“The Grace of God” Colchester Federated Church, July 7, 2024, Seventh Sunday after Pentecost (2 Corinthians 12:2-10)

Our exploration of Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians ends today, as we have arrived at the letter’s conclusion in the Lectionary.  As we have been contemplating over these last few weeks, Paul wrote about eternal things and challenged the Corinthians to make those matters their focus.  He shared that grace increases to benefit more and more people, which causes gratitude to increase, which results in God’s glory.  Paul wrote about the new creation.  In Christ, people become part of the new creation.  Paul was also honest about overcoming obstacles along the way with great endurance.  And after defending his ministry, Paul wrote about the importance of giving with generosity.  Paul’s goal in collecting money for the saints in Jerusalem was financial equality among the believers, knowing that sometimes people can give and other times people need to receive gifts of generosity.

All of which brings us to today where Paul wrote about visions and revelations from the Lord.  Paul begins by sharing about a man in Christ who was “caught up into the third heaven fourteen years ago.”[1]  Paul is unsure if this was a physical or spiritual experience—in the body or out of the body.  We can read that the man was caught up into paradise and “heard unspeakable words that were things no one is allowed to repeat.”[2]  Then Paul writes that he will brag about this man, but not about himself except to brag about his weakness.  Because Jesus spoke to him, saying, “My grace is enough for you, because power is made perfect in weakness.”[3]  Paul will gladly spend his time bragging about his weaknesses so that the power of Christ can rest on him.

Okay, so Paul is writing about himself here.  He is the man who was caught up into the third heaven fourteen years before.  He is the man who had this mystical experience in the body or out of the body—only God knows.  Paul is the man who heard unspeakable words as he was caught up into paradise, words that cannot be repeated.

This whole section of 2 Corinthians is interesting in that Paul is speaking in the third person about “knowing a man in Christ” and the whole time he’s speaking about himself.  He’s writing about his own mystical experience of heavenly ascent.  However, even as he is sharing this experience with the Corinthians he doesn’t want to appear boastful because of his opponents who love criticizing him for boasting (among other things).  Remember how we talked about that fine line between confidence and arrogance?  Paul wants to be authentic and even vulnerable in sharing about visions and revelations from the Lord.  But the words of his critics are still in his head.  Not to mention that there’s something else that keeps Paul from boasting—the thorn in his body.  Paul says that he was given this thorn “because of the outstanding revelations I’ve received so that I wouldn’t be conceited.”[4]

In the Christian tradition, we have been debating the thorn in Paul’s body ever since this was shared (in both Galatians and 2 Corinthians).  As the CEB Study Bible relates, “It’s impossible to know for sure what Paul’s thorn was.  Suggestions have included spiritual anguish, opposition to his mission (perhaps especially his struggles in Corinth), or some physical ailment.”[5]  I have heard theories ranging from Paul wrestling with internal demons to Paul struggling with aspects of his identity to Paul having a chronic health condition that would get exacerbated when he was physically assaulted or imprisoned.

New Testament scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan wrote a book called The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon.  When Borg and Crossan discuss the references in Paul’s letters to this thorn in the flesh they think it was a recurrent illness that seems to have precipitated or accompanied Paul’s mystical experiences.  Borg and Crossan reference another scholar William Mitchell Ramsay who believed more specifically that Paul’s illness was a form of chronic malaria.  Ramsay wrote that this condition “tends to recur in very distressing and prostrating paroxysms, whenever one’s energies are taxed for a great effort.  Such an attack is for the time absolutely incapacitating: the sufferer can only lie and feel himself a shaking and helpless weakling, when he ought to be at work.  He feels a contempt and loathing for self, and believes that others feel equal contempt and loathing.”[6]  Borg and Crossan believe that Paul contracted malaria as a child in Tarsus (modern-day Turkey) from a climate that can produce the difficult symptoms of chronic malarial fever.  If this was the case, no wonder Paul asked three times for this thorn in his body to be gone from him forever.

Some of us may have health conditions that others can easily see and others may have invisible illnesses or conditions.  Perhaps Paul talking about the thorn in his body is helpful language and helpful to consider, or maybe it’s not.  For Paul, there seems to be obvious pain that he is contenting with here—whether physical, emotional, or spiritual.  He would not have “pleaded with the Lord three times for it to leave me alone” if this were not the case.[7]  How does he get through the pain?  For Paul, he relies on the grace of God and this dawning understanding that power is made perfect in weakness.  This is one of the last lessons he imparts to the followers of Christ in Corinth.  Sometimes the odds are stacked against us and we are contenting with painful obstacles in our paths.  Jesus certainly knew a thing or two about challenges like this.  And Paul heard Jesus tell him that relying on the grace of God can help us persevere.  

In our own time and in our own lives, we could think of this as the ironic power of vulnerability.  There are times when we may feel comfortable being open with another about our thorns.  When we do so, this could help another person share about their thorns and so it goes ever on.  This all reminds me of the beloved youth group activity—rose, thorn, and bud.  Everyone goes around the circle and shares something good or memorable (the rose), something negative or difficult (the thorn), and then something to look forward to in the days ahead (the bud).  This simple sharing of our roses, thorns, and buds can help people of all ages think about the good and the bad and hope that may just be on the horizon.  Life may not be all sunshine and roses all the time, but God’s amazing grace can bring us safe thus far and God’s amazing grace can lead us home.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] 2 Corinthians 12:2, CEB.
[2] 2 Corinthians 12:3.
[3] 2 Corinthians 12:9.
[4] 2 Corinthians 12:7.
[5] Footnote on 2 Corinthians 12:7 in the CEB Study Bible, pg. 350 NT.
[6] William Mitchell Ramsay as quoted by Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan in The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon, pg. 64.
[7] 2 Corinthians 12:8.

Photo by Rev. Lauren Ostrout.