Sermon for Sexagesima
“If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities”
How weird (or at least how strange)! Don’t we all want to call attention to our accomplishments and talents, to our abilities and qualities of character and action? Or even better to have others celebrate such things so that we can bask in the glow of their affirmation and attention? Look at me! Look at me! How great am I! So what can it mean to glory in the things which concern our weaknesses? Yet, Paul, once again, is on to something of fundamental significance with respect to the journey of our souls to God. It is not about us but about God in us and that makes all the difference. The ‘Gesima’ Sundays recall us to some basic features of our life with God understood cosmically and not just narcissistically. It is about being grounded in God. It is not simply about you, impossible as that may seem. You may recall the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon where the father says to Calvin ‘it’s not all about you’ to which he says, ‘How is that even remotely possible?’
He is not alone. We do tend, I am sorry to say, to want to reduce everything to ourselves and reduce others to ourselves. Such is a kind of incurvatus in se, a turning in upon ourselves. To think that we are the centre of the universe is utterly delusional. Yet our culture caters to that concept constantly and completely. We manage even to turn good works or its pretence into self-serving promotional selfies.
So Paul’s words are saving grace, a necessary corrective but also an instructional gold-mine. He is hinting at a profound religious understanding that belongs to our Christian faith. To glory in the things which concern our infirmities is nothing less than to glory in the grace of God who alone can make something good out of our follies and failures, even out of our sins and wickedness. That is pretty powerful and speaks to a whole other understanding of human activity and human character. It is profoundly freeing and life transforming. Our highest activity is found in our working with the grace of God alive in us and knowing that his grace is the moving principle which redeems and perfects our humanity. Wow!
As we have seen, the virtues of the soul become forms of love, forms of our participation in God’s love. The ‘Gesima’ Sundays remind us of the love of God manifest in Jesus and indicate how that love is to live in us.
