Partnering
With Jesus
2 Corinthians 5: 20-6: 13
I have a friend I met in seminary. Actually, he just graduated in May. His first
act as an ordained minister was to perform the wedding of his sister at the
coast. On the way back home, he and his wife, their 2 year old son and their
unborn second son were hit by a tractor trailer. The wreck was horrific. While
my friend and his wife survived, neither their son nor their baby did. A little over a week later, my friend, a man
of great faith, stood in front of the congregation where he is worship leader
and forgave the driver of the truck. He witnessed about his son and their
faith. His message was one of hope and forgiveness. I know this man. I know he
and his wife have suffered the greatest loss imaginable. And yet, I am not
surprised at his witness. For some time, long before that moment of tragedy, he
has chosen to partner with Jesus.
During the early 50’s in
first century A.D. Paul embarked upon his third missionary journey, during
which he spent about eighteen months in the city of Corinth planting a church. He
later moved on to Ephesus, where he stayed three years. While at Ephesus, he
wrote to the church in Corinth about some of the problems that were surfacing
there. We do not have a lot of detail, but it can be safely inferred that there
were actually four letters from Paul to the church in Corinth. Two of them were
lost. Those that survive are the second and fourth letters, which we know as
1st and 2nd Corinthians. They were plagued with
serious problems of division, sexual immorality and social snobbery. It is to
these issues that Paul writes what are known as “occasional” letters, meaning
letters written to address a specific occasion or situation.
Paul tells the
Corinthians that he and his partners in mission are “ambassadors for Christ…that for our sake he (God) made him (Christ) to
be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of
God.” Barely a week after that horrible tragedy, my friend addressed his
congregation about forgiveness. He said in essence: we have to forgive him (the
truck driver) because we know that Jesus has forgiven us our debt. He called on
family and friends to “forgive anyone in your life whom you hold something
against.” In the aftermath of tragedy, my friend is still partnering with Jesus.
Paul tells the
Corinthians that he too is partnering
with Jesus, saying this: “Working together
with him (Jesus), then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in
vain.” Understanding that the coming
of Jesus and his death and resurrection have inaugurated something for which we
need not wait, Paul reminds us that “now is the time…now is the day of
salvation.” It is the here and now to which Paul is referring. We are living in
the age of the end times. No matter that two thousand years have passed. May it
be that many thousands more come and go, for every generation that comes is one
more generation to which Christianity can be introduced.
Paul then itemizes a life
of ministry and he uses himself as the example.
He prefaces his list by referring to the “great endurance” that marks Christian service, a term Paul uses
often. He then itemizes nine affliction or sufferings, set out in three sets of
three, identifiable with ministry. The first trio might be called general
trials or working conditions, and includes “afflictions, hardships and
calamities.” Set in more modern language, afflictions might become the
burdens of life, hardships those things which cannot be avoided, and calamities
those life situations from which there is no escape.
Paul’s second triplet
could be characterized as attacks of opponents or suffering inflicted by
others. He has endured “beatings” and
has the stripes to prove it. He has been “imprisoned”
at least seven times. We know he was imprisoned in Philippi, Jerusalem,
Caesarea and Rome for sure. “Riots”
were also part of his experience, having been literally driven out of town more
than once.
Paul ends the trials of
ministry portion of this text with a third group we might call self-inflicted
hardships or hardships that are part of the work. He names these labors, sleepless nights and hunger. When
Paul talks about “labor,” he is
almost certainly talking about work to the point of exhaustion. He experienced
many “sleepless nights” because of
duty, discomfort or danger. “Hunger”
here most likely has not to do with fasting, but rather lack of time or money.
Having covered outward
circumstances, Paul now turns to inward qualities of ministry. While he does
not address specific instances, we may be certain that Paul had been slandered
and vilified by people either unsympathetic or opposed to him or his ministry.
Instead of directing his comments to them, he talks about characteristics and
qualities he has attempted to exhibit in his own life. His list includes
purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, genuine love, truthful speech and the
power of God. His reference here translated as the Holy Spirit would probably
be more accurately translated as the “gifts or graces of the Holy Spirit” (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Abridged
Ed., 1994). The list sounds more than slightly reminiscent of the fruits of
the spirit he names in Galatians 5. This only re-enforces the point that the
inner qualities of ministry reflect the same qualities sought by every
Christian. Partnering with Jesus is
not just for missionaries and pastors.
Verses 8-10 outline a
series of paradoxical contrasts, Paul
talks about the effects of ministry. Honor may feel like dishonor,
slander like praise. Truth telling that results in being called impostors, about
to die and yet living. Punished but not killed. Brought to sorrow yet finding
room to rejoice. Enriching lives in their poverty and even having nothing of earthly value while
possessing everything. Such contrasts, Paul tells the Corinthians, are the stuff
of ministry. Such contrasts, I believe, are the stuff of faith.
Most of you have met my
daughter Emily. Emily has her own catalogue of misery. Several bouts with
malaria, her upper lip cut clean through and stitched on a kitchen table, parasites
that made her look as if full term in pregnancy, no electricity, almost blinded
and mugged on a boat crossing the river to the eye doctor, to name a few. Like
Paul, she calls it all part of the job and feels the call to more. She too has partnered with Jesus.
When Paul is emotional
and passionate, he calls us by name. He does so in this passage, calling his
audience Corinthians. He talks to them by name. Such is his passion for them.
He ends the passage by telling them that “our
heart is wide open.” He has held nothing back. His heart is there in his
hand, offered in peace and love. Such is
the stuff of ministry, for if we are to reach out, we must do so in truth and
love, not fearing the repercussions. And
ministry comes in all shapes and sizes. God has not made a single one of us who
is not gifted and fit, with his help, for some sort of ministry.
My seminary friend shared
a final story about his son. He had been learning the line from Psalm 46: “Be still and know that I am God.” He
was only two and had trouble with it. But on the day of that marriage, when
everyone was in a frenzy to pull off a beach wedding, his son came to him and
said that line perfectly. “Be still ans
know that I am God.” It calmed my friend at the time, but more importantly,
he said, it gave him and his wife “the
words that would guide us in the storms to come.”
How do you get through
the storms of life? The same way you climb the mountains and fiord the rivers
and traverse the valleys. The same way you celebrate the joy that comes in the
morning of our lives no matter what storm or test may be laid in your path. You
do what Paul exhorted the Corinthians to do. You partner with Jesus!
Do not receive the
grace of God in vain.
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we
might become the righteousness of God.”
Let us pray.
6/21/15
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