Paul says, “Power is made perfect in weakness.” He also suggests that we should be content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities for the sake of Jesus Christ, for wherever we are weak, that is where God’s strength is found.

This type of talk is double-edged for me. It makes me realize both my arrogance and my eagerness to welcome God’s grace. Of course, I would prefer to acknowledge my strengths – that I’m so great at preaching that my home church wants me to preach their 150th anniversary celebration this November, that I get invited to serve on important committees of the Presbytery and even national committees, that I can brag to others that the church I’m serving is doing great things and growing in membership. But those things only go to show my own arrogance and pride. Those things are trivial and may end up being more trouble than they’re worth. Jesus was ridiculed when he preached in his hometown, and I know that the people who will be listening to me will be remembering me through all my varied and awkward stages of childhood as much as they’ll be listening to any message I could preach. I also know that the more I do committee work, the more I see how broken the church is in so many unfixable ways. And I can take no legitimate credit for the blessings of this particular church. It delights me, to be sure, but as I’ve said before and will say again, it’s the Spirit’s work – not my own.

So if I’m to find my bragging points according to Paul, I have to look at the wounds, at the thorns in my side, at all the ways I am unfit to be a servant of the Lord even though God has decided to use me anyway. This is discomforting to say the least. I have to acknowledge that it still scares me every time I step into a hospital room. I have to admit that my spiritual practices still seem fumbling and inconsistent. I have to recognize the multiple levels of human limitation that prevent me from being present and fully alert to the situations that expect my attention. I get hurt. I get tired. I get bored. I get angry. Sometimes I feel more like a wounded child than like a person who has a fair number of skills and competencies. I am not, nor can I ever be, the savior of this church or any other person or situation. There’s only one Savior, and pointing to God’s love in Jesus Christ is about as good as any of us can do.

Paul was making a point, and I am trying to do the same in acknowledging that we are all deeply in need of God’s grace. No matter how put together we each look on the outside, there, in the messy reality and weakness of being human is where we find God. God is lurking in our dark places, is with us in facing our fears, and is perhaps most present when we feel most alone. If all our spiritual leaders and moral guides can do is try to tell you how “right” they are, but never say how afraid they are, we may all miss the bigger picture.

Jesus pursued the message of God’s love even in the place where they remembered the time he broke his mother’s favorite vase or the time he got mad at his best friend and pouted for three weeks. Remember that Jesus had to go thorough being 7 and 13 too. Paul preached to the “put-together” Corinthians of being humbled by suffering and affliction. The greatest spiritual leaders are always apt to express humility in adversity. Sometimes I admire that, and sometimes I feel like spiritual leadership is just a fluke and no longer within anyone’s grasp in our less than humble world.

So “…why is it that some of us learn how to embrace suffering in a way that makes us beautiful? And why is it that some of us allow it to embitter us?” These are questions Macrina Wiederkehr asks in her book, A Tree Full of Angels. “We were all formed out of the same kind of clay,” she says, “What makes us so different?”

What makes the kind of leader who is made more beautiful by his or her wounds? I’ve often wondered about that. I have my own share of injuries, both public and private, probably no more and certainly no less than most. This congregation has its own history of being hurt – by pastors, by each other, and by decisions that have had negative consequences. Whether or not I know your stories personally, I assume that as individuals you have your own thorns and your own scars which have grown over with time. Do we allow this suffering to enrich us and bring us closer to God’s grace, or will we let it fester and boil and cause ultimate bitterness and separation?

What I’ve seen in myself and have learned from this congregation is a willingness to survive past the pain to be sure – but also a budding desire also to embrace the learning that comes from being hurt to assure that God’s love is apparent in what we can do together. That takes courage to overcome the fears – the fears of not always being right, of not always being perfect, of not always being able to solve the problems that are presented to us. There will be things we cannot change, but once we know the small steps toward making a difference, I assure you, more of the bigger picture appears.

God does not intend for us to live under the consuming fire of judgment, but to live into love and the acceptance of the whole of who we are. We can’t go on simply acknowledging the successes and the wins but ignoring the places where God is truly strongest. It’s not a complete picture to present ourselves only in part. Mike Yaconelli, in his book Messy Spirituality: God’s Annoying Love for Imperfect People describes this overwhelming feeling of discovering God’s love in our imperfections as the “scandal of spirituality.” He says, “Jesus is not repelled by us, no matter how messy we are, regardless of how incomplete we are. When we recognize that Jesus is not discouraged by our humanity, is not turned off by our messiness, and simply doggedly pursues us in the face of it all, what else can we do but give in to his outrageous, indiscriminate love?” (p.17)

Like I said before – be afraid. I’m afraid. Indeed, the sermon title for today is from a line in an old Toto song that says, “I’m frightened of this thing that I’ve become.” When we accept God’s love in its completeness, it means that we can start to accept the broken places and unfixable things about ourselves just as God does. However, when we do, it takes us out of our hiding. It means I’m not the always or only the competent, brilliant, all-loving pastor that I want everyone to see. It means I’m me, all of me, the very mess who wants to grow into knowing and loving God more. Becoming open to God’s love that sees us and loves us for who we are is our greatest challenge. We live in the smarter, skinnier, tanner, richer is better world nearly all of the time. To embrace that we cannot have it or be it all goes against the grain of our cultural norms.

Suffering is not beautiful in the world we know. It indicates weakness. But Paul encourages us to brag, boast, and embrace that weakness. There is power in weakness, but it is God’s power – not our own. Letting our guard down is tough, but the reward of experiencing God’s total love is worth it.

Amen.