Strength and Weakness

 

A few years ago back in 1999 Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura made a comment in an interview.  He said, “Organized Religion is a crutch for the weak.”  Do any of you remember that?  Now why would Jesse Ventura say something like that?  I can think of plenty of people involved with organized religion who are incredibly strong people.  Mother Teresa comes to mind, Pope John Paul the II comes to mind, Martin Luther King Jr. comes to mind, the list could go on and on.  Yet Gov. Ventura said that only the weak involve themselves in organized religion.  Doesn’t that make your blood boil just a little bit?

 

When I first heard this comment back in college I was infuriated.  I did not know that I was going to be a pastor yet at that point in my life, but my faith was a huge part of my life and I felt personally insulted.  I did not consider myself weak, and I did not want other people judging me as weak simply because of my faith.

 

Yet after hearing our lesson from 2^nd Corinthians today I am forced to look again at Governor Ventura’s comment.  In our first lesson for today Paul is trying to convince the Corinthians to listen to his message about Christ rather than to all of the false messages floating around the Corinthian church from false teachers.  Now you would think that Paul would pin the credibility and authority of his message on his strengths as a preacher… that is on the fact that as a Pharisee he has studied scriptures extensively, on the fact that Jesus appeared to him in person and told him what to say, on the fact that all of the other apostles who knew Jesus endorsed Paul’s message.  When I am having an argument with somebody and I know that I am right I try to remind whoever I am arguing with about my extensive list of strengths and their extensive list of weaknesses (I am by no means endorsing this strategy, especially if you’re married). 

 

But Paul does not argue in that way.  He mentions the revelations that he received from Christ, but then he bases his credibility and authority on his weaknesses rather than his strengths.  Listen again to what Paul says, “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations (there he mentions the revelations He received) there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me (there’s Paul’s weakness). Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But [the Lord] said to me, ‘my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  That is why for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties.  For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

 

So does this mean that Jesse Ventura has a legitimate point?  Is religion really made for the weak?  Christ himself told Paul that His power is made perfect in weakness and Paul said that he delights in and boasts of his weaknesses, for when he is weak, then he is strong.  It sounds like Governor Ventura’s comment could be theologically accurate. 

 

But that would be absolutely illogical and unreasonable.  How can Christ’s power be made perfect in our weaknesses?  If this congregation were financially or physically weak, how in the world would you have been able to build a $60,000 house for habitat for humanity, how would this congregation be able to send 36 youth on a mission trip to Appalachia in a week?  If we were emotionally weak how would we care for each other when our friends lose jobs or suffer divorces or lose family members?  How in the world is Christ’s power made perfect in our weaknesses?

 

Well, it could be that our weaknesses give us something that our strengths cannot.  It could be that our weaknesses remind us that, regardless of how strong we are, we can never get for ourselves everything that we need.

 

In His sermon on the mount, Jesus says “blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”   Perhaps it is when we are weak… that is when we are poor, or when we mourn, or when we thirst and hunger that we are finally willing to admit that we need something that the strength of the world simply cannot give to us.  Perhaps Christ’s power is made perfect in our weakness simply because it is our weaknesses rather than our strengths that confront us with the awful reality that we need something that all of our strength cannot get for ourselves.  That is, we need God’s presence in our lives.

 

At some point in all of our lives, our weaknesses will not allow us to live with the illusion that we can be perfect, or that we can have everything we want.  Our weaknesses will not allow us to live with the illusion that we can do enough to earn our place with God.  It is with our weaknesses that Christ first confronts us with the awful reality that we cannot be the people that God intended us to be in and of our own power. 

 

Our weaknesses, although we may despise them, are oftentimes necessary reminders of our need for God in our lives.

 

So Governor Ventura may have a point, faith in Jesus Christ may be for the weak, but what the Governor never said, is that if Christ is for the weak, then Christ is for every person who has ever existed.  Perfect strength does not exist for us human beings, our weaknesses constantly remind us of that.  We all possess insufficiencies; doubts, fears, anxieties, or whatever.  We all even possess an ability to deny our weaknesses.  Weakness is part of being a sinner and therefore part of being human.  Some of our weaknesses are physical, some are mental, some are emotional, some are financial, and all of them are unwanted.  So yes, Christ is for the weak, because Christ is for you, Christ is for me, Christ is for Gov. Ventura, and Christ is for every person outside of this church.     

 

At first our weakness may appear so dirty and distorted that Christ would not possibly want to get involved with us.  Christ’s power begins, however, when that weakness shows us our need for Him, and then drives us to Christ, asking Him to please do something about it.  Christ’s power is finally perfected because He comes to us at our weakest points, in our sins and in our struggles, and makes us His own, weaknesses and all.  For if Christ can get in us where we are the weakest then we have nothing in us that that is so awful it can keep him out.  That is true power.  That is power perfected, and that is something to boast about.