 So I need to reboot just for a second. I had masks for the students this morning for our incoming freshmen So I need to make sure I don't give the same homily that I gave to a group of incoming freshmen Acne no breaking up with girlfriend. No, I think we're good. All right. We're good Yeah, just I thought really honestly Beautiful beautiful scriptures for the end of our time together pulses the Corinthians And just have to get this first up the students like to get pictures when I have my glasses on so they're all like They think I look old so If I must boast I will boast of the things that show my weakness It's not just like talking about it, but he he wants us to be able to see it and You know, I mean, I think if we're honest that just kind of stirs us a little bit because we spend so much of our time rather than Allowing people to see our even see our weaknesses, but to boast of them I mean, we spent a lot of our time actually trying to shield it You know, what can we do to shield it so that people don't see our weakness that that that they think we've got it all together so we try to present this this image of You know, everything's great. Everything's wonderful. See how amazing strong and all these kinds of things and Paul says If I must boast I will boast of the things that show my weakness So I mean we could stand up here and it said, you know, how Disorganized I am or how I procrastinate or how at times I put things off where I'm not honest or all these kinds of things Right that Paul says that he's willing actually to boast of these things How much time do we spend actually trying to present ourselves in a manner that allows us to be seen in the best light possible With everything together father's amazing He can so great Seem with his kids Father's just great, right and Paul's saying I boast of my weakness But not just a book so I boast of the things that show it So not just in principle I boast of the things that people are able to see it and shows them my weakness And why would he do that I think the first off and I think it's important for us to recognize this The first off is the reason Paul would boast of his weakness was because he was weak And that's true It's simply true So if we're gonna preach the truth and we're gonna preach the whole truth that we talked about Part of our experience and part of our reality brothers is we are weak amen We ought not apologize for that Because what we understand when Paul is speaking about this is that there's something actually really something beautiful about that But it's also the way that he's going to engage the community he's talking to Because he goes the first thing he goes off with this whole list of things that he's done you I'm a good Jew I'm a good priest. I'm a good decan a good Catholic and whatever, but then he goes on he says five times to the Jew I received 40 lashes minus one. I was meeting with rods once I was stoned But to talk a little bit more about that some other time Certainly didn't inhale but whatever right right three times I was shipwrecked I passed through the night in the deep on frequent journeys and then he goes dangers in rivers dangers from Roger dambers of my own race dangers in the Gentiles dangers in the cities dangers in the wildest Dangerness in the sea dangerous and we just go through these whole list of things. All right, so you look at this It's like Paul. You're the dude. I mean seriously You've gone through all this my my story would be another committee meeting another meeting right another budget meeting It's like whoa is my life right you got nothing over me Paul right right But the problem is is that we look at this and that's why it's important that we see where he ends He looks at this and we could actually it's like that's not been my experience I mean my guess is most of us have never been beaten with a rod never I was Get to know enough has been stoned. I won't even talk about that. All right, let's leave that But but so this is not right. This has not been our so Paul puts this out But then what he goes is and he goes with all of this being said here's what I want to post about it I want to boast that I'm weak and the reason is Because the people that he's preaching to and the people that we're doing ministry to can compare can relate more to the fact that I can boast of my weakness than this Than this this long list of how great and amazing Paul was And he says but now what I'm gonna boast about is my weakness I think what this allows us to do brothers is is it allows us to be seen as We are And if I try to present myself, you know who I'm father, and I've got everything together and Who story is that our congregation and and how honest is it how true is it That I present myself without weakness and it's clear to understand that when Paul is talking about weakness He's not talking about sin. Those are profoundly different He's talking about weakness He's talking about the human condition He's talking about difficulty and struggle and sometimes being afraid and sometimes being lonely And sometimes wondering am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing And str- and suffering In the midst of so Paul, that's that's what he's talking about And we need to be able to I think embrace this brothers because Jesus was weak We hear and then this is an image that I don't think we pray a lot about you know The great Jesus King of Kings Lord of Lords Savior Redeemer Alpha the Omega all that absolutely true And Hebrews tells us he's weak That we have a high priest who can sympathize with us because he was beset with weakness We we look at weakness is something that we need we need to get past We need to get over these weaknesses and what we hear Paul says is not only I'm not gonna get past them I'm gonna embrace them and I'm gonna boast of them. We have a high priest Who was weak and be set with I mean imagine that I love the flipping text those in the form of God he emptied himself, right that this canosis that Jesus Part of that is his weakness That he becomes vulnerable he becomes the almighty omnipotent all holy one is now limited in his humanity and he embraces that when I was in seminary One of the one things I had to read was an article we talk about how great, you know You meet a person a young guy is I thought this person's great He's amazing he'd be a great priest because he's he's perfect and he's smart and he's talented and he's engaging You know we should make this person a priest Now it was all of us, right? So we had to read this article and it spoke it's written for priests, but I think it's true for all of us And it says that the title of the article is Because he was beset by weakness And the tenor is not are you great enough to be a priest? How do you great enough to be a beacon or disciple are you weak enough? You're weak enough. How how are we going to be able to deal in our ministry with weakness? with failure With difficulty with struggle and if we don't learn how to deal with that and we earn Please Lord one day you have to embrace that weakness. Does everything fall apart? And one of the things that it does I think we're in this article that was really really beautiful was it makes this comparison between Jesus who was beset by weakness and Socrates and how they went to their death He says there's a classic comparison running through contemporary philosophy between Socrates and Christ a judgment between them in human excellence Socrates went to his death with calmness and poise He accepted the judgment of the court Discourced on the alternative suggested by death and on the dialectic indications of immorality found no cause for fear Drink the poison and he died Jesus how much on the contrary? Jesus was almost hysterical with terror and with fear With loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death He looked repeatedly to his friends for comfort and prayed for an escape begged for an escape from death But he found neither Finally he established control over himself and moved into his death in silence and lonely isolation Even into the terrible interior suffering of a hidden divinity The app of what seemed to be God being absent I just I love reflecting on this image of Jesus the night before he died and in this Wrestling this back and forth and this others gotta be I mean this I can relate to that right if Jesus would have just marched on up It's like here put the put the nail right here because it would be better But he didn't he wrestled with this and he struggled. It's like Lord. There's any other way In his weakness and yet he ultimately as we hear he ultimately embraces it The author will go on to say Now I believe that Jesus was more a profoundly weak man than Socrates more liable to physical pain and Weariness more sensitive to human rejection and contempt more affected by love and hate Socrates never expressed sorrow and pain over betrayal of his friends. He was possessed an integral never overextended convinced that the just man could never suffer a genuine heart and for this reason Socrates one of the greatest most heroic men that ever existed a paradigm of what humanity can achieve within the individual was a philosopher and For the same reason Jesus of Nazareth was a priest ambiguous suffering mysterious and ultimately self-evident Go on to say Weakness relates us profoundly with other people It allows us to feel with them the human condition the human struggle darkness and anguish that call out for salvation This is why Paul can boast of his weakness Because he knows that it's everybody's story And he also knows that in we're able to boast and recognize our weakness. It's there that we find Jesus I Can stand up in in our giftedness and the things and the great things and all the things that Paul suffered But it wasn't there that he needed Jesus It was in his weakness and his brokenness and his struggle That's my story. It's your story. It's the people that we get to minister to This invitation To allow the Lord to encounter us there and it is in there that we finally hear Paul say and it's in my weakness That Christ is made strong It's in my weakness and my recognition of mine being able to embrace that that Jesus is ultimately able to manifest himself And reveal to us this deep profound even in our strength and our greatness. We we know we we need cognitively We know we need God But in our weakness we know We need God That place where we said I got nowhere else to go If you don't show up if you aren't here, I don't know what I'm gonna do. It's there that the Lord shows himself We celebrate that here, right? We're about to pray and the Lord is gonna transform bread and wine And he's gonna once again show us his weakness and comes to us vulnerable broken bruised And he makes us whole brothers. Let us rejoice and celebrate our weakness