Hold the Visions, Hold the Thorn, but Plenty of Grace, Please

a sermon on 2 Corinthians 12.2-10
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama


What an unusual passage! We who study and live the Christian faith are accustomed to a bit of mystery. How is it that Jesus is both God and Man? How is God One yet Three? How do God’s sovereignty and human freedom work together? There is mystery everywhere we turn, but we get used to it. We know certain things are true. We know Jesus is God. We also know he is fully human. The fact that we cannot define precisely how God can do that doesn’t stop our believing. In fact, if the Good News is true, we ought to expect God to be and do more than our little brains can put into neat little boxes. So we celebrate the mysteries of our faith. We puzzle over them. And we live with them. Mystery lurks at the heart of many of our most cherished beliefs.

Our scripture reading this morning presents us with a different kind of mystery. What Paul is trying to say in this passage is crystal clear. What we ought to grab hold of and take with us is both obvious and practical. In this case the teaching contains no mystery whatsoever, but the details are tantalizing. Paul writes about a vision in which he gets caught up into the third heaven. First of all, what is this vision? Even Paul isn’t quite sure. And what he did discover he is not at liberty to disclose. Don’t you hate it when people tell you they have a juicy secret but they cannot say what it is? Second, what is the third heaven? Just how many heavens are there? Paul drops this little biographical nugget then leaves us to wonder about it. Then there is the mystery of the “thorn in the flesh.” Probably the Corinthians knew what he was talking about. Or maybe he didn’t want them to. The fact that he had a thorn was important, not what the thorn was. Through the ages scholars have run wild with theories about what the thorn might have been. We’ll explore that in due course.

In the end, we are going to be stuck with mystery, not about our faith but about Paul. We will learn from his experience, however, a couple of truths that will serve us well as we answer God’s call strive to live faithfully.

We begin with a bit of background. You need to know what is going on in the passage if you are ever going to make sense of the details. I have mentioned before Paul’s rocky relationship with the church he founded in Corinth. Based on the letters Paul wrote, Corinth seems to have been the most difficult of his churches. Not only did they have problems getting along—and problems understanding and living the Christian faith—they often turned against Paul himself (or at least some of them did). Paul wrote several letters to try to straighten things out. Some of those letters have been lost. Some scholars believe chapters 10-13 of 2 Corinthians is a different letter from chapters 1-9, but later they got put together as if they were one letter. In any event, Paul gets aggressive here, comparing himself to a group he sarcastically calls the “super apostles.” We don’t know much about these folks. They were apparently Christian missionaries who came to Corinth and took issue with Paul and his teachings. They brought with them impressive credentials, including letters of recommendation and a flashy kind of spirituality that calls attention to the preacher, not the message. Jesus had warned against that kind of spirituality, but the Corinthians loved that sort of thing. So the “super apostles” would brag about things like spiritual visions, and the Corinthians ate it up. When it came crunch time, plenty of believers in Corinth were ready to say, “Who needs Paul?”

Now, if this were strictly a personal matter, Paul would not have been concerned. He worked remarkably well with a lot of different fellow missionaries. He is not worried about his standing in the eyes of the church at Corinth. He is concerned, rather, about what the “super apostles” are teaching. We cannot be sure just what that was. A good guess is that they were pushing the Law of Moses. They thought Paul had gone too far in setting it aside for Gentile Christians. But we cannot know for sure.

Our passage this morning is part of the letter known as the Fool’s Speech. It starts at 11.16. In the Fool’s Speech, Paul says that boasting about himself and comparing himself to other teachers is foolish. The Corinthians know Paul. They observed his manner of life and how God worked through him to lead them to faith in Christ. That should be enough. But since they force him to do it, he will act the fool and start bragging. He is sure the Corinthians won’t mind because since they are so wise themselves, they gladly put up with fools. As you might expect, the whole passage drips with sarcasm. Paul is writing from his pain and anger, but his goal is always to bring the Corinthians to their senses. He will use several clever rhetorical devices to accomplish that.

He starts the Fool’s Speech by saying his opponents took advantage of the Corinthian believers, treated them like servants, and acted like royalty. “To my shame,” Paul writes, “I must say, we were too weak for that!” His opponents acted like televangelists (the bad kind). Paul was a servant leader. In fact, although he received financial support from some congregations, he refused money from the Corinthians. He must have perceived that they would misunderstand and think he was their hired help. Paul always claimed to work for God.

When Paul ministered, he called attention to God, not himself. “I don’t want people to think better of me than what they see and hear from me,” he wrote in our passage. The folks at Corinth (and many today) liked a flashy kind of preacher. That wasn’t Paul.

He goes on to brag about his Jewish roots and how much he had suffered for the gospel. If these things were important—and he knew they were not, although the Corinthians thought so—he could one up his opponents in anything.

Then we get to today’s passage. In it Paul talks about a vision. He says, “I know a man (or a person).” But he is talking about himself, not someone else. The ancient world thrived on speech making. After all, they didn’t have television, radio, or even newspapers. One of the little rules of the game was if you were going to talk about something that might be considered bragging, you could also appear humble by talking about it as if it happened to someone else. So Paul says, “I know a guy …” and the Corinthians know he is talking about himself. He gets points for whatever he says about the guy, and he gets points for being humble.

He had a special vision or revelation. He was caught up into the third heaven. This matches what we find in other Jewish writings of that day. Most Jewish writers imagined there to be either 3 or 7 heavens. Just how literally this was taken is hard to know. In this case, Paul is making reference to highest heaven. He went up as far as you can go. He also refers to it as Paradise, and we immediately think of Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus, as well as what he said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Paradise, to the first century Jew, was where the souls of the righteous waited for the Day of Resurrection.

What does all this tell us abut heaven? Not much really. Heaven is God’s realm. It is not “up there” in any geographic sense. It belongs to a different order of reality. It is not so far away as many people might imagine. I like to think of it as being sort of behind our world, as if you could pull back a curtain and there it is. This is a mystery. Paul couldn’t even tell whether his experience involved his body or not. Whatever the case was, Paul had a vision. He saw the highest heaven. He heard things he is not allowed to repeat. It happened 14 years before he wrote, but he had never told the Corinthians about it. Why? Because it was a private vision. It was not something that would build up other Christians, and Paul had no interest in using something like that to make himself seem better than other Christians. He only mentions it now because they have forced him to act like a fool and brag. So his opponents boast of visions? He can go one better.

Personally, I have never known anyone who had a vision like the one Paul describes. So don’t think that just because you haven’t something is wrong with you. Paul was an extraordinary person in many ways. You are not Paul. That’s OK. You are the person God created you to be. And God gives you the experiences he thinks you need. We may not have visions like Paul’s, but many of us can testify to times in our life when we felt especially close to God. That week at church camp. The moment you came to faith in Christ. Your baptism. Some time when you were discouraged and confused, and God’s love poured over you. John Wesley felt his heart strangely warmed. That’s not exactly the third heaven, but it will do. I recall a moment one evening when I was in college when I realized that I knew Christ is alive. That’s not the third heaven either, but it was a grace-filled moment. Maybe you have had one or more of these experiences, or maybe you haven’t. God works in each person in a different way. We’re not all the same. Paul knew that. It is why he didn’t boast. It is why his relationship with God was not a source of pride. Spirituality was not a competition for Paul, and it should never be for any of us. When we start comparing our holiness or spirituality to other people’s, … well, we have already strayed from the path right there.

Paul’s vision leaves me scratching my head. I’d love to know what that was really all about. As fascinating as it is, however, his “thorn in the flesh” is even more so. What was this thorn? All sorts of theories have appeared from early times. Some say it was a physical disability: epilepsy, migraine headaches, a speech impediment, or malaria. Was Paul near-sighted? Did he walk with a limp? All these have been proposed. Others say it was not physical but mental: Perhaps Paul suffered from depression? It might have been panic attacks. Maybe he struggled with a specific temptation? Maybe the thorn was guilt over having persecuted the church before he met Christ?

Still others look outside Paul. This thorn could have been opposition to his preaching. Maybe Romans who didn’t like the gospel? Or Jews who considered Paul a traitor? Or Christians who considered him a heretic? I’ve never read this anywhere, but maybe his thorn was the Corinthian congregation. Lord knows they gave him enough grief. But he would hardly have prayed to have them removed.

Whatever it was, it didn’t stop him from preaching or having all the adventures he lists in chapter 11. It seems unlikely to me that it was a mental or spiritual problem, because owning up to that would not serve his purpose in writing this. If it was a physical handicap, he managed to travel and survive some rough experiences. At the same time, I do not think it is merely some kind of opposition to his preaching. Whatever it is, it is very painful. Paul calls his thorn a “messenger of Satan” sent to torment Paul. Our pew Bibles say “to harass” him. The Greek word refers to beating or rough treatment. The word thorn may mean more than just a little sharp point on the stem of a rose. This word also referred to spikes put up by armies to impale and torture enemies.

In Paul’s mind, the thorn does not come from God. It comes from Satan. The purpose of it is to make Paul’s missionary work ineffective. Yet although God is not behind it, God is at work in it. That’s why it is not taken away, even though Paul prays that it will be. Like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Paul wants a way out. God does not send him one. Paul later realizes that God is at work, so that instead of the thorn stopping Paul’s work, what it actually does is help keep him humble. All those visions might have made him overly proud. In order that he might not be, God leaves the thorn in place.

I’m curious about the thorn. No answer seems compelling, and I guess we’ll never know. What matters, though, is what Paul learned from his experience. God did not remove the thorn. Instead, God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Perhaps there is something in your life that you might consider your own thorn—something that keeps beating you up. If it is a temptation or an addiction, then you can be sure God’s will is to set you free. You can’t say, “I like to steal; it’s my little thorn in the flesh.” That’s a cop out. If it is something else—and it could be a lot of things—then what Paul says can help you deal with it.

When something painful enters our lives, we might be too quick to blame God. “I had that wreck. My body’s still not right. God must be punishing me for something I did.” That’s not necessarily true. Paul’s thorn was not punishment. In fact, he thought he got it because he was doing so much good for God. He was doing so well that Satan sent a messenger. You can tell Paul had read the Book of Job.

Do not rush to blame God, but be sure to look for God at work in your circumstances. Paul didn’t like the thorn. He prayed it would be removed. It wasn’t. Later he discerned the reason why. God had a purpose for the thorn, different from the reason Satan put it there. Remember how Joseph told his brothers, ‘You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” You have to trust that God is working for good, no matter how bad things get.

Then, take comfort in knowing that God’s grace is sufficient. This is so important. It means the world to me—both personally and as a pastor. Personally because I, like everyone else, face problems bigger than I am, and I need God’s grace. As a pastor because I am so helpless. I visit people who are dying or have lost someone they love. We have a number of people battling cancer right now. I visit those in the nursing home, and often I see a person’s health deteriorate. And there are so many issues beyond people’s health—family problems and more that I don’t need to mention. I can share God’s love and point to what scripture says and promises, but I feel so powerless. Because I am. Like Paul, who boasted of his weakness. But I know—and I cling to this for dear life even when I cannot see how it could possibly be true—that God is at work in each person’s life and his grace is sufficient.

So when I go to the nursing home, I know God’s grace is sufficient. And when someone comes to me with a problem, I know God’s grace is sufficient. And you can be sure that whatever you face, God’s grace is sufficient.

To get hold of this truth and find it useful, you must first give up the idea that what God wants most for you is a pleasant, easy life with no pain, sorrow, or hard choices. Life may be that way in heaven, but here and now it’s not so simple. What God does want for you is first of all a relationship with God. “I will be their God, and they will be my people.” This means believing the Good News, repenting of your sin, and turning to Jesus Christ. God’s grace is sufficient for that. Second, God wants you to imitate Christ and live by kingdom values. That’s not easy. You need grace for that, but you will find it sufficient. Third, God wants you to serve others in Jesus’ name. You’ll need a lot of grace for that. But somehow, it is sufficient. God is working in your life, either to bring you to faith or to maturity in Christ. Your thorn, whatever it may be, may make you perfectly miserable; but it cannot stop God’s work in you. In fact, God can use it somehow for good. Therefore, even as you struggle, you can cling to the promise that God’s grace is sufficient for you.

Let me conclude by saying a quick word about God’s power made perfect in human weakness. Throughout the Bible we have examples of God choosing weak and unlikely persons to use as his instruments. When a David defeats a Goliath, you know God was behind it. The truth is: We human beings are weak and frail, not just physically but morally and spiritually as well. Most people would consider Paul a strong Christian. He was a great apostle and missionary. He wrote a significant part of the New Testament. They don’t come much stronger. Yet he was acutely aware of his weakness. And he reached a point where it did not bother him. Why? Because God is at work, and God’s power is made perfect in our weakness. “I boast of my weaknesses,” he wrote, “so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” That is why we do not give up. That is why we do not give in to temptation. That is why we do not abandon the world as hopeless. That is why we keep on striving to be faithful: because the power of God that raised Jesus from the dead—that holy, life-giving power—is at work in us and through us.

God’s grace is sufficient. You can count on that. God’s power achieves God’s will, especially where we are too weak. You can depend on that. I can do without the kind of vision Paul had. And I can certainly do without a thorn in the flesh. But give me grace, and plenty of it. Amen.

rev_mauldin@yahoo.com
July 23, 2006