Let me ask you a question. It’s something I’ve been struggling with.
Just something for you to think about.
It seems to be a question that many centuries have asked, in one way or another.
The question is:
What makes a healthy church?
There have been many responses to this question. I won’t attempt to summarize them, as I would inevitably fail to do their complexity and church history justice. But…as you might imagine there have been MANY responses to the question of…what makes a healthy church.
The majority of the New Testament are letters written by Paul or someone writing on Paul’s letterhead to encourage, nurture, and exhort all kinds of churches in all kinds of places to health. And it seems for Paul one of the defining characteristics of a healthy church – not THE ONLY ONE, you understand…but an important one, a crucial element of what makes a healthy church is…weakness. It seems for Paul a healthy church is a weak church.
A weak church? We don’t like that word. Weakness.
Who wants a weak church? Isn’t that what’s wrong these days? Don’t we need strong churches? Ones that really know how to make a mark…know how to bring ‘em in…know how to pack the pews…churches that everyone knows are strong, super-spiritual, and sustainable.
A weak church. Please.
See. We don’t like that word. Especially here in the United States. Part of our self-understanding, our DNA, our narrative is that we were this rag-tag colony that overthrew the world’s greatest empire and grew into the world’s greatest super-power. This past week we celebrated Fourth of July. Ericka and I driving back from the mountains of New Mexico – the highways dotted with firecracker stands. Small towns decked out in red, white, and blue – parades, marching bands, Chamber of Commerce BBQ’s – all of it! We came out of a Mexican food restaurant here in town the evening of the Fourth and I heard one man say to his friend, “You think all ‘dem firecrackers gonna scare our dogs?” “Nawww,” his friend replied. But I could tell in their voices, you could hear it – they were hoping not only would it scare the dogs, but the kids, and all the neighbors.
Big fireworks shows, music blaring, ” and the rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air…”
There’s something in us that gravitates toward displays of power. And there’s this impulse in the Church to be the same…a photocopy of power.
Of course, we don’t want to hear about weakness.
That doesn’t make us unique. I think there’s been that impulse there all along.
That’s one of the reasons Paul is writing to the church in Corinth.
You see, the church there has fallen under the influence of some preachers who refer to themselves as something akin to “the super apostles.” Their teaching, evidently, criticizing Paul and emphasizing three elements. First, claiming a particular and exclusive heritage to the Christian faith. Second, proclaiming a mastery over life’s sufferings and adversity. And third, boasting in their own transcendent spiritual experiences. Now…how appealing is that, huh? How seductive. A teaching that said, “You can be part of an exclusive group, you don’t have to suffer anymore, and you can have all these wonderful spiritual experiences.” Of course people gravitated toward that. Of course it was appealing. Because…it’s an expression of power.
And these super-apostles, these celebrity preachers pointed their fingers at Paul and said – “Look how he’s letting everyone in. Look at his puny speech and presence. Look at how he suffers. There’s no power there.”
And Paul replies… “You’re right….I am weak.”
Isn’t that something? Paul’s not entering a battle of one-up-man-ship. He’s not trying to prove or play worthiness games. He says, “You’re right. I am weak.” And he goes on to write,
“But in the middle of my struggle – I heard a word from God – who said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
“So…(super-apostles) if I’m going to boast – I’m going to boast in my weakness, so that if there’s any power at all – it’s the power of Christ. For whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” And Paul…embodies the words in his first letter to this same church when he wrote, “And God chose what is foolish in this world to confound the wise and chose what is weak in this world to confound the strong.”
When I was a kid growing up in the church. There was a member named Dennis. My dad told me at one time Dennis was a college athlete at UCLA, then after receiving post graduate degrees in theology and homiletics, Dennis was a rising star – a sought after preacher and conference speaker. Until his early thirties when Dennis was diagnosed with MS. By the time Dennis was at our church, he was in his late 40’s and in a wheelchair. But there were some Sundays where Dennis would be wheeled to the front and recite poems he had composed in his head. Poems filled with faith, doubt, beauty, and humor. He would recite these poems - until MS took his ability to speak and then his wife would sit next to him and read the poems she had transcribed from years before. I share this not as a commentary on a debilitating illness. I do not believe God gives people MS or Cancer or any such thing…Nor do I wish to romanticize any such struggle in people’s lives. I share this only because I am thankful for what he modeled and I see Dennis as an icon of the Church - an image of the Church when we stop being so fixated on control, and trends, and stats, and being big and important, and having position. When weakness becomes strength and poetry and praise pour from our lips. Or, as Shane Caliborne has said, “Christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering and at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal, and powerful.”
Maybe Paul sensed that…maybe that’s why he responded to his critics and the church he loved saying…
“Yes, I struggle.”
“Yes, I’m weak.”
“But God’s grace is enough.”
Preacher and scholar, Sally Brown writes, “…spiritual roots (for churches) may grow deepest and strongest as we struggle together through experiences we would not choose – a dwindling budget, the death of beloved members, a change in leadership…then we have to risk trusting and loving at new levels, practice compassion, and spirit filled creativity.”
St. Andrew’s…what if the Church is most transformational not when we possess strength but when we embrace our weakness?
What if the Church is most Christ-like when we stop pursuing the image of “we got it all together” and instead hold space for people to come undone?
What if the very real challenges we face here – and churches face everywhere – are actually the very gifts by which we experience God’s grace?
These are just some more questions I’m struggling with – and invite you to struggle with as well.
Struggle can be good.
It can remind us that we’re not as strong as we think we are. And we don’t have to be.
Maybe…we’ll even learn to boast in it.
Who would have ever thought….we could boast in our weakness.
Amen.
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