Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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In her early thirties, reasonably successful and attractive, she was not happy. "Something she needed to talk about," she said. Yet after several weeks of conversation she had not even broached the subject. Finally, she arrived one morning and announced she was determined to speak of it. First she thanked me for not mentioning the problem, although she knew it had been obvious to me all along. And then, amid sobs, she told me how one of her legs was shorter than the other, from a childhood break, and how it caused her to walk with a humiliating limp, and how in school the other kids had laughed at her when she walked, and how, when she was dating, no decent man would ask her out because she limped. She had been denied the job she wanted, she said, because of this flaw, and recently had been passed over for a promotion for the same reason. She had a "thorn in the flesh," and it was ruining her life. I had never noticed it. When I told her so, she thanked me again for being so kind, trying to protect her feelings. That was thirty years ago. Her limp probably still holds her back, at least in her mind. I cannot say exactly that her problem was imagined -- I assume one leg was actually shorter -- but it was greatly exaggerated, exaggerated to the point of becoming a barrier for her, a boundary which (by her own rule) she could not cross. Perhaps an excuse.

Most of us have a thorn or two. Sometimes real, sometimes imagined. Always exaggerated. And how we deal with our thorns determines, to a large extent, who we are and how we make it in this life. I am sure there are among us thorns and more thorns: "I'm too short; I'm too tall. I'm skinny; I'm fat. I'm too big here, too small there. Eyes too close. Too much hair. Bald. Even our genders can be seen as thorns these days. ("I'm a woman, and men get all the good jobs." "I'm a man, and they're only hiring women.") Some thorns are less fanciful. "I'm disabled, and have to get around in a wheelchair." "I have a serious illness." Some thorns haunt us from the past. "I'm divorced." "I used to drink too much." "I was raised in a dysfunctional family." "I have a criminal record." Whatever holds us back, or we believe holds us back, is "a thorn in the flesh."

Actually St. Paul created that expression, "thorn in the flesh." He created it specifically for a physical ailment of his own. He assumed the readers of his letters know all about this flaw of his, so he never said what it was, leading to centuries of speculation. (Watch out for self-serving guesses, in this regard, by the way. The Epilepsy Society has proclaimed that Paul's thorn was (guess what) epilepsy. The gay community says with confidence it was (guess what) his sexual orientation. Be patient -- some educator will soon announce that Paul suffered from Attention Deficit Syndrome.) Trust me. We don't know. There is only one real clue, and it is (believe it or not) in the tense of Paul's verb. In speaking of his thorn, Paul always uses a tense that implies an ongoing, prolonged condition (not something temporary, like a bruise or a bad cold). So we can say with some certainty two things: that Paul's thorn was something obvious to those who met him, and was apparently a nagging, hampering thing, a real trial, a daily drain on his body and on his nerves. And that is all we can say. I am glad we don't know more. Because, not knowing the exact nature of Paul's problem, means that each reader of this great text can insert his own agony, is own "thorn": "Three times I appealed to the Lord about (and then you choose) -- about my skin, about my weight, about my handicap, about my addiction, about my marriage, about growing old", whatever. The exact nature of the problem is not the issue. What is important (and truly wonderful) is what God told Paul about his thorn, and the way Paul came to understand it. On the third try, the third desperate praying, the third begging for relief from this thing (whatever it was), Paul got an answer. It wasn't the answer he had hoped for: to have the thorn removed. In a way it was better. God said, "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." Sufficient. Not perfect, but adequate -- adequate to every trial, even to this one. I will give you no burden you cannot carry, no suffering you cannot endure, no stress you cannot bear. Don't ask for more.

If we expect a life without pain, without stress, without some "thorns", we will be disappointed. God never promised that kind of rose garden. An alcoholic friend described the first terrible days her sobriety. "I was trembling from head to toe," she said, "and in my anger I shouted at my AA counselor, 'Look at me, I'm shaking all over.'" To which he calmly replied, "Nobody ever said you wouldn't shake." "That seems heartless, I know," she went on, "but those words were the beginning of my healing. I applied that rule to my whole life. Nobody ever said you wouldn't be afraid,. Nobody ever said you wouldn't be under stress, or be confused, or angry, or hurt. What Somebody did say was that His grace would be sufficient, that he would make me adequate, that he would see me through.

Of course, that's not all God said to Paul about his thorn. He gave him a great theological insight. "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." We are coming to the cross, in these last days of Lent, where we see clearly how strength is born of weakness, how one who dies lives, how the essential servant becomes the essential King, how it is a lamb that "taketh away the sins of the world." In Lent we truly know, if we did not know before, that it is not by our own strength that God's will is done, but by his strength working through our weakness.

For not with swords loud clashing, nor roll of stirring drums;
With deeds of love and mercy the heavenly kingdom comes.

Paul was prone to every human sin, as are we. His thorn was given him, he tells us, to keep him from the sin of pride. He was a man close to God, no doubt. But lest that special relationship lead him to feel superior, God gave him an offsetting thorn. One has the feeling that humility did not come naturally to Paul. He was brilliant, a Pharisee, a well-educated man, a great leader, and a true disciple of Christ. He had the credentials. Lest he should "boast" about these things, he said, God gave him a thorn. "My strength is made perfect in weakness." It is hard for us to accept what Paul is saying: that his problem (although, in one sense, it was sent by Satan) kept him humble -- and that was good.

Our thorns also teach us how much we need God. We often come to God through a desperate sense of need. At least, that is often a starting point. Sometimes it is a physical event that wakes us up: a heart attack, or a bout with some serious disease. It could be the loss of a loved one, or some new responsibility thrust upon us, that shows us we are not, in fact, self-sufficient. We need God. Abraham Lincoln, in the midst of the Civil War, said, "I have been driven to my knees a thousand times by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go." His critics attacked him for that. They perceived it as weakness on his part. They called him "spineless." They mocked him when he said his policy was to have no policy (by which he meant, "This is a terrible mess we are in. I don't always know the right thing to do. Sometimes I'm just making decisions one day at a time. Doing my best.) They made fun of his gawkiness, his high-pitched voice, and his country ways. And they cartooned him as a ape whenever they could. But God took that "weakness" in Abraham Lincoln (that deep humility) and forged it into a great strength, and with it saved the Union.

As soon as the Apostle Paul saw that God's strategy was to work with what looked like weakness in the eyes of this world, and turn it to strength, he made friends with his thorn. He went so far as to say he would boast about his weakness (instead of doing the macho thing, and pretending to be strong), he would lean on the strength of Christ. "I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities" he wrote, and then came these great words: "…for whenever I am weak, then I am strong."

We might as well be content with weakness, for it is, as they say, "where we are." We don't actually control very much. I don't know your thorn. I am familiar with a few in me. Paul says the way to deal with these things (in the light of the Gospel) is not to fight them, not to let them ruin our lives, but to make friends with them. That's a tall order, I know: to reverse our attitudes about our cherished fears and resentments, to give them up as excuses, to understand (first) that God's grace is sufficient -- so our flaws cannot destroy us -- and then (safe from the ultimate threat) to understand that thorns might actually serve God's purposes.

They all had flaws: Peter was an insufferable braggart, and turned out to be a real coward when the chips were down; James and John were social climbers , if we can believe their mother was speaking for them, and I bet she was. Thomas was a doubter. Andrew was shy. God made Peter the head of his Church, and, in every case, took their individual weaknesses and turned them to strengths. We don't have to be perfect to be Christians -- we don't even have to pretend to be perfect. We should not. We need only to believe that God's grace will make us adequate for every trial, and that he will take our imperfections and turn them to good.

Not to be reproduced without expressed permission of Pastor William Boyle.