(This will be my last post until Aug 16th as I am leaving for sabbatical.)
Year B Pentecost 2 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1
This may shock some of you, but camping is not my thing. I like the idea of camping, but not the actual sleeping on the ground part. I blame my dislike of camping on some early childhood experiences. You see my family was never big into preparation—like checking weather. One of my earliest memories was when we lived in Belgium. For some reason we decided to go camping right before a huge storm. All 6 of us were in one tent, which was not nearly strong enough for the rain and the wind. My dad and oldest brother held the tent up while the rest of us slept. I was only 4 or 5 at the time and didn’t recognize how hard that must have been for them. I just remember waking up periodically in the night, seeing them, and having no doubt that we would be safe.
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| Photo by Jarhead Core |
Paul
used the image of the tent when talking about our earthly existence. It’s not surprising that he used this image
since he was a tent maker. He was
probably intimately aware of the usefulness of a tent, while also mindful of
its limitations. A tent was never meant
to be a permanent home, much like our earthly bodies are not meant to be a
permanent home.
In this
letter to the Corinthians, Paul was attempting explain to the Corinthians why
we can’t use human standards when trying to determine the success of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ or our success as disciples. In the first part of the letter,
he spent a lot of time defending himself and his suitability as a leader.
Since his
first visit, the people of Corinth had been wooed by false prophets---ones who
spoke more articulately, looked more powerful and performed numerous
miracles. These prophets also told the
people of Corinth what they wanted to hear. Paul wasn’t impressive in speech or
appearance and he never told people what they wanted to hear. It was usually
quite the opposite. Therefore it is
understandable that the people of Corinth had wandered off the path.
As a result,
Paul had the rather Herculean task of convincing these people that suffering
and hardship wasn’t a sign of failure or weakness---it might even indicate you
are doing things right. Suffering was
and is inevitable when following a crucified Messiah.
To make his
point, Paul contrasted our outer natures and our inner natures. When Paul referred to our outer nature, it was
more than just our bodies. It’s all that
is ephemeral—all that is passing. That includes our bodies, our minds, our
social networks, our homes, our victories and our defeats. It’s everything that is seen. The inner nature is the new life we
experience when we come into a relationship with God.
We might assume
that when Paul refers to our inner nature, he is talking about the afterlife, but
that is not the case. He is clearly describing the present when he writes, “Our
inner nature is being renewed day by day.”
That inner nature is what gives us the strength to handle what is
happening all around us—what is happening to our outer nature.
He then
wrote, “For
this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory
beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot
be seen…” I found
myself quite enraptured by the phrase “eternal weight of glory.” I always associated that phrase with heaven
and eternal life. But if we have an
inner nature that is being renewed day by day ---right now, we must therefore
have a portion of that weight of glory right now as well. It’s not the eternal weight of glory, but it
is glory none the less.
But what is the weight of glory? It is the thumb print of God
on our souls. It is the part of us that
cannot be touched by all the stuff that life throws at us. It’s the weight that holds our tent
upright. So even when our tent is
falling apart, even when the world seems to be falling apart, we do not lose
heart.
As
Christians, we live in this in-between place.
We are in a place where our bodies limit us yet our hope remains in that
which is limitless. Right now our bodies
are fragile and not meant to last forever.
Most of us have seen evidence of that in our own health. But it’s not just our bodies that our
fragile, it’s our whole world.
The fragility
of our world has been abundantly clear over the last year. Most of the things that we took for granted
were compromised by a virus. Entire
industries and governments were brought to their knees. Even those things we
hold sacred, our houses of worship and our families were separated from us. We
lost people who were incredibly important to us and some were denied the
opportunity to mourn in our Holy spaces.
Yet, we do not lose heart, because we carry (right now) the weight of
glory.
That is what Paul had that the false prophets could never
convey, a faith that no matter how bad things get, pain and suffering never has
the final word, not when you are grounded by the weight of glory.
We have a tradition at the Annual Council of our diocese
where we read memorials for people who have died who were active in the
diocese, whether as clergy or lay people.
After the names and stories were read, we would have a moment of silence
and then our previous bishop would say, “May they rise in glory.” I always
liked that phrase. It sounds triumphant.
Here on earth the weight of glory steadies us.
It gives us a strength that only God can give. But when we die, then that glory allows us to
rise into a new life with Christ.
As Christians, we are in an in-between place and sometimes
that feels precarious and exhausting. Yet
God doesn’t abandon us in this in between world. He gives us something, something that never
decays, never wastes away. He gives us
an inner nature that is being renewed day by day and a weight of glory that holds
us up so we can stand against even the greatest and most unexpected storms. Today, may we all stand with the weight of
glory holding us up. One day, may we all
rise with the eternal glory of Christ.
