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GOD’S GLORY IS MANIFESTED IN OUR WEAKNESS - stephenkhoo - 06-20-2021 05:03 PM
GOD’S GLORY IS MANIFESTED IN OUR WEAKNESS
SCRIPTURE READINGS: [2 Cor 12:1-10; Ps 34:8-13; Mt 6:24-34]
In Corinthians, St Paul’s enemies came from within the community. St Paul was concerned that these false apostles who disguised themselves as angels of light, and ministers of righteousness would mislead the people in the faith. (cf 2 Cor 11:12-15) So St Paul sought to safeguard the faith of the Christians in Corinth so that he could present them “as a chaste virgin to Christ.” (2 Cor 11:2) They presented themselves as the true apostles of Christ. They sought to discredit Paul’s authority as an apostle by exposing his weaknesses, that he was not Hebrew or an Israelite simply because he lived in Tarsus in Cilicia which was outside of Palestine. They claimed that Paul was not eloquent, unlike them who were better qualified as teachers. In today’s reading, it implied that they had mystical visions of God and hence more qualified than St Paul.
How did St Paul deal with such boasting of the so-called “arch-apostles” in Corinth? Instead of displaying his credentials, he spoke of his weaknesses. With respect to his identity and status, he said he was of equal status as them, “Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I.” Indeed, when writing to the Philippians, St Paul wrote that his strength that came from his status became his weakness, “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.” (Phil 3:4-7)
With regard to his work as an apostle and minister of Christ, Paul said “I am talking like a madman – I am a better one.” Instead of focusing on his success in the ministry, he focused on his weakness and struggles in the face of suffering and trials. He worked with “with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless floggings, and often near death.” Five times I have received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches.” (2 Cor 11:23-28)
Even with respect to mystical visions and revelations, St Paul was no less qualified than the claims of the “arch-apostles”. To avoid focusing on himself, he narrated his mystical vision at Damascus using the third person. “I know a man in Christ who, fourteen years ago, was caught up – whether still in the body or out of the body, I do not know; God knows – right into the third heaven. I do know, however, that this same person – whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know; God knows was caught up into paradise and heard things which must not and cannot be put into human language.” Even then St Paul said, “In view of the extraordinary nature of these revelations, to stop me from getting too proud I was given a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat me and stop me from getting too proud! About this thing, I have pleaded with the Lord three times for it to leave me, but he has said, ‘My grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in weakness.” Indeed, as St Paul said, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness.” (2 Cor 11:30) Indeed, God shows His power more clearly in our weakness than in our strength.
This explains why St Paul wrote, “So I shall be very happy to make my weakness my special boast so that the power of Christ may stay over me, and that is why I am quite content with my weaknesses, and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ’s sake. For it is when I am weak that I am strong.” Our strength must be found in God, not ourselves. Paul was not ashamed to confess his evil and ignorant past when he wrote to Timothy. “I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because he judged me faithful and appointed me to his service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the foremost.” (1 Tim 1:12-15)
God’s strength is always seen in our weakness. When people see us as great sinners or incompetent for our ministry but with God’s power at work in and with us, we teach and preach with courage and conviction, then they know it is truly the work of God and not just the work of man. St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians reminded them, “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.” (1 Cor 1:26-29)
This is why the Lord wants us to rely on the grace of God and His divine providence instead of on our own strength. In today’s gospel, He told His disciples not to rely on money and the things of this world to find security. Our security must be found in God alone. He said, “No one can be the slave to two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave both of God and money.” If our focus is on money, creating impressions and techniques, then what we do cannot be said to be the work of God. It is just another human enterprise. This is not to say that the preaching of the gospel does not need money but the focus is not on the money but the gospel. Money must be used for the spread of the gospel.
The Lord will provide us the means to proclaim the gospel if we place our entire trust in Him. This is why He told the disciples, “So do not worry, do not say, ‘What are we to eat? What are we to drink? How are we to be clothed?’ It is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow, will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble if its own.” So long as we are focused on proclaiming the gospel, the Lord will provide us our needs just as He looked after the birds in the sky and the flowers in the fields.
All that is required is faith in Him and in His heavenly Father. For that reason, when the Lord sent out the twelve and the seventy-two to proclaim the gospel, He gave them these instructions, “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment. Take no gold, or silver, or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey, or two tunics, or sandals, or a staff; for laborers deserve their food. Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave.” (Mt 10:5-11) Total dependence on the Lord, freed from greed and enslavement to a luxurious life. Only those who have a spirit of poverty can truly give themselves to the service of the Lord. As long as we think of our security, our interests, our benefits and what material and worldly benefits we can get out of our ministry, the Lord cannot work mightily in and through us. One day, our greed for the world will expose the hypocrisy of our ministry, like the “arch-apostles”‘ whom St Paul criticized in his letter to the Corinthians.