section of the letter is reaching a crescendo.  Paul writes to the congregation about overcoming some obstacles in his path with great endurance.  Paul has previously written to the congregation about eternal things that can be their focus.  He shared his belief that grace increases to benefit more and more people, which causes gratitude to increase, which results in God’s glory.  Last Sunday we contemplated the idea of the new creation, an idea that Paul expanded upon after it was shared by the prophet Isaiah.  For Paul, people in Christ become part of the new creation.  Because the old things have come and gone and new things have arrived. 

In this section of the letter, Paul implores the congregation to not take the grace of God for granted.  He relates that there is no reason to criticize him because he hasn’t given anyone reason to be offended, right?  Paul writes to the Corinthians, “Instead, we commend ourselves as ministers of God in every way.  We did this with our great endurance through problems, disasters, and stressful situations.  We went through beatings, imprisonments, and riots. We experienced hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger.  We displayed purity, knowledge, patience, and generosity. We served with the Holy Spirit, genuine love, telling the truth, and God’s power.”[2]

Let’s pause for a moment.  How does the tone strike us?  To our modern ears, Paul’s words could come across as arrogant.  Though sometimes there is a thin line between being arrogant and confident.  On a basic dictionary definition sort of level, arrogance can be defined as exaggerating one’s own worth or importance, having an attitude of superiority.  Someone who is arrogant comes across as thinking that they are better than other people.  What about confidence?  Confidence is a feeling of one’s power or ability to rely on one’s circumstances.  Confidence is a belief that you will act in the right way because there’s trust in yourself.[3]  Isn’t it a good thing to be confident in our abilities, confident in our knowledge, confident in who we are?  We hesitate to come across as arrogant know-it-alls.  Well, some people hesitate to come across as arrogant and maybe other people don’t care. 

We could read this section of the letter as rather arrogant on Paul’s part.  Especially when Paul writes, “Instead, we commend ourselves as ministers of God in every way.  We did this with our great endurance through problems, disasters, and stressful situations.  We went through beatings, imprisonments, and riots. We experienced hard work, sleepless nights, and hunger.”[4]  Or we can read this as Paul just honestly laying it out for the congregation.  Look, I’ve been through a lot as I have been about my work for your sake and for the sake of the Gospel—beatings, imprisonments, and riots in fact.  I have endured a great deal, and I am still here with you and for you because of the grace of God.

Paul further writes, “We were treated with honor and dishonor and with verbal abuse and good evaluation.  We were seen as both fake and real, as unknown and well known, as dying—and look, we are alive!”[5]  The truth of anyone in a leadership role is that not everyone is going to like you, certainly not everyone is going to like you all the time.  A dear friend once advised me that to be a good minister you must have the heart of a shepherd caring for your flock and crocodile skin to not take criticisms and complaints too personally.  Thirteen years into ordained ministry later—there is some truth in that advice.

Maybe Paul had his own way of thinking about this.  Maybe Paul needed to reconcile for himself being treated with honor and dishonor, with verbal abuse and good evaluation, being seen as both fake and real, unknown and well known.  Not everyone is going to be a fan of us, and Paul knew that better than most.  At any rate, we know that people have a great many opinions and that is the case across professions and personal circumstances.  We can certainly read Paul’s words today as arrogant as opposed to confident.  Or maybe this is too close to the line to know which way these words fall (in our opinions, of course).

At the same time, Paul’s honesty is commendable.  We can remember historically that rival missionaries had come into the community after Paul left.  Lord knows what they may have been saying about him.  That’s why Paul explains that he has spoken openly, with a heart wide open: “Corinthians, we have spoken openly to you, and our hearts are wide open.  There are no limits to the affection that we feel for you. You are the ones who placed boundaries on your affection for us.”[6]  This openness matters and Paul’s confidence in who he is and what he believes and how he is going about his work matters.

All of which can bring us back to this idea of great endurance.  Whether we think of this as that frog not giving up in that bucket of cream and making butter to climb out and head home in the morning.  Or whether we think of this as Paul openly sharing what he had endured with the confidence of someone who knows who he is and what he’s about.  How do we keep going when the going gets rough?  What inner resources and outer support do we rely upon when we need to just keep going?  For we can endure greatly with God by our sides.  Thanks to be God.  Amen.

[1] Adapted from an Unknown Source, “The Frog Who Wouldn’t Give Up,” in One Hundred Wisdom Stories from Around the World, edited by Margaet Silf, pgs. 149-150.
[2] 2 Corinthians 6:4-7, CEB.
[3] Definitions of “Arrogance” and “Confidence” in The Merriam-Webster Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/
[4] 2 Corinthians 6:4-5.
[5] 2 Corinthians 6:8-9.
[6] 2 Corinthians 6:11-12.

Photo by gary tresize on Unsplash