Living in the Mud
by Ray Aldred2 Corinthians 4:7-15
This is the third of a three part series adopted from talks given at an InterVarsity staff conference, October 2004. The other two talks are available here 1) and here (2). Read it and engage with it in the urbana.org discussion area (requires free login).
"The sooner we become disillusioned with the world and what it has to offer, the sooner we can rest in faith upon Christ. Which is the better, to be able to say to people, if you receive Jesus, all your problems will be solved or to say, Jesus is there with us through every difficult situation? In fact the things that the world means for bad, God will use for good and reveal Jesus."
When the creator made the world, the last thing he made was that which was most valuable and precious. It was the gift of love. So, he called a council of all the animals and said, I have made that which is most valuable and precious, the gift of love, but I want to hide somewhere from man because he is prone to lose and ruin that which is most precious. Where shall I hide this gift? The animals were all silent, and finally the great whale spoke. Give me the gift and I will hide it at the bottom of the ocean where man cannot go. The creator smiled, but said, I am afraid that one day man will go there also and will not understand this gift. There was silence again and finally the great eagle said, “Give this gift to me and I will hide it on the moon where man cannot go.” Creator smiled and said, “I am afraid that one day man will go there also and will not understand this gift.
Again silence filled the council. Finally, grandmother field mouse spoke in a small whisper, “take this great gift and hide in their heart, for as man walks the circle of the earth he seldom looks inside to the heart for what is precious.”
I want to talk to you tonight about the contradiction of the gospel. At Urbana I talked about the necessity of the gospel being in the heart language of people. That means it accept, at least provisionally, the understanding that a people group has. That means the gospel must fit the categories that already exist in that culture. The cool thing about the gospel is that is can because it comes as story.
I hope that you can continue to open your heart to me as I open my heart to you, for I believe when we hear the gospel in our hear language, the gospel fits our understanding, but then it contradicts our understanding. I believe that this is God’s call to conversion, God’s light shining in the darkness, calling us to live in the light. So tonight I want to talk about some of the way the gospel contradicts the Corinthians way of thinking, even while they are yet believers. I am hopeful that we can then make a shift in our own perspective so that we see hope in the midst of living in the now but not yet.
It is helpful in working through the epistles to read through Acts and to understand the continuity between all the books of the Canon. This is how we come to understand the story of Creator God and his creation. This started for me in my undergrad and Joanne Badley, the most intelligent person I have ever had as a professor, had us do an exercise with the epistles. We were to pick one and read it, and then read a gospel and see if Paul’s teaching was the same as Jesus or different. She wanted us to understand the Paul was really a follower of Jesus. Paul taught and ministered out of his love for Jesus, who Paul saw as fulfilling all of the law and prophets.
It is fascinating to read Acts and realize that the writer of Acts is really telling how Paul is very much fitting into the mold of Jesus Christ. One story in particular tells of Paul leaving one city and the people don’t want him to go because he is going to Jerusalem where he will be bound and handed over to the gentiles. Does that sound familiar? Sure! In Luke 18 Christ tells his disciples, "I will be handed over to the gentiles." It goes on in Acts 21 that Paul in the face of knowing he is going to suffer says, “the Lord’s will be done.” Again, it hearkens us back to Jesus in the Garden praying, not my will but your will. So Paul is cast as following Christ.
The writers of the New Testament and Paul did not want anyone to be exalt anyone but that Christ would be exalted. So in Corinthians Paul wants the Corinthians to see that he suffering is in the footsteps of Christ. This is why he writes in 2 Cor 4:5 "For we do not proclaim ourselves;" this is important to understand what Paul is saying to the Corinthians.
1. Disillusionment: The grace of God
We need to understand that the Corinthians are experiencing what they believe is great success. They live in a highly successful city, much money, much to see, much to do. But, they are being tempted to desert the gospel that Paul has proclaimed and embrace a more classic prosperity gospel. For you see early magic and much religion was about co-opting the laws of the universe to work in your favor. So there is this pull to try and make the feeling last. The Corinthians had experienced some great miracles but they were losing touch with the gospel. They were tempted to keep up the outward appearance. Into this Paul proclaims the gospel and it contradicts their thinking.
Paul says, in verse 4:7, that we have this treasure in clay jars. Who puts treasure in clay jars? No one, but Paul says we have this treasure, this gospel in clay jars. The new Ark of the covenant is now Jesus and by his spirit in his followers. Life is now found in the dirt, we live in the mud. This is a contradiction to the Corinthians because they thought they were super Christians because they had lost of stuff, and gifts, Paul says that is not what is important, the important stuff, that is inside. We have this treasure in jars made out of mud. So that everyone will know that the real power comes from God, not us. Disillusionment is the grace of God for it reveals Jesus.
So often we like the Corinthians view suffering as something to be avoided at all costs. We believe that God’s blessing is made manifest if there is an increase in popularity, influence and power. Paul says it is exactly the opposite. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.
The sooner we become disillusioned with the world and what it has to offer, the sooner we can rest in faith upon Christ. Which is the better, to be able to say to people, if you receive Jesus, all your problems will be solved or to say, Jesus is there with us through every difficult situation? In fact the things that the world means for bad, God will use for good and reveal Jesus.
You see we want to talk to people on a heart level. Paul wants to talk to the Corinthians on a heart level, but to do that then they must embrace their pain and not hide behind a veneer of self-sufficiency and independence. We live in the now but not yet and we need to develop a better theology of suffering.
When I was choosing which way to go into ministry I looked around at the options and felt that the area of greatest need was among our aboriginal people. So I launched into that with all the hard work I could muster. I was thirty-one and I was strong and I worked my hardest for five years and it seemed to make absolutely no difference. I was completely disillusioned. No matter how hard I worked it did not make any difference.
I had been warned. My mentor in college was a former missionary to Hong Kong. He told me, if you are going into ministry because you want to see lots of tangible fruit, you should pick something else. But, I went anyway because God’s grace was drawing me.
After four years I was completely spent. I was emotionally exhausted, spiritually dry, and physically drained. I kept praying, God make my church grow. Help so and so to really change and embrace you. Lord, discipline Mrs. So and So because she has left the church, bring her back. Lord, change this person, Lord change that person.
But in the midst of the disillusionment I noticed something. At times when I was practicing silence my mind would often go to this passage: “Why do you look at the speck in your brothers eye and miss the plank in your own eye.” The pain of ministry had caused me to begin to look for other answers than just the alleviation of pain.
There were lots of reasons to lost heart. But God sent his grace in the midst of all the pain. I had a friend who was always talking about embracing the pain and finding Christ in the pain. I had no idea what he was talking about. But it made me try to understand because my way was not working. I even wondered if “working” was the best way to understand following Christ. You see, I was scared to death of failing. I wanted people to like me, I wanted people to appreciate my ministry. But the harder I worked the worse I felt because I was trying to make myself feel better, mask the pain, be successful so I would feel better.
God put me in a place that was almost despairing but not quite, for out of the depths He heard my cry. Disillusionment was the grace of God because it made me stop looking at outside appearances but to try and look to the heart. On the level of human suffering the heart is open and raw, and it is here that Christ meets us. This is the message Paul tells the Corinthians. Verses 11 and 12 read:
For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you.
Paul reminds the Corinthians that his ministry to them was out of suffering and they are enjoying the grace of God and that is good. Let the one who is happy sing praises, so says James. But pain is there and do not run from it embrace it. Verses 16-18:
We do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond measure because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.
The suffering is temporary.
Disillusionment is the grace of God if we use it to turn ourselves to God. My disillusionment was with people, for I could not please people no matter how hard I tried. So I found my mind would go to that verse, why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye and miss the plank in your own eye? For a long time I would try and push those thoughts out of my mind, so I could focus on God and then one day I found myself praying, “God, show me the plank in my own eye.” My understanding was beginning to be contradicted.
2. Comfort out of pain: A ministry of consolation
Paul wants to contradict the Corinthians' understanding or encouragement. The whole idea in the ancient middle east was that power, money and prestige were signs of God’s favor. Suffering did not fit in the victorious Christian life. Their idea of conquerors were based on Rome. The Romans would have these parades and lead their captives into the city. They believed that their success was a blessing from God, so Paul was crazy to always be talking about suffering. How could suffering be the source of anything good?
You see how quickly the Corinthians had forgotten that their salvation came because Jesus died for all. Paul reminds of that. We will be raised with Jesus and then we will be in His presence. The source of encouragement for Paul came through the death and resurrection of Jesus, not through the attainment of some earthy kind of security. Paul’s comfort came through the ministry of the spirit in the midst of pain. The beginning of Chapter 5. We know that if this earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have building from God, a house not made with hands (allusion to not kind of great structure) He who prepared us for this very thing is God who gave us the Sprit as guarantee. We are confident, we walk by faith and not by sight.
In the midst of the suffering Paul experienced the comfort of the spirit. The coming of the Spirit is talked about by Jesus in the context of his announcing to his disciples that he will be suffering and dying. If I do not go the comforter cannot come. The Spirit comes during the days of grief after Jesus' ascension. Gathered in the upper room, the physical presence of Jesus is gone, and now they wait. Don’t tell me they weren’t just a bit down, but then the spirit comes.
Every time in Acts when they are persecuted and beaten and oppressed, they get together pray and embrace their suffering for Jesus and the spirit comes and solves all their problems and makes them feel comfortable, right? No! He comes and makes them bold and they speak the word and they have a ministry of consolation or encouragement because they have embraced their suffering for Jesus' sake and find Christ right there in the middle of it all.
On the level of human suffering Jesus met Paul and it is on that level that he met the Corinthians. But they had gotten all sophisticated and had forgotten. Paul contradicts their thinking. Comfort out of suffering, and a ministry of consolation in the midst of suffering: all because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. When we embrace our suffering and by faith entrust ourselves to God’s mercy he gives us a ministry of consolation. Comfort out of pain. But we don’t believe that is true.
The problem is that in mainstream North American society we think theology and religion should solve all our problems and make us feel better. We have no theology of suffering - the African American church does. We need to learn from them. Our basic message is that if you receive Jesus, he will solve all your problems right away. In my ministry and life, this theology has not worked, so I began to develop a theology of suffering.
My son told me I could use his story anytime I wanted to. I remember when my son went to a youth conference put on by a local bible school. He went to a seminar on faith. While there I think they watched a video about cool things that happened and then a zealous young bible college student talked about how if you just had enough faith, God could or would do anything you asked.
My son has Muscular Dystrophy and his outward appearance is wasting away at a much quicker rate than anyone else. He came home from the session. And in the middle of the night my wife came into the bedroom and said, “Raymond needs you.” I went out in the living room and my son asked me, “Dad, what’s wrong with me? I pray and pray but God don’t heal me and I am afraid of dying.”
“Dad, do I just not have enough faith? What’s wrong with me?”
I said, Son there is nothing wrong with you. You are a miracle created in God’s image. You know, son, every man comes to a point when they worry about dying, but not usually when they are 18. I read a book an old old book by a man named Athanasius. He said, “When we are in Jesus, we no longer die as criminals but we are on our way to the resurrection.” Raymond, we are on our way to the resurrection.
My son looked up at me and said, ‘Dad you’re the smartest man I know.” I said, no I just have a good memory and read old books.
You see how our Western theology gets twisted around and how it comes across to those that are truly suffering. Paul wanted to remind the Corinthians that walking by faith was not losing heart, but embracing the suffering and knowing that we are on our way to the resurrection. Our outward appearance is wasting away but our inner man is comforted. Faith is what gets us through the tough times. Miracles are the promise that it will not last forever.
For me I kept finding myself praying, what is the log in my own eye. God I know that I have faults but I don’t see my own sin. I see everyone else's sin. You know that is what can happen when you get disillusioned and burnt out in ministry. You can see everyone else’s problems and sins but you can’t see your own. So I went on a trip with a friend of mind who is a bit of counselor. We went 3000 miles in a week and visited seven Native churches and the whole time we were talking about what we were really afraid of and what was really our motivation in ministry. Why I was so angry. Why I always felt guilty, why I was so afraid of failing, why I walked so slow, why I felt like a little eight year old boy every time there was conflict in the Church.
And I had been finding myself praying, God, what is the log in my eye that I can’t see. Then he heard me and he showed up.
3. Now but not yet: We shall give an account
The Corinthians had some misunderstandings about the kingdom of God. I think they thought they had arrived. Now like so many things that become popular, they wanted to make into a seminar and take it on the road. They had found the key to unlocking God’s treasure chest of successful living. If you were suffering, you just didn’t believe properly. They even had their own new teachers, the super apostles. These super apostles didn’t talk about suffering and pain. They talked about victory and prosperity. They went so far as some of them thinking that there was no resurrection. I don’t know all that was going on, but they had this aversion to suffering and wanted a unique experience. A meaningful worship time, but they did not want to suffer or be in close relationship with anyone who did.
Paul wants to contradict their thinking with the gospel. You see the kingdom is here, but it isn’t here in its fullness. We are in the now but not yet.
I think the Corinthians wanted power, they just thought it could happen without suffering. They thought they had brought the kingdom, but it was not yet. I wonder if the Corinthians just wanted to be significant. And they thought that through their strength, their speech, their miracles, their knowledge that would make them significant.
I was in Los Angeles and I wondered if the reason that Hollywood is located there is because there are so many people and everyone has this laissez-faire attitude, you do your thing, I’ll do mine - which is very Canadian and I like it - but at the same time it occurred to me that there is this sense that you are insignificant. And I wonder if Hollywood is an attempt for people to try and fulfill that desire to do something significant, to be somebody. I don’t know, maybe not, but in Christ we are significant.
We are becoming exactly who he made us to be, but that will not be revealed until glory. So the pressure is off, we don’t have to be celebrities. We can just embrace our pain, the place where we are. We don’t have to be so worried about outside appearance and performance, we will get to make a report when the kingdom comes in its fullness. You know what Paul said embracing his suffering gave him confidence.
You know I used to be so afraid of failing. On my trip with my friend we were driving down and road and I kept asking my friend, what am I supposed to do to be successful. He kept asking me why doing and success were linked so closely in my mind. And then Jesus took me back to a time when I was eight years old. I could see it my mind. My dad was there and we were working on an our old car in a garage made out of logs. He said to me, hand me a ¾ inch socket. I remembered really wanting to hand to him, so he would be proud of me. But I couldn’t no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t give it to him because I didn’t know what it was. So I said, “what is a ¾ ?”
“What’s wrong with your head,” he said. “It’s a 3 over a 4.”
I remember feeling so stupid and I remembered making a vow. I was so angry at my dad, I vowed you will never hurt me again by making me feel stupid, I will always know what to do.
Suddenly, I was there in all the pain but then I said to my dad, I was actually talking to him, you had no right to say that to me, I was only eight. I was right there in the midst of all this pain.
I asked my friend, what do I do, I just feel all this pain, like a victim. He said a few things to me. Why don’t you just let your dad have his own sin and stop trying to work it out for him. Forgive him, let him go. It doesn’t mean that what happened was right, but just let it go. The second thing he said is, there is something worse than your pain: it is your sin. You believe you are unlovable. You think if you do enough then God will finally be happy with you and like you.
At that point I realized that I believed God’s love was to small for me. I confessed and embraced his love. Suddenly my life and ministry flashed before my eyes. I had been running away from the pain of ministry instead of embracing it. I was trying to be successful so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain. God had put me in this ministry not because of all the good I could do for everyone else but so that I could be healed, in the midst of the suffering there was Jesus and he loved me and he even liked me. All I had to do was receive his love and love other people.
Paul says to the Corinthians, "For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all and therefore all have died. And he died for all, so that hose who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them."
When I embraced the pain and suffering of ministry and stopped trying to run from it. I stopped looking out there for a solution, but looked in here. Jesus was there. Creator's most precious gift was there, the very place I was afraid to go because of the pain.
What changed, I found myself praying different. I journal and when I thought about what I was praying, I found myself praying God just give me more love so I can love so and so in a way that they can really feel it. I found that I was okay to fail. That was in 1995. God continues to refine me, contradict my thinking.
This Christian life is to be lived in the mud. This treasure we keep in jars made out of mud. Let me pray for you.
Henri Nouwen writes, “Cling to the Promise” and “Stop Being a Pleaser.” Stop being a pleaser. What does this mean except live free to be who you are. Henri goes on to say,
For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.
(Taken from a book of devotional readings)
I am not sure what it means to be who I am. I am not sure who this is. God is trustworthy but my eyes do not see clearly. Paul writes, “we see through a glass, dimly.
I have lived among the Plains Cree for 15 years and it is their tradition and has become my tradition that at a funeral, we take our glasses off and look at our loved one, lying there, with our own eyes and we see them through a glass dimly for this is not their final resting place, for we see only a shadow. For our eyes only behold a moment in this ever-flowing river – only a moment – and so all we can do is look and wait and love. So Paul urges us to wait and love, for this is freedom.
Freedom is not about building power and fame - for this is to rely on pleasing someone and making our own illusion to cast on all our spectators, but to be free is to love and take off our glasses and look with our own eyes that fade and cannot see this moment but wait to see something through another glass and this glass will one day be taken off and we will see not just a moment but we will see the whole.
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