Prop 9b.06                                                             July 9, 2006

Our Epistle lesson finds St. Paul ranting.
The Church in Corinth had just fired him
         from his position as their Apostle.
He had been away starting another church,
         when other Apostles arrived,
                 and told them that Paul was a fraud.
To prove their point,
         they listed various and sundry of Paul’s
                 personal shortcomings.

In 2nd Corinthians, Paul is responding
         to his termination letter

         – replying to their list of grounds for his discharge.
Today’s lesson deals with two of the grounds.

The new Apostles had all had really jazzy spiritual experiences,
         and they taught the people catchy new insights
                  they had learned from God and angels.

Paul didn’t talk about that sort of thing.
He just went on about
         how they should treat each other kindly.
The Corinthians thought a real apostle
         should be more spiritual.

The second issue had to do with health and beauty.
The new apostles looked really good.
Greeks believed that God shows favor to people
         by making them healthy and beautiful.
The new apostles were easy on the eyes.

Paul, however, had a physical handicap.
We don’t know exactly what it was,
         but from the evidence in other epistles,
         the best guess is was an eye disease,
         something that left him with limited vision,
                 and it was disfiguring.

He once said that his condition sometimes made people
        want to look away and spit.
Paul wasn’t spiritual,
        he wasn’t healthy, and he wasn’t pretty.
So, the Corinthians reasoned, he must not be a real apostle.

Paul responded by saying,

        “Ok you want to know about spiritual experiences.
        Well, I have been to the 3rd heaven,
                  and the things I learned,
                  no mortal is permitted to repeat.
        But, you know what?
        That doesn’t matter.
        That isn’t what counts.
        You want to know what counts?
        We’ll get to that.
        But first, let’s talk about my handicap.

        I didn’t ask for it.
        I asked God to heal me.
        But God said, ‘My grace is sufficient.’”
        I was left with my handicap
                to keep me from being too elated.’”

In the midst of this rant,
        dictated by Paul in a full tilt rage,
        he has said something profoundly important
                for us today.

Like the Corinthians, Americans today
        are very impressed with spiritual experiences.
We want to have them ourselves,
        and we are impressed with others who have had them.
Such people have seen things.
They know things.
And that gives them spiritual credentials
        they can wear on their chests.

When we want to know how spiritual someone is,
        we ask about their experience.
Have you been born again?
Have you been baptized in the spirit?
Have you been slain in the spirit?
Do you speak in tongues?

Have you achieved satori?
Have you transcended?
Have you seen Jesus or Mary or the face of God?

The spiritual cafeteria offers a buffet counter
         of experiences to choose from.
There are places we can feel guilty, then forgiven,
         or just plain guilty all the time – it’s up to us.
There are churches that deal in contemplative bliss,
         others, in ecstatic laughter,
         and some where we just get high on Jesus and feel happy.

Religion is pretty good at giving people experiences.
Drugs and rock concerts are probably better.
But religion can do it.
The question is: whether these experiences
         actually make people better?

The new apostles thought they were God’s gift to Corinth
         because they had spiritual experiences.
Well, Paul had his spiritual experiences too.
But then he was also given a thorn in the flesh,
         to keep him from becoming too elated.

Elation isn’t always such a good thing.
Spiritual experiences are an emotional rush.
And afterward, one is apt to feel special

         – apt to think that he has found it,
         that he knows more than he actually does.
And he is apt to become a nuisance
         if not downright dangerous.

After a spiritual experiences,
        we are still only human.
We still have all the failings and limitations we did before.
But we may not know that.
We may think we are something.
We may imagine we have become saints.

But we aren’t sanctified yet.
We are just people.
When we forget that, we can get in a world
         of psychological, moral, and spiritual trouble.

Paul’s handicap reminded him of his humanity.
His weakness and vulnerability reminded him
         what Christianity is really about.
And it isn’t jazzy experiences of ecstacy and insight.

Even if we become experts in prayer and masters in meditation,
   if we “speak with the tongues of angels, and have prophetic powers,
   and understand all mysteries, and have faith that can move                  mountains,”
   Paul said, in the absence of love, it doesn’t do any good.
It is, to use his word, “ nothing”
And we are, to use his word, “nothing.”

Paul’s weakness reminded him of our need to love.
But the love he was writing about wasn’t just another spiritual

    experience.  
It was a way of looking at the world, a way of seeing each other.

Love is not something you can see in a vision.
It’s like light.
You can’t actually see light.
You see things in light.
And things look different in different light.

What Jesus gives us is a different light in which to see the world.
So it isn’t what we see but how we look at it.
We will not be saved by a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary
         or even of Jesus himself.
We will be saved by our a proper vision
         of a child who can’t read
                   or of a lonely person in need of a friend.

We are saved not by what we see
         but by how we see it

         – not by having an extraordinary spiritual experience
         but by experiencing ordinary things spiritually..
Love is a kind of looking,
         and that takes practice, discipline, and time.
It is the kind of looking we can do
         only if we are aware of our need for God and each other.
We cannot be compassionate unless we know
         we too are vulnerable.

Unlike spiritualities that produce ego inflations and spiritual pride,
         our brand of spirituality reminds us
         that we are always human, ever capable of getting it wrong,
         perpetually in need of divine and human caring.

Anglican Spirituality is not a Skyline Drive
         through the Blue Ridge Mountains.
         It’s a footpath in a pasture
         [And we do well to watch where we step.]
Anglican Spirituality doesn’t consist of intense emotions,
         visions, or dramatic conversions.
Our Church isn’t a spiritual theme park,
         and our worship isn’t a roller coast ride of feelings.

Our way is as subtle as the presence of God
         in a piece of bread.
We read the Scriptures. We think. We pray.
And we stay together through thick and thin.

We serve lunch to homeless people,
         and knit a shawl for a woman with cancer
                  who worshiped here years ago.
When the church family gathers for fellowship,
         we show up, just like we promised to do
                   in our Baptismal Vows.
We anoint each other with healing oil
         because we are all broken.

Our way isn’t that colorful.
Morning Prayer, for example,
         isn’t going to set your soul ablaze,
                   but little by little, it will mold your heart.

A young man at my seminary got tired of Morning Prayer,
         so he complained to our liturgy professor,
         “Can’t we do something else? This is boring.”

And the old professor said,

         “I’ll make you a deal.
         You say Morning Prayer every morning faithfully
                   for the next 15 years,
         Then if you feel the same way,
                   come back and we’ll talk about it.”

                                                             Amen.