Taking refuge in the body of Christ.
Romans in Lent 3
Lent 3A - Exodus 17:1-7, Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-42
Early in my sobriety, I was in church on a Sunday when the second reading was from 2 Corinthians. The reading ended with, “when I am powerless, it is then that I am strong.1” I thought, “that makes no sense. What kind of ‘strength’ would that be?”
I didn’t know. But I was sure it was important, so I cut out the passage from the bulletin and pasted into a book I read from every day. Those days, I also paid attention to the people in my 12 step group: how they talked to newcomers and how they were present to angry or frightened people. How they smiled. How they talked about themselves and then listened. How they were honest. How they helped. By watching people who like me, knew they were powerless, I slowly started to see what strength was.
Sometimes Paul’s letters are difficult to understand especially when he uses paradoxes. A paradox is a statement whose terms are logically contradictory, but which somehow, is surprisingly true. Like “less is more.” Or in the second reading, the paradox of boasting about being “ungodly” but being extravagantly loved. Or the paradox of boasting about God’s glory when the world saw that glory as a failure, on a cross. Or the paradox of strength in weakness. Paradoxes don’t explain. They exclaim a truth we’re sure of even though we can’t explain it.
Paul didn’t always write in paradoxes. He also taught and gave practical advice. He was a Pharisee, after all. But after the road to Damascus, he was learning how to live and teach something new for himself and for people from different cultures.
Perhaps Paul himself learned how to live this new life by “taking refuge” (as a Buddhist would say) in the body of Christ — the community of believers which came to exist in Rome, Corinth and Galatia and dozens of other places. In the community of believers, now as then, while we are helping others, we are also helping, encouraging and teaching one another. Those in the body. Helping them, for instance, to see what strength in weakness is. Because we are all still learning what those extraordinary paradoxes mean, and how life is changed because of them.
Paul hoped the Christ-following communities in Rome would learn to get along better with one another. They didn’t need to surrender their identities as Jews or gentiles, slave or free, male or female, rich or poor. They just needed to stop boasting that those identities made them more special than the other believers. Their old identities didn’t make them special. It was God’s love, presence and help that lifted them up. Inexplicably. Paradoxically. We never stop learning how life is changed because of that.
Peace.
2 Cor. 12:10. This verse is now always rendered, “when I am weak…” I still have the clipping, so I know the word I heard was “powerless.” I guess “powerless” is now an outdated translation.