A Thorn in the Flesh

Isaiah 40; 27-31; II Corinthians 12:1-10
Presbytery of Southern New England
Westminister Presbyterian Church, West Hartford, CT
May 12, 2005

John C. B. Webster

St. Paul had what he described as a thorn or wooden stake in his flesh. He refers to it in a way that suggests that his readers knew perfectly well what he was talking about. But we don’t know what it was and there has been much speculation about that thorn. Some say St. Paul suffered from epilepsy, or leprosy, or malarial fever. Others say he stuttered, or had some sort of secretion from the eyes. Others still that he suffered from hysteria, or depression, or migraines. Apparently, the very latest view is that he had a thorn buried in his flesh. Whatever it was, it caused him considerable pain or embarrassment or both, and he wanted it to go away.

We may well wonder how severe a handicap it was. Did it limit him in any essential way in doing the Lord’s work? Or was it more of a nuisance, an inconvenience, a distraction, a pain? He tells us that he prayed three times that this thorn would leave him. And we may be sure that these were not casual, off hand prayers, but ernest and lengthy prayers. Yet the thorn did not go away; he was stuck with it.

St. Paul called this thorn, whatever it was, “a messenger from Satan to torment me.” Prolonged torment drains away one’s physical and emotional energy. Pain keeps the mind focused on oneself, one’s own problems. But whatever Satan’s purposes may have been in sending St. Paul that particular messenger, God was using that same messenger for another purpose altogether. It was to keep St. Paul from boasting, from using his extraordinary mystical experiences and revelations of God as a means of building up his own authority as an apostle. It was, as one commentator put it, a “perspective keeper.” God’s answer to St. Paul’s repeated prayer for relief was “My grace is sufficient for you, for [my] power is made perfect in weakness.” And it was God’s message through the ever-present thorn, not Satan’s, that St. Paul chose not just to cling to , but to celebrate and pass on. “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore [says St. Paul] I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” Bring it on!

Yes, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Presbytery of Southern New England do have a thorn in the flesh, but let us be clear about what that thorn is.

I suspect that by this time the preachers here know exactly where this sermon is going and are patiently waiting for me to catch up to them. Yes, the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Presbytery of Southern New England do have a thorn in the flesh, but let us be clear about what that thorn is. The thorn is not active homosexuality in our church or our society. The thorn is not Amendment B. The thorn is the conflict which those have generated. If there were a consensus in the Church either around the moral acceptance of homosexual activity among church leaders, say within a lifelong committed relationship like marriage, or around Amendment B which prohibits that, there would be no thorn, no torment. Life could go on as always. But we have got a thorn in our flesh as a Church.

I really have to admire Satan for this choice of thorns. This particular thorn has brought the once prestigious Presbyterian Church down low. It has drained physical and emotional energy and deprived our Church of human and financial resources it used to be able to count upon. Differences have become divisions. Presbyterians have been so preoccupied with our own inner torment that ministry has suffered, mission has suffered, credibility has suffered, membership has suffered. The ordination question has become for some people on each side a kind of litmus test and, as a litmus test, it, or the theology that makes it a litmus test, has replaced Jesus Christ himself as the Church’s chief cornerstone for them. And, in spite of many fervent prayers, the thorn has not gone away and shows no signs of going away in the foreseeable future. You’ve really got to hand it to Satan for doing such a devilishly good job–at least so far.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be part of a church, or at least of a presbytery, where we were all in agreement? Here in Southern New England, all of us are part of embattled minorities, like exiles in Babylon. The supporters of Amendment B are in a minority in the presbytery–and feel it. Its opponents are in a minority in the denomination–and feel it. Those who haven’t made up their minds yet are in a real minority! What a relief it would be to have unanimity or something close to it. No thorn, no pain. Then, with renewed energy and resources we could really go about doing the Lord’s work, without being burdened with this terrible impediment. Think of the great things for God we could attempt!

But before this sermon gets totally out of hand, let us return to our text. After St. Paul had pled with God to remove the thorn in his flesh, God’s reply was “My grace is sufficient for you, for [my] power is made perfect in weakness.” God did not claim responsibility for giving St. Paul that thorn in the first place. God did not commit to either removing the thorn in due course or to keeping there permanently–although God seemed to imply that it would stay. “My grace is sufficient for you, for [my] power is made perfect in weakness.” St. Paul was genuinely grateful for that answer! It was not just that it made him feel good about the thorn, whatever it was. It was that the power of Christ dwelt in him when the thorn had weakened him, which more than compensated for the thorn itself. And that was a cause for gladness and contentment. Weakness may be a painful or embarrassing thing, but it is not necessarily a bad thing. Weakness, as St. Paul’s case suggests, can be an occasion for God to work graciously in and amongst us. Genuinely living by God’s grace alone is something one rarely takes on voluntarily (or am I speaking for myself alone here?); one has to be forced into it. And that, I dare say, is about where we are now as a Church and as a presbytery.

“Given the particular thorn that is in our flesh as a presbytery, how is God’s power going to be made perfect in our very obvious weakness?”

So I guess the question which this text puts before us as a presbytery is this one: “Given the particular thorn that is in our flesh as a presbytery, how is God’s power going to be made perfect in our very obvious weakness?” Please note that by following our text in posing this question in the way that we have, we are recognizing that we cannot extract this particular thorn of ours by using our finest conflict resolution or consensus building techniques. If it goes, it is because God removes it. If it stays, and the prognosis is that it will stay for a good long time, that is because God has chosen not to remove it–yet. So how is God’s power going to be made perfect in our present weakness? We have tried damage control and with good reason; thorns can cause infections and there has been damage to control. But isn’t damage control really using what strength we have left to keep our weakness from getting worse? Can we not instead take the risk of offering our weakness up to God in such a way that we expose it to God’s sufficient grace and power?

It may be helpful at this juncture to share my own experience of the peace, unity and purity group within our presbytery. We’re a bunch of fairly strong, competent individuals; if there is a weakling among us, I don’t know who it is. We come together in worship and Bible study, which helps us get off whatever high horses we may be riding on into the Old Saybrook corral. And in the sharing of worship and Bible study we have found our unity in Christ. But in this same process I myself have become less and less sure that I know what divides us, what exactly it is that puts us on opposite sides of the ordination issue now tearing our Church apart. It’s not theology and it’s not how we interpret the Bible or what our views on the nature of homosexuality are. No, such views are too superficial to satisfy; those things are symptoms, not causes.

We should not assume that what makes us more responsive to some theologies or Bible passages than to others and gives passion to our convictions resides in the intellect. It doesn’t. It resides somewhere in the gut, in the soul, in some sacred “something” deep within us that is being violated by what “the other side” is trying to do. I do not know what that “sacred something” deep within us is. I don’t even know what it is within myself; that’s part of my weakness. But I do get a sense that our PUP group is inching toward it with all due deliberate caution, and that I am being inwardly changed in the process. It is an adventure in the Spirit, an adventure of significant consequence. And I suspect that it will be those with whom I have disagreed who will be of most help to me in discovering what that “sacred something” is.

I am coming to believe that God is using the thorn of our present conflict not for our punishment but for our redemption as a body, the Body of Christ.

I invite you all on a similar adventure in the Spirit. In fact, I invite the entire presbytery, as a presbytery, on just such an adventure. To move beneath the superficialities of constitutional, theological or Biblical debate to where our souls most truly are. The thorn has touched those souls of ours and they hurt. Can we share the hurt, the whats and the hows and the whys of our hurts, with those who seem to us to represent those who are causing them? And can we do that, can we take some time together to do that as a presbytery, well before we have to debate once again, as inevitably we must? Can this thorn become to us not an infection to be controlled but an opportunity for rediscovering once again, as one body together, in which divisions but not differences are set aside, God’s power being made perfect in our weakness, and hence the all-sufficiency of God’s grace and God’s capacity to deliver us as a presbytery from our Babylonian exile of spiritual irrelevance?

I am coming to believe that God is using the thorn of our present conflict not for our punishment but for our redemption as a body, the Body of Christ. But we need to seize the moment God has given us and not just continue to “hunker down in our own congregations,” to quote a member of our PUP group. There may be no better starting point for such a joint adventure in the Spirit than at the Lord’s Table right here, right now, before us this morning. May the Lord’s Supper not satisfy us, but instead increase our hunger and our thirst for what truly satisfies, namely that undeserved presence of Christ in and among us, which St. Paul spoke about, that converts a thorn into a blessing and makes us, in our weakness, inwardly stronger than we ever were before.