The Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe

July 4, 2021  •  Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Saint Paul’s Within The Walls, Rome

Text: 2 Corinthians 12:7b: “Therefore, to keep me from being too elated,
a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me....”

We’ve heard this morning one of the most personal confessions our patron saint makes in all of his writings, and it is well worth our stopping for a moment to reflect on his words—something I’m sure has been done many times before from this pulpit.

Just what was the “thorn in the flesh” that Paul writes about to the Corinthians? The question has fascinated scholars and commentators since the earliest years of the church. Tertullian’s third-century answer was that Paul had a consistent earache. Saint Chrysostom thought it was a recurring headache. 

Other writers have speculated that it was malaria, or epileptic seizures, or poor eyesight, perhaps compounded by cataracts or glaucoma. Or maybe he had arthritis very badly.

And commentators in our own day have proposed that it wasn’t a physical ailment but something else that troubled Paul; perhaps Paul felt desires that he was ashamed of.

We can’t help wondering about it, because Paul’s language is so suggestive, but also so opaque. It’s reasonable for us to think that when he wrote in this way, the people he was writing to knew what he was talking about-—they didn’t need it explained to them. 

But it may be that the point isn’t what Paul’s mysterious ailment was. It may instead be what he decided to do about it.

Whatever else might be true about Paul’s thorn in the flesh, what we know for certain about it is that he wished it wasn’t there. He saw it as an obstacle, a hindrance to his effectiveness in his vocation as a messenger of the gospel. For him, it was something that compromised him, that got in his way—that made him less than the man he wanted to be.  

And here is something else we know about it; he could hardly think of anything else. It was the sort of thing he could not put out of his mind. The Greek word that we translate as “tormented” is kolaphize; it means something closer to being beaten, as though Paul is saying that this affliction is constantly beating him up. He is always struggling with it.

Maybe you don’t have a physical ailment that causes you pain. But pretty much all of us have this kind of torment. All of us have a sense of that one thing that if only we could get past, if only it would go away, if only it weren’t true, we would be so much happier. We would be so much more effective. We would be so much better at what we do.

What’s your thorn in the flesh? What’s the thing you wish was going differently in your life?

All of us have one. But Paul’s wisdom is that when we allow our energies and our attention to be focused on the obstacles we feel, then all we really accomplish is making them into bigger obstacles. When we invest our attention in them, we make ourselves smaller-—and we make them larger.

This week I had a good and long talk with Giulia Bonoldi, who runs the fundraising efforts for the refugee center. 

She told me about her earliest days working for the center, when she was just beginning, after a very successful career in magazine publishing. She would come to the center, and go down the stairs into the basement, and as she did she would feel the tension in her stomach and wonder —what am I doing here? What difference can I possibly make? The problem is so huge and I am just one person—what can I do?

But after a while, she told me, things began to change. She would come to the Center, and do her work, and then she would go home, and as she went up the stairs and back into the garden, she would think—this is what I’m supposed to be doing. There is nowhere else I am supposed to be. This matters, what I’m doing.

What changed? The problem was just as big. Her skills were just as impressive. But she learned something about the truth of what Paul writes about this morning—a big part of being a disciple isn’t about what you can do well; it’s about what you choose to do about the things that might get in your way. 

I don’t know what that is for you. I know what it is for me; and I know that if I let it be the focus of my attention and my prayers it will become even more of an obstacle to making the most of the gifts God has given me. 

And I also know that if I try to think of that as an opportunity rather than an obstacle, the things I wish I were better at or the skills I wish I had can instead become ways of inviting other people into the work of ministry we are called to share together.

Don’t let your obstacles be your obsession. Don’t let us waste our energies wishing for what might be, and miss the chance to make the most of all we have been given. Let us see our weaknesses as gifts to our creativity, as reasons to imagine new ways to use what strengths and skills we have—so that God’s goodness will be seen through what we do. 

So let us not pray for easier lives; let us pray to be more willing people. Let us not pray for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks. Then the doing of our work will be no miracle; but we will be the miracle. Then every day we will wonder at ourselves, and at the richness of life that has come to us by the grace of God. Amen.