Jennifer E. Copeland - "Christian First Aid" (July 9, 2000)

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-	The second reading is from	0:12
	the Gospel According to St. Mark, the sixth chapter.	0:15
	"He left that place and came to his home town,	0:19
	and his disciples followed him.	0:23
	On the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue.	0:26
	And many who heard him were astounded.	0:30
	They said, Where did this man get all this?	0:34
	What is this wisdom that has been given to him?	0:39
	What deeds of power are being done by his hands?	0:42
	Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary,	0:47
	and the brother of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon,	0:52
	and are not his sisters here with us?	0:57
	And they took offense at him.	1:01
	Then Jesus said to them, Prophets are not without honor	1:05
	except in their home town, and among their own kin,	1:10
	and in their own house.	1:15
	And he could do no deed of power there,	1:19
	except that he laid his hands on a few sick people	1:23
	and cured them.	1:26
	And he was amazed at their unbelief.	1:27
	Then he went about among the villages teaching.	1:34
	He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two,	1:38
	and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.	1:42
	He ordered them to take nothing for their journey	1:46
	except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in their belts,	1:49
	but to wear sandals, and not to put on two tunics.	1:55
	He said to the, Wherever you enter a house,	2:00
	stay there until you leave the place.	2:03
	If any place will not welcome you	2:06
	and they refuse to hear you, as you leave,	2:08
	shake off the dust that is on your feet	2:12
	as a testimony against them.	2:15
	So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent.	2:19
	They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil	2:23
	many who were sick and cured them.	2:27
	This is the word of the Lord.	2:32
-	Thanks be to God.	2:35
-	For those of us who finally earned the privilege	2:45
	of putting on one of these brightly colored	2:48
	swaths of fabric, there is one question	2:52
	that we all must answer, no matter what our faith tradition.	2:55
	In my own United Methodist tradition	2:59
	I lost track of how many times I had to answer	3:02
	this question, and so I began to concentrate instead	3:05
	on giving essentially the same answer	3:08
	every time I was asked, in case any of those interviewers	3:11
	knew each other, and got together,	3:14
	and began to compare answers to my question.	3:16
	You know, it wouldn't do to keep changing your story.	3:21
	But really, after the third, or fourth,	3:23
	or even fifth time that you are asked the question,	3:26
	you really do start to feel the pressure	3:31
	to offer something creative or original.	3:33
	Then when I heard some of the fantastic answers	3:37
	that were being given as explanations by other people,	3:41
	well, that made the pressure to say something remarkable	3:45
	all the greater.	3:48
	It's not that one would ever lie when answering	3:50
	this question, but really, by the fifth time you are asked	3:52
	you really do want to come up with an original idea.	3:57
	It's a very basic question, of course,	4:02
	and each of us stole wearers has to answer it.	4:03
	They ask us, "Why do you feel called	4:08
	to the ordained ministry?"	4:13
	I heard people give stories ranging everywhere from,	4:16
	"I was driving home from work late one night down a dark,	4:20
	deserted road and suddenly headlights appeared before me,	4:24
	and I bowed my head and cried out to God,	4:28
	and after what should have been a head-on collision	4:29
	I looked up.	4:32
	Nothing was there, and I knew it was a sign from God	4:34
	that I should be a preacher."	4:37
	To this story, "Well, I just want to help people."	4:40
	My answer, of course, lies comfortably	4:46
	somewhere between the fantastic and the mundane.	4:49
	I'll have you know that I stuck with my story	4:52
	through the local church interviews,	4:55
	the district committee meetings,	4:57
	the conference board interrogation,	4:58
	and even the bishop's inquiry.	5:00
	Yet even after we get the stole, people still ask us why.	5:03
	When I tell someone that I am a Methodist minister,	5:10
	right after they clean up their language	5:13
	and hide the beer under the counter,	5:14
	they look at me as if they're wondering, "Why?"	5:17
	Or better yet, "How?"	5:20
	When I first started into this work,	5:24
	making the initial round of visits	5:26
	to the shut-ins of the church always provided	5:29
	an opportunity to explain my call to the ministry,	5:31
	albeit not quite on the same level	5:35
	as the Board of Ordained Ministry had expected to hear it.	5:37
	It was usually more along the lines of,	5:40
	"Why look, it's that new lady preacher	5:43
	the bishop has sent to us.	5:46
	Now how in the world did you get to be a minister?"	5:48
	But the best one I heard was from an elderly gentleman	5:53
	who proclaimed when I walked in his door,	5:57
	"Why, you're just too pretty to be a preacher."	6:00
	But they never told me about that affliction	6:06
	in seminary or the Board of Ordained Ministry,	6:08
	and I spent a great deal of time reassuring this gentleman	6:10
	that God had a proven track record	6:13
	of calling beautiful people into the service	6:15
	and some of those people were even men.	6:18
	(laughter)	6:21
	Of course, the ordained don't have a monopoly	6:23
	on having to justify God's call.	6:28
	Plenty of lay people get funny looks	6:30
	every time they head out the door for worship	6:32
	instead of pouring that third cup of coffee	6:35
	and settling down with the Sunday paper,	6:38
	or heading off to the local golf course	6:40
	for a 9:45 tee time.	6:42
	And the quizzical looks will get even more serious	6:45
	if you give up a week of your summer vacation	6:48
	and you head off to a place like Haiti or Honduras	6:50
	to build a church or to build a school.	6:55
	Paul, in today's epistle lesson,	6:59
	is asked to justify his call to proclaim	7:01
	Christ as the risen Lord.	7:05
	Even though Paul has one of those	7:08
	fantastic caught-in-the-headlights stories,	7:10
	that's not the one he chooses to highlight.	7:15
	Oh, yes, he does mention it in a sort of off-hand way.	7:18
	He says, "Oh, yes, I knew a person	7:22
	who was caught up in the third heaven.	7:24
	Could have been in the body.	7:26
	Might have been out of the body.	7:27
	I don't know.	7:28
	But he was there.	7:29
	He saw a lot of great things,	7:30
	but I can't tell you about them."	7:32
	Of course, the person was Paul himself.	7:35
	What Paul focuses on in the midst of relating	7:39
	what could have been a fantastic vision	7:41
	is not the glory and the splendor of paradise,	7:44
	for that is indeed where he claims to have been,	7:48
	but he focuses rather on that thorn he received	7:51
	while he was in the third heaven,	7:56
	Paul's infamous thorn in the flesh.	7:59
	Scholars have speculated for centuries about Paul's thorn.	8:03
	He had a lisp.	8:07
	He had a limp.	8:09
	He had a wife.	8:10
	He had a male lover.	8:11
	You can see that Paul's thorn usually reflects	8:13
	more of the scholar's own place in life	8:16
	than it does Paul's particular challenges,	8:18
	because for Paul the thorn grounds him in reality.	8:21
	The thorn reminds him that visions are great	8:26
	for those lucky enough to have them.	8:29
	But the reality is, there are a lot more cuts and bruises	8:31
	picked up while living the Christian life	8:36
	than there are visions and exaltations.	8:38
	Paul tells us that if we are dependent	8:43
	upon glorious revelations to prove the worth of this faith	8:46
	or the validity of our calling,	8:51
	we could be in for a long, hard road	8:52
	full of disappointment.	8:55
	In fact, according to Paul, that's exactly	8:58
	the kind of road we are in for,	9:01
	and the sooner we come to grips with that reality	9:03
	the better we'll be able to tread the path.	9:05
	So this would be a good time for all of you	9:09
	to head to the door, because who wants a hard road	9:11
	filled with disappointment?	9:15
	I suspect if you hurry, you could still	9:17
	make a 12 o'clock tee time.	9:19
	But as you are rushing out the door,	9:22
	don't misunderstand Paul here.	9:26
	Because it is not the Christian faith in and of itself	9:29
	that will disappoint us and create hardship.	9:33
	It's life.	9:36
	Life is hard.	9:38
	Life is filled with disappointments.	9:40
	But in the midst of these disappointments	9:43
	and these hardships, and in the midst of life,	9:45
	the Christian faith can sustain us.	9:49
	But you see a vision of driving down the road	9:54
	and being confronted with lights and sirens	9:57
	calling a person to preach isn't worth a hill of beans	9:59
	to you when you face tragedy, or disappointment,	10:03
	or hardship, when you get a thorn.	10:07
	What you need then, what I need then,	10:11
	what any of us need then is a hand to hold,	10:14
	or a prayer offered.	10:18
	Or maybe all we need is silent presence.	10:21
	We need somebody to dig beneath the cheerful exterior	10:25
	of our everyday existence to push back	10:28
	the folds of our clothing and notice	10:31
	the festering, oozing wounds where the thorns are embedded.	10:34
	Maybe you could help me remove the thorn.	10:40
	Or maybe all you can do is help me keep it clean.	10:44
	You can lance it, wash it, bandage it for me	10:47
	until it heals, if it heals.	10:50
	Sometimes, simply surviving does more	10:55
	to strengthen our faith than a neon sign	10:58
	flashing through the night, "I am who I am."	11:01
	Visions and spiritual exaltation certainly have validity	11:05
	for the individual caught in the phenomenon,	11:09
	according to Paul, but they are not the ties	11:11
	that bind our hearts in Christian love.	11:14
	They are not the fellowship of kindred minds.	11:16
	Those bonds and fellowships usually happen in life	11:21
	where the thorns grown the thickest.	11:25
	When I was a student here in the early '80s,	11:28
	there was a much-loved religion professor	11:31
	who was about to retire, and so the only people	11:34
	who could get into his classes were religion majors,	11:37
	so I became a religion major one fall semester	11:41
	in order to take New Testament in the spring semester	11:44
	with Barney Jones.	11:48
	It was one of the last classes that Barney	11:50
	ever taught here at Duke.	11:52
	He had this practice of never scheduling	11:54
	office appointments.	11:57
	Barney simply left his door open after lunch	11:59
	and anybody who wanted to could come by	12:02
	and chat with him.	12:04
	His office was up on the third floor of Carr Building	12:06
	all the way over on East Campus,	12:08
	but the hall was always lined with students,	12:11
	and hardly anyone came to talk about their grade	12:14
	or their paper assignment.	12:17
	We went to talk to Barney about life,	12:20
	because he seemed to know how to live life	12:23
	in such an extraordinary way.	12:26
	It was not an extravagant way.	12:29
	It was not even, in our opinion sometimes,	12:31
	a particularly exciting way.	12:34
	But it was a good way.	12:37
	And so we trotted in our problems	12:40
	and our fears and our heartaches,	12:42
	because it was obvious to all of us	12:44
	that Barney didn't have any of his own.	12:46
	I remember sitting in his office one afternoon	12:49
	moaning about the disintegration of love	12:54
	because my boyfriend was so far away,	12:56
	a couple of hundred miles or something.	13:00
	Barney listened.	13:02
	He nodded politely at my declarations	13:03
	that nobody's pain could be this agonizing,	13:05
	offered me a Kleenex when needed,	13:09
	reassured me and sent me on my way.	13:10
	I felt oh so much better after that visit,	13:13
	but still certain that he didn't really	13:16
	understand my heartache because his life	13:18
	was so good, so comfortable.	13:21
	Later I learned, as some of you may know,	13:25
	that Barney had been in the Navy as a young man	13:28
	and had spent months away from his family.	13:31
	Maybe he had spent more than a year away from his family,	13:33
	away from his beloved Margie, who has now predeceased him,	13:36
	away from his children, and he had missed	13:41
	many of those parental milestones,	13:43
	the first steps, the first birthdays, the first words.	13:46
	He didn't tell me any of those things	13:50
	when I was moaning about a boyfriend 200 miles away	13:53
	that I hadn't seen in, what, maybe two weeks.	13:55
	He just let me sit there and believe	14:00
	that I had the worst problem in the world.	14:02
	Well, I did.	14:06
	That's the way it is with problems	14:10
	when they are our problems, and Barney knew that.	14:12
	Paul knew that.	14:16
	The thorns that we have are our thorns.	14:17
	Paul's point is, sooner or later,	14:21
	if we live this life long enough	14:24
	and we endeavor to remain true to the tenets of our faith,	14:26
	we're going to pick up a thorn,	14:29
	and it's going to hurt like hell.	14:32
	Chances are, it'll be a lot more serious	14:35
	than a long-distance relationship with a hometown boyfriend	14:38
	in your second year of college.	14:42
	But whatever that thorn is, it'll be yours,	14:45
	and how you handle it will make	14:50
	all the difference in the world.	14:52
	In fact, how you handle it could depend on your life.	14:54
	Because the thorn can be a hindrance,	15:00
	or the thorn can be helpful.	15:03
	In Paul's case, the thorn, whatever it was,	15:06
	kept him from becoming too proud	15:08
	of his third heaven out of body experience.	15:10
	The thorn reminded him that Christian faith	15:14
	is lived out here on earth, not in heaven.	15:17
	And it taught him that valuable lesson	15:21
	around which today's epistle reading turns.	15:23
	Power is made perfect in weakness.	15:27
	It has been my experience that God has a way	15:33
	of taking events disastrous from our perspective	15:37
	and working through those events	15:41
	to create positive results for us	15:42
	and ultimately for God's kingdom.	15:45
	Naturally, the Bible is full of examples.	15:48
	Joseph's betrayal by his brothers	15:51
	to the slave traders from Egypt later saves his family	15:53
	and thus the nation of Israel	15:57
	from annihilation by famine.	15:59
	The union of David and Bathsheba,	16:01
	consummated in adultery and made possible by murder,	16:04
	provides the successor to the throne of King David.	16:08
	The death of God's own son at the hands of humans	16:12
	brings about salvation for the entire creation.	16:17
	It shouldn't surprise us then that disastrous events	16:21
	in our own lives can still offer possibilities.	16:25
	This thorn of Paul's, sent to him by Satan,	16:30
	was supposed to hinder his ministry.	16:34
	It was supposed to be a threat to his work.	16:35
	Instead it taught him the valuable lesson	16:38
	about humility, and patience, and weakness.	16:40
	Sometimes, you see, we are saved from our own follies	16:45
	without even knowing it.	16:49
	What could Paul accomplish through the folly	16:51
	of boasting about a vision of paradise?	16:54
	Probably not very much.	16:57
	But Paul could accomplish a great deal	16:59
	by persevering in the face of weaknesses,	17:02
	insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.	17:05
	Interesting that we don't even know the names	17:11
	of those other apostles, Paul's rivals in Corinth,	17:13
	who were boasting of their own visions and exaltations.	17:17
	The historians of our faith tradition	17:20
	failed to record their names,	17:22
	failed even to record their visions,	17:24
	and I doubt that it was only because	17:28
	Paul wrote better letters.	17:30
	It was probably because in the end	17:32
	their paradise experiences couldn't sustain their faith,	17:35
	much less the faith of the communities	17:39
	to which they proclaimed them.	17:42
	It is even probable that when they picked up a thorn	17:44
	their faith died from the infection.	17:50
	Thorn survival requires some effort on our part.	17:54
	We can't lackadaisically sit back and wait on God	17:59
	to fix everything, though the temptation	18:02
	to do just that afflicts most of us.	18:04
	Paul claims he prayed no less than three times	18:07
	for God to remove his thorn, and three times	18:11
	God replied that grace would suffice.	18:13
	No one wants to hear that life must continue	18:18
	in this state of discomfort for at least the short term	18:21
	if not forever.	18:25
	We've been programmed to expect more from life	18:28
	and we feel cheated somehow when we are	18:30
	forced to deal with inadequacies.	18:32
	Remember Job's refrain when his friends came calling	18:36
	and asked him to confess the transgressions	18:39
	that had brought about such calamitous events in his life.	18:42
	"I don't deserve this!" Job cried,	18:45
	but no one believed him.	18:49
	They too subscribed to that mantra	18:51
	that life doles out exactly what we deserve,	18:55
	and when we're not getting what we deserve	18:59
	we naturally appeal to God to fix it,	19:02
	as if God messed it up in the first place.	19:05
	The most often used form of prayer is a petition.	19:09
	I'm going to do a survey next fall semester	19:15
	during final exams to back up that claim.	19:17
	But I am convinced that more often than not	19:20
	when we pray, we pray in the form of a petition.	19:24
	We're always asking God to do something for us,	19:28
	and if not for us then maybe we'll ask God	19:32
	to do something for someone else.	19:35
	We call that intercession.	19:38
	But I think it's really just a petition	19:40
	dressed up as a request on someone else's behalf,	19:42
	which when granted will probably make us feel better too.	19:45
	It's the normal human reaction to tell God what we need.	19:50
	Paul does it three times.	19:55
	I've done it once or twice, this morning, I mean.	19:57
	So what are we to do with these thorns?	20:02
	God won't remove them.	20:06
	God seems somehow to be an accomplice	20:08
	to their insertion under our skin.	20:11
	Well, here's what I believe.	20:14
	I have decided that if they did teach this	20:18
	in a class across the quad years ago	20:21
	I probably learned it.	20:24
	But I don't think I believed it.	20:26
	Now I believe it.	20:29
	Like Paul, I believe in grace.	20:32
	I've lived maybe half of my life,	20:36
	hopefully not even that long,	20:39
	but I have lived long enough to know	20:41
	that if I were in charge of my life	20:44
	it would not be what it is today.	20:46
	Grace is more than God's forgiveness to undeserving sinners,	20:51
	though goodness knows that's enough.	20:55
	Grace is still more.	20:57
	Grace is the strength that God gives us	20:59
	to live each day as people of God.	21:02
	Some need more, some need less.	21:06
	I've needed more than my share lately,	21:10
	but there have been times in the past	21:11
	where I didn't need very much at all,	21:13
	and I trust that day will come again.	21:15
	It's all about dressing wounds.	21:18
	Any time you dress wounds, some good first aid	21:22
	can save your life.	21:25
	But you've got to have the right supplies on hand,	21:28
	supplies like hope,	21:31
	trust, perseverance, faith.	21:35
	It also helps to have people around you	21:41
	who can assist in the application of those supplies,	21:43
	mentors in the faith who can show us how to live	21:47
	without a great deal of whining and complaining	21:50
	even when both of those reactions	21:52
	would be perfectly justified.	21:54
	Those kind of people are not in the third heaven	21:57
	that Paul visited.	22:01
	They're here, beside you, behind you, in front of you.	22:02
	They work with you, attend class with you.	22:07
	They have names like Barney Jones,	22:10
	who listens to sophomore problems,	22:12
	knowing all the while that if life were any harder than that	22:15
	then life really wouldn't be much of a challenge.	22:19
	You may never know the names of those people,	22:23
	unless-	22:27
	unless you pick up a thorn,	22:30
	and you can't dig it out all by yourself.	22:32
	And then you learn something about grace,	22:37
	and about the people who embody it.	22:40
	And you learn something about yourself.	22:43
	Then you learn something about weakness.	22:46
	And then, only then, do you know the power	22:52
	made perfect in weakness and the strength	22:57
	sufficient for the need.	23:00
	That is where Paul found his answer for the call.	23:05
	It has given me my answer, and I trust	23:11
	that it will give you yours	23:15
	through the power of the Holy Spirit.	23:19
	Amen.	23:22

Item Info

Title:

Jennifer E. Copeland - "Christian First Aid" (July 9, 2000)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 02:45. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 23:24.
Although we face difficulties in our lives and God does not magically fix all of our concerns, through proper faith and a support system we will find that God has given us enough grace to make our difficulties into blessings. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “Sooner or later if we live this life long enough and we endeavor to remain true to the tenets of our faith, we’re going to pick up a thorn and it’s going to hurt like hell.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4gq6rg85

Date:

July 9, 2000

Speaker:

Copeland, Jennifer E.

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Biblical Book:

Mark

Chapter and Verse:

Mark 6:1-12

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1021
ref10199_syo
uachapelsermaud
duke:320871
dcrau001665
ark:/87924/r4gq6rg85
fa60ac4f-3c8d-4b93-aac2-613381b8e69b

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