Mark 6: 1-7; 2 Corinthians 12:2-10

It's not fun to be weak!

When I was a kid, comic books had an ad on the back that showed a 98 pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face by the beach bully. But the weakling would send off for the Charles Atlas body-building course, and three weeks later, bulging with muscles, sock the bully on the jaw. My cruel parents ... would never allow me to get my own mail-order muscles, even though I pointed out that there was a money-back guarantee. So here I am, still a wimp, and it's all their fault!

I had to make do with fantasy. Comic books. Superman, who might have been a wimp on his home planet, but has muscles of steel on ours. Peter Parker, who is a nerd in his high school during the day, but at night turns into Spiderman, swinging from skyscraper to skyscraper. The Hulk, who every time he gets angry splits his seams and knocks everybody else around. I could fantasize that I was strong, like them.

It's not fun to be weak!

Fantasy strength is wonderful. It doesn't even take three weeks to build up fantasy muscles, and you never have to sweat. Deep down inside me a tiny voice pointed out that if I ever did slug the beach bully, I would skin my knuckles and probably break a finger. Deep down inside me reality suggested that if I swung between skyscrapers, I'd probably splat right into a wall. If I turned into an angry Hulk the people I'd most likely hurt would be the ones I loved. Fantasy can ignore those voices. Fantasy strength is wonderful!

It's not fun to be weak! But it is fun to imagine we're strong.

I've told you before how I went back to my home town, planning to show off with a sermon greater than anything Billy Graham, Fulton Sheen, Winston Churchill and Will Rogers all put together could produce. The shock was that they were all living in a different fantasy, and they never heard a word of my "powerful" sermon.

No wonder Jesus had a rough time when he got close to his home town. No wonder Superman has a rough time whenever he gets close to a piece of his home planet. Kryptonite makes you weak. Nazareth makes you weak. Emmett, Idaho makes you weak. There are places where power doesn't work, and one of those places just might be home.

After 9/11 Americans felt weak. It wasn't any fun. But now we feel strong, now we feel good about ourselves. Or is our power all fantasy? We can obliterate Iraq, but we can't force the Iraqis to like us; we can knock the Israelis and Palestinians around, but we can't make them get along. There are places where power doesn't work, and one of those places just might be the Middle East.

Melody and I went to Spokane last week, and we saw the movie Bruce Almighty. The plot was predictable, and there were one or two scenes that were disgusting. But mostly it was funny, and it showed the limits of power. God takes a week's vacation and puts Bruce Nolan in charge of Buffalo, New York. At first Bruce is having a good time getting revenge on all his enemies. But soon he is discovering that his divine power isn't really solving anything, and mostly it makes things worse. He even drives away the one person he loves. He can only get her back by being weak.... There are places where power doesn't work, and one of those places is love.

King Midas gets his wish granted: everything he touches turns to gold. What incredible power! Until his food turns to gold in his mouth, and his daughter turns to gold in his arms.... There are places where power doesn't work ...

I wonder if this means that our power is always fantasy? Survey after survey has shown that we have wildly inflated ideas about ourselves, that we see ourselves as more athletic, more good-looking, better leaders than we could possibly be. Apparently the only people who see themselves as others see them ... are the clinically depressed. Maybe our power is always fantasy! Are we all really just 98 pound weaklings?

But the whole world is organized around the idea that it's great to be strong and it's awful to be weak. We all hope to hear the words, "You have just won ...," and we dread to hear the words, "You are the weakest link!" Our society rewards winners and despises losers. Success is wonderful, but we can't bear the thought that we're failures. Even Bruce Almighty, in a movie that is supposed to show the limits of power, spends most of his time getting what he wants, and only a few minutes being frustrated. A movie supposed to celebrate weakness, really teaches how great it is to be strong.

Somewhere in the world today there is a 98 pound Arab clipping an ad out of a magazine. He's going to send it to Charles Osama bin Atlas, so he can get a mail-order bomb and sock that big bully America in the jaw. Somewhere in the world today there is a 98 pound minister sending off for a video training program that will allow him to compete with the Baptist pastor down the street. And many places in the world today scrawny teenagers are watching a movie about how much fun it is to get angry, and become big and strong, and knock other people around.

We worship success. We bow down before the great idols of power. We celebrate our winners. We keep statistics on accomplishment. We counted bodies in Vietnam. We counted cruise missiles in Gulf War I. MOAB's and Daisy-cutters this time. The fastest, the strongest, the richest, the most popular, the most successful, the most destructive. We reward winners. And we sneer at losers.

It's great to be a success. It's awful to be a failure. It's feels good to be strong. It hurts to be weak. So let's tell success stories!

I used to know the world's most successful pray-er. If the Guinness Book of Records had a prayer category, she would be there. Her prayers were so powerful it's scary! Her lawnmower broke down, and she left it in the yard as a testimony to the neighbors that she was praying for God to fix it. Sure enough, her husband got some overtime work that week, just exactly enough money to fix the lawnmower! A little neighbor girl was teaching her innocent son to say bad words, so she prayed that God would remove the evil influence ... and she never saw the kid again! Now there's power! There's a successful prayer life! Brr-r-r-r! Doesn't it make chills go down your spine? Now that I think about it, I wonder if she prayed for _me_ to leave town?

Poor Paul! Whatever that lady's prayer power secret was, Paul doesn't know it. He prays three times for his thorn to be removed. But he must be praying over a lump of kryptonite. His prayers hit the ceiling and bounce. Well, actually Paul's prayers are answered, ... and the answer is "No!"

We don't know what Paul's "thorn" was. Some experts think he was going blind. Some speculate that he had headaches. Or maybe he stuttered. Whatever it was, he couldn't pray it away. Instead, God tells him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

Who does God think God is kidding? Grace?! Does God think we can stop terrorism with grace? Does God think grace will add to the corporate bottom line? Does God think we can pay our bills with grace? I mean, who's gonna join a church that can't even pray away its thorns? Who's gonna follow a Christ who can't even straighten out his own home town? Who's gonna worship a God who can't even rescue God's own son from the cross?

Oh, sorry! Got a little carried away there!...

Because apparently God does think grace is more valuable than modern organization techniques. Apparently God does appreciate failures more than successes. Apparently God intends to pack the Kingdom of Heaven with 98 pound weaklings, and there's no place on God's team for Supermen or Hulks. And just because Bruce is "almighty" doesn't make him a hero. It's no accident, I suspect, that Bruce's girlfriend, the most important part of his life, ... is named Grace.

"Did we in our own strength confide," says the old hymn, "our striving would be losing." And another one says, "The arm of flesh will fail you, ye dare not trust your own." Apparently God intends to conquer the world with weapons of mass blessing. Apparently God intends us to stay faithful even when our prayers aren't granted. Apparently God wants us to turn everything we touch ... not into gold, but into grace. And with grace we don't have to be successful.

Look around the room, brothers and sisters. What a bunch of failures! What a bunch of losers! Not many of us are wise by human standards, not many of us are powerful. But God chooses the foolish people of the world to shame the wise; God chooses the weak of the world to shame the strong. What the world thinks is worthless, and useless, and nothing at all, that's what God is using to reduce the important, powerful, successful winners to zero. (And if you think that was great rhetoric, I even stole those lines from Paul's other letter to the Corinthians!)

Paul is consistent in his theology, and none of it is about success. It's all about grace. Our Christian faith is for losers, failures, weaklings. Our greatest hero couldn't help his hometown and he refused to slug the bully. He didn't swing on a web between skyscrapers, he hung on a cross between criminals.

The Hulk? Who needs him? Superman? We can do better than that! The Midas touch? We can do it backwards! Powerful, successful prayers? We don't even need _them_. God loves us even when we're total failures! We are not called to succeed, we are called to be faithful!

(Comments to Don at crestnch@televar.com.)

Creston Christian Church, Creston, Washington, USA