“I know a person… who was caught up into Paradise,” Paul wrote to the church in Corinth nearly two thousand years ago. “Even considering the exceptional character of the revelations, however, I refrain from boasting.”
This passage is one of my favorites in all of Paul’s voluminous and dense correspondence to the early church, in large part because it reveals so much about the character of the man. But its also a bit confusing—intentionally, I think—so let me try to translate the apostle. “I know someone— who certainly wasn’t me—who had an extraordinary spiritual experience. Because he wasn’t me I can’t boast, but I still want you to know that my experience was very exceptional.”
As I listen to our first lesson this morning, I find myself simultaneously wanting to laugh, cry, and give Paul a hug. Laugh, because he went to such great rhetorical lengths to pretend that he was not the man with the exceptional revelations. Except that after introducing the figure of the person caught up to the third heaven, he immediately betrayed himself when he reverted to the first person by writing disclaimers like “I won’t boast,” or “I won’t be too elated.”
I also want to cry because Paul was evidently in some spiritual or psychological distress, as revealed by the painful metaphor of a thorn in the flesh. And I want to hug him because he takes all of these joyful and challenging experiences, wraps them in a shroud of rather convoluted prose, only to unveil this magnificent theological statement at the end. Hear what God spoke to him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”
Grace. Grace is in the air these days, which is a blessing for a preacher because its one of the most basic and most important concepts in Christian theology. Over the years, Christians may have disagreed mightily on the means of grace; like, for example, whether it comes to us through sacraments or assent to a doctrine or self-surrender. But about the source of grace (God) and the purpose of grace (participation in the life of God), we are in substantial agreement. Grace is a gift of God; actually it’s THE gift of God. President Obama explained it as well as anyone. “Grace is not earned,” he reminded us. “Grace is not merited. It’s not something we deserve. Rather, grace is the free and benevolent favor of God as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.”
This is a direct quote from his eulogy for the Rev. Dr. Clementa Pinckney, the murdered pastor of Emanuel AME church in Charleston. I don’t know how many of you have seen it, but its well worth 35 minutes of your youtube time. As our President and the Apostle Paul remind us, grace is a gift with a purpose. It is given in order that we might be transformed. When we apprehend God’s grace, we become people of gratitude, generosity and forgiveness. And, as Paul himself testified, grace gives rise to contentment in the midst of hard circumstances. And at times, even joy and elation.
Over the past few weeks I’d venture to say that we’ve witnessed a vision of an American grace. Unmerited gifts from God bestowed upon our entire nation, which have the capacity to change us for the better. Our national weaknesses are well known to us: deeply ingrained racism, divisive politics, and a curious reluctance to share the legal protections and social affirmation of marriage with LGBT people. But when Nadine Collier, the daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance who died at Emanuel AME told her killer “I forgive you… have mercy on your soul,” that’s grace. Nobody could earn it. When the Supreme Court upholds health care and extends the privilege of marriage for all, that’s grace. Our political system couldn’t negotiate it. And when the Episcopal church elects a talented and charismatic black presiding bishop through our democratic processes, that’s grace. We didn’t achieve it though the racial diversity of our membership.
Even considering the exceptional character of these recent public events, we won’t boast, right? Because they are grace. And Paul himself teaches us that if we have to boast, we are called to boast of God who blesses, sustains and transforms in his image us. Even when—not if—we do everything wrong. Because we will mess it up—individually, corporately, nationally—but God’s grace is still at work in and through and sometimes despite us. We just have to keep our eyes open for it, and be openhearted enough to receive it when it comes in unexpected and sometimes unsettling ways.
This Independence Day weekend, when we find ourselves in the midst of so many defining moments in our beautiful American experiment, we might take time to pause with our brother Paul and remember that exceptional experiences do not make us exceptional people in God’s order of things. For too long we have labored under then overt or covert influence of American exceptionalism; the theory that the United States is inherently different from and better than other nations because we are uniquely blessed by God. Exceptionalism has given rise to dangerously triumphalist and exclusivist policies and practices; it is the banner under which our country has too often treated our neighbors and our natural resources like means to our ends.
But grace teaches us otherwise. No-one—neither person nor nation—is exceptional. At least not in the sense of being better or more worthy than another. Instead, we are all exceedingly loved. And through this inexhaustible and unlimited gift of grace—which knows neither boundary nor border—we invited to live more deeply into the self-giving life of God.
When Jesus sent his disciples out to minister with nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts, they were modeling lives of grace. Instead of the presumption of exceptionality, their tools for ushering in the kingdom of God were vulnerability. That’s how grace works. Where exceptionality would demand resources enough to carry out the mission, grace relies of the generosity of others. And through grace, those twelve were transformed—the world was transformed—and we ourselves are still being transformed. But we have to begin as Paul did, by acknowledging our weakness.
“As a nation, out of this terrible tragedy, God has visited grace upon us,” our President told us. “He has given us the chance to find our best selves. We may not have earned it, this grace, with our rancor and complacency, and short-sightedness and fear of each other, but we got it all the same. He gave it to us anyway. He’s once more given us grace. But it is up to us now to make the most of it, to receive it with gratitude, and to prove ourselves worthy of this gift.”
