Try and Try Again
2 Corinthians 4:8-18[1]
You may or may not know that I enjoy solving puzzles. All
kinds of puzzles, from sudoku, to crosswords, to card games, to actual jigsaw
puzzles, to Lego sets. Yes, I am an “Adult fan of Lego” (Afol). I enjoy the
challenge of figuring out how to put it all together. I enjoy keeping my mind
and my hands busy, so to speak. Solving a puzzle is something that I can do and
lose track of time. I enjoy other activities as well, as you know. I can lose
myself in a really good work of fiction. I can lose myself playing guitar,
especially when I’m trying to learn something that’s challenging. But puzzles
have been a “go to” activity for me for a long time.
One of the reasons why I enjoy solving puzzles so much is
because you have to look at the “big picture” in order to solve a puzzle.
That’s especially true with sudoku. Every column, every row, every segment can
only have one sequence of the numbers one through nine. I also enjoy the fact
that solving puzzles requires “thinking outside the box.” Or perhaps I should
say looking at things from a different perspective. I can’t tell you how many
times I’ve had the right puzzle piece in the right place, but it was turned
around the wrong way. I enjoy the challenge of a puzzle because it makes me
look at both the “big picture” and the “small details,” and it makes me “turn
things around” in my head until I find the solution.
I would say that the question of how a church can thrive in
this current setting is something like that. We have to look at the “big
picture” in order to solve the puzzle. We need to see how all the pieces fit
together. We also have to look at the “small details.” Some aspects of our life
together as a congregation that we may have taken for granted, perhaps for
years, may need more careful attention. The way things are in our current
context also means that we have to “think outside the box.” Some of the things
we have always done continue to work for us. Some of them may not, and we may need
to be willing to look at new solutions to the new problems we’re facing. Maybe
the most important element to solving the question of how a church can thrive
in this current context is the ability to look at things from a different
perspective. We get used to seeing things on a regular basis (or not seeing
them). All of this is going to require that we adopt the basic attitude that
“if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”!
I think that’s what St. Paul’s testimony about his life was
about. From our perspective, it’s all too easy to think of “Saint” Paul as
someone who walked around with a halo and lived “above” this world and all its
troubles. But Paul makes it clear in his letters that was not the case! Later
in this same letter he tells us that he endured “troubles and hardships and
calamities of every kind.” He continues, “We have been beaten, been put in
prison, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and
gone without food” (2 Cor 6:4-5 NLT). He summarized his experience by
saying, “I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers. I have faced danger
from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles. I have faced danger
in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas. And I have faced danger from
men who claim to be believers but are not.” (2 Cor. 11:26, NLT).
In our lesson for today he describes his experience of
serving Christ as an Apostle in a particularly memorable way: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not
crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but
never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed” (2 Cor
4:8-9, NLT). I’ve always found this passage to be both troubling and
comforting. It’s troubling because in essence Paul says that when we follow
Christ, we are bound to have this kind of experience! In another passage, he
says that we “must expect such things” if we follow Christ (1 Thess 3:3, Phillips)!
Given all of that, you might think that anyone in their
right mind in Paul’s shoes would seek “greener pastures”! But I think this is
where he was able to view his situation from the “big picture” and see all those
hardships from a different perspective. In doing so, he was able to recognize
that God was using the hardships he endured for good in the lives of the
believers he was serving. He viewed his sufferings as part of Christ’s
sufferings, and so he could say, “we live in the face of death, but this has
resulted in eternal life for you” (2 Cor 4:12, NLT). I think his ability
to adopt this perspective reminds us that we may not truly know how God is
using the hard things we may have to endure for the benefit of others. But I
think Jesus’ death on the cross makes one thing clear: that’s how God does his
most powerful work in this world!
That brings me back to the comforting part of the passage I
quoted earlier: “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not
crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but
never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed” (2 Cor
4:8-9, NLT). Paul could face everything he had to endure with the
assurance that God never abandoned him. And with God’s help, he was able to
bear everything that came his way. He knew the weight of suffering, but it did
not crush him. He knew the confusion of not understanding why some things
happened to him, but he never gave up hope. Instead, he was confident that
through everything he had to endure, God’s grace was reaching “more and more
people” (2 Cor 4:15, NLT). And so he could say “we never give up” (2 Cor
4:16, NLT)!
For many of us, the condition of the church as a whole these
days is perhaps the worst we’ve ever seen it in our lives. There are people who
are paid to come up with reasons for it, and their insights are helpful. But I
think we have to adopt the mindset of solving a puzzle in order to address this
challenging and confusing time. We can look at the “big picture,” and think
about what God may be doing in and through us in the midst of these struggles. We
may not know what that is, but we can be assured that God is doing something in
and through us in this difficult time. We can turn the pieces of the puzzle
around and look at things differently to try to figure out the key question:
how can we draw people who are content with their lives as they are into our
community? In all of this, we can trust that God never has and never will
abandon us. And this hope can give us the energy to try and try again.
[1] ©
2024 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 6/9/2024 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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