Bon Secours was a peaceful convent in the Baltimore suburbs where I used to go on retreats. It was an unlikely place -- the elevator, where Rose the Nun taught Dan the Baptist a lesson about God. Out of politeness she courteously inquired about why I’d come. It was nothing unusual. Just some time away from church. She warmly welcomed me.

They have one of those turtle-paced elevators, but finally the door opened on the next floor. Standing with suitcase-in-hand was a lady on a silent retreat. Rose asked, “And what brings you to us, my dear?” And the woman commenced to spilling her guts: “Oh not much,” she said sarcastically, “Just that my mother recently died, two teenagers at home, my marriage is falling apart, I lost my job and I’m at the end of my rope.” Ding! The elevator stops, the doors open and the nun paused a second, gave her a funny little smile and said, “God must love you very much,” as she disappeared through the closing doors. I just cleared my throat and stared down at the floor till my time came to get off.

That experience has stayed with me because I still don’t understand how having problems mean God loves us a lot. What possible connection could there be between catastrophe and the love of God? In a world where good things are assumed to be signs of God’s favor. I don’t know anybody else who thinks that way, except the Apostle Paul. And Jesus seemed to know what that nun knew too. In the Corinthian Correspondence, Paul tells his own “elevator story,” and how his life intensified after he met Jesus. And he concluded: God must love him very much too! Maybe that’s where Rose got it.

In AD 50, he planted a church in Corinth. And after some time nursing it along, he left for Ephesus to start a church there. But he kept in touch by mail, attempting to instruct them long-distance. And they needed lots of help too. Because soon after he left, trouble came. Wouldn’t you know it? Religious extremism lay at the root of his detractions! When Paul departed, the orthodox, in love with their ideas, showed up challenging his authority. “How come everybody comes when Apollos preaches. But when Paul’s here they stay home. If Apollos was around more, our offerings would increase.”

Paul was a single-minded, decisive leader. So he ran off more than he brought in, they claimed. You know “When the saints go marching out?” He may have been a church planter but he knew how to shrink them too! They questioned Paul’s authority just like they did Jesus. Church got down and dirty, scapegoating the preacher for corporate unhealth.

Some didn’t think Paul had what it took to be an apostle. He’s impatient, stubborn, more Christian than tactful when it was impossible to be both. He didn’t work enough miracle-tricks to please them. Plus him being in and out of jail a lot, public beatings and stuff didn’t help. Because he rubbed people the wrong way, they were embarrassed. Surely God had better taste than that in a leader, said the fault-finders. They kept hoping God would tap somebody—well, more like them.

This criticism got to Paul because he knew it was true. He was quick-tempered, bold and tactless. He never denied any of it. But being an apostle wasn’t his idea. It was God’s. And no detractors could stop it. Life was simple for Paul in those early days. There were good guys and bad. In his mind, he was the good guy hell-bent on a mission to kill Christians. His religion didn’t just teach it was OK, but he was even serving the Lord, God had to body-slam him down on the Damascus Road one day! And then put out his eyes so he couldn’t run. After that his life became much more difficult.

Going to bed hungry and then lying awake all night, not because he was hungry, which he was. But because he was worried about the churches being too exclusive. Suffering shipwrecks, imprisonment and fierce religious opposition, Jew and Christian alike were together in their dislike of him. Resistance is predictable and goes with the territory of being a change-agent. Paul was great but he wasn’t perfect. Nobody was more aware of his weaknesses than Paul. But he never let his short-comings stop him. And he never tried to hide them.

One of the charges against Paul was he was too “earthy.” The wing-nuts hit him hard here. They preferred somebody who had more to say about what went on “up above,” where the saints and angels lived. Paul did have a vision about it once, which put him in special company. But he was so confounded by it that he reported it in the 3rd person: “I know a man in Christ, who 14 years ago was caught up into the 3rd heaven!” It was a mystical event, because he couldn’t say whether it was “in the body,” or “out.”

Now most people I know enjoy being in their bodies most of the time. But Paul knew what he saw and heard: “Things he was not allowed to repeat,” which handcuffed his apostolic credibility. So he refused to waste time going into detail about how things were “up there.” But at least he let the anti’s know he’d been there. And that ought to count for something. Being up in the 3rd heaven should qualify anybody to be a pastor, don’t you think? But once Paul landed back down on earth, that ol’ familiar “thorn” was still there sticking him.

For centuries people have been preoccupied with Paul’s thorn, mostly out of curiosity. Because all we can do is guess. It’s run the gamut: leprosy, epilepsy, migranes, depression, partial blindness or being married. Take your pick, but whatever it was, he couldn’t get rid of it. That’s what fascinates us. This holy man, has been all the way to heaven and back; hand-picked by God himself to open the doors of the gospel to the Gentiles; a spiritual giant, next only to Jesus in stature. He had a physical ailment that bugged the dickens out of him! So we can lay to rest the idea that closeness to God prevents suffering, right? Paul would kneel down to pray and that thorn would stab him. He’d stand up to preach and “wait a minute,” till this thing passes 1st. He’d focus his mind on God and have to reach for the medicine cabinet. It was such a hindrance that he “begged God thrice to remove it.” But every morning just like the night before, its still there. I just wanted ya’ll to know God’s greatest saints didn’t get their prayers answered the way they preferred. If Paul’s thorn at Corinth & Jesus’ cup in Gethsemane are any indication. Both contradict our obsession with success.

But the answer to Paul’s prayer turned out to be as big a revelation for him as anything he heard up in paradise. Here it is. Are you ready for it? “My grace is sufficient for thee, because my power is made perfect in weakness.” Physical well-being is excellent but not essential. Trying to rid yourself of your thorns sooner or later will lead to disappointment. Eventually we’re going to get sick. And all of us are terminal! But if we learn the sufficiency of God’s grace we’ll never have to be disillusioned.

“Paul said he was strong when he was weak.” People hear this and think its nonsense. Power and strength are literally worshiped by the world in these post 9/11 days. Weakness is despised. Compromise is anathema. We think we must conceal our vulnerability and hide our deficiencies, lest we get taken advantage of. Society says camouflage our inadequacies with self-reliance or violence, so we can build a secure homeland, heaven on earth for ourselves. The world teaches us to help ourselves. The Bible teaches us to trust in God, whose “power is made perfect in our weakness.”

Hears a prayer that’s part vodoo, part reality, written by a Confederate soldier. “I asked for health that I might do great things, I was given infirmity that I might do better things. I asked for riches that I might be happy, I was given poverty that I might be wise. I asked for power that I might have the praise of men, I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God. I asked for all things that I might enjoy life, I was given life that I might enjoy all things.”

That soldier got nothing he asked for, but everything he hoped for. That’s how it is having to live with promises rather than assurances. Paul learned there’s only one key to the power of Christ. And it’s not being caught up in the 3rd heaven someplace. More often than not its enduring what can’t be avoided here on earth. It sounds like divine madness, but it’s how God keeps us humble. While at the same time it defends us from the orthodox, who seem to be everywhere nowadays. They’re found in every religion on earth; the stainless-steel-nay-sayers, who see their calling to cleanse the church of problem-preachers.

Paul proves that God won’t have it. Because God knows having problems is part of being human. And you can’t get rid of the problems without getting rid of the people. But sometimes even that has to happen for the church to have a chance. I know you understand that. But Paul is one of us. Because we all suffer from some affliction or other. How many days do you wake up with a pain-free body? Each of us probably has a shipwreck or two in our past, days when we’re short tempered, weak, addicted, impatient, tactless. That’s the bad news.

But the good news is none of that disqualifies us from serving God. On the contrary, those things belong on our list of credentials. And the fact that the church survives with people like us in charge, is the surest proof that there’s a Jesus! How else could any of us have endured, unless the grace of God was sufficient? I wanted ya’ll to take a look at the life of the Apostle Paul and see that God won’t place “more temptation upon us than we can stand.” Bumper-sticker wisdom says “Prayer changes things.” That sounds nice. But watch out for voodoo! I think Paul would say, “Yeah, prayer changes things. But if not, it changes us!” We’d much rather “things” get changed than “us.” But God likes it the other way. So that’s the way it is.

A clergyman in the Church of England wrote a hymn “Spirit of the Living God,” based on this text with these stunning words: “Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer!” The patience of unanswered prayer is not so much being sure that one day God will remove our painful thorns. As it is viewing your inevitable suffering to bring you to your knees in dependence upon God, whose grace is enough. So how much is enough? Because God is closest to where the pain is the greatest; that’s when we’re more eligible than we’ve ever been to discover “the power of Christ that is made perfect in weakness.” It’s the same power that enables us to think back on the awful and wonderful things that happened to us. And still say, “God must love me very much!”

I just wanted to remind ya’ll of that. Now go out of here and bless somebody. And take your weaknesses with you! You’ll be more believable!

Pastoral Prayer. O Lord, the Author and Finisher of our faith, we realize we are many things to many of people, but in Thy sight, sons & daughters. It’s easier for us to find fault with each other than to express gratitude. Our grievances lie on the tips of our tongues, while Thy provision for us, that ought to excite our praise and generosity, are easily lost from sight. Encourage us to be more obedient, where we have grown lax. Restore us in tenderness where we have grown hard. Renew us in purpose where we’ve grown confused.

Uphold the bereaved in their loneliness, remind the sick that your ear is never too heavy to hear, nor your arm too short that it cannot redeem. May the power and presence of Jesus be felt in this worship and confirm in us, that “while sorrow endures for a night, joy comes this morning!”

Bless each one in this worship today, with an unhindered view of Thy grace, that sure of the power at work through our weaknesses, we may live not somehow or other, but victoriously. Through Christ our Lord, Amen.