Opportunity to Boast

Text: 2 Corinthians 5:6-17
By: Rev. Terry Carty
Date: 06-17-2012

Place: Kingston Springs United Methodist Church
Season: Third Sunday after Pentecost; Proper 6; Ordinary 11; Father’s Day

Main Point: Sometimes we take an opportunity to boast in answer to those who boast in outward appearance and not in heart.

When I think about fathers (Father’s Day reference), I often think about boasting – bragging. I admit that I have been prone to doing some bragging myself. Well – why shouldn’t I? I have two of the most brilliant and talented children who were ever born!

I have bragged about my son’s skills as a baseball catcher. I have bragged about his natural golf swing that generates excitingly long drives. And I have bragged about his thriftiness.

Then there is my daughter. She is the best teacher in the whole Metro school system. And have I told you that she has been working in a reading education project with Vanderbilt University?

We are all prone to boast about people who we care for. And we are also prone to boast about people who we admire – especially those who have influenced us.

Today’s reading from 2nd Corinthians has generated two well-known sound bites:
“Walk by faith and not by sight” and “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old has passed away and everything is new.”

While each of these has been inspiration for Christian living, I want to look at this passage together today because, in context, it may bring us some additional truth.
[Read 2 Corinthians 5:6-17 from NRSV]

The situation of the newly formed church in Corinth had changed after Paul left town. Biblical scholars suggest that 2nd Corinthians is really the 3rd letter Paul wrote to them – Paul makes reference to a second letter in this 3rd letter. We don’t know what has happened, but the Corinthian Christians have lost confidence in Paul and his evangelists.

The Corinthians must be saying that Paul is crazy and they should not follow his guidance.

This letter from Paul is a defense of everything he has done including getting himself in trouble with the Roman government and condemned to death. That in itself would seem an irrational thing to do!

Paul makes the point here that being in Christ makes someone a new person who lives by faith and not by appearances. He has treated these Corinthian Christians as this type of new person because their baptism has made them new creations.

What is this business about bragging? Paul gave the Corinthian Christians a model of living against their culture and called them to use Paul, Silas, Timothy and the others as examples – they can boast because their founders model a life that goes against the tide of appearances.

The culture in Corinth was much like our culture in today’s USA. It was very commercial and driven by fitting in with those around and seeking popular success. Yet the Christian life did not conform to that standard. The Christian life was one of looking to the welfare of others before self – one of self-sacrifice in the pattern of Jesus.

These new Christians needed to be able to witness the Christian life being lived out so they could justify themselves in the face of their culture.

That dynamic is the same for us today. The Christian Church, although it has lost the power that it once had, still holds the high responsibility of providing model behavior reflective of our faith in a Jesus who calls us to sacrificial living.

And so, this ancient letter from Paul suggests again to our congregation in this day that his life give us something the brag about – and to live into. Will our children and our children’s children look at our lives and brag about our acts of self-giving kindness? Will others know that we seek our fulfillment in the kingdom of God and that we are proud of that?

As we go into the world today, may we claim our differences as a new creation in Christ. If we appear to be crazy it is because we want to please God. But if we appear to be rational, it is because others can see in us the value of the Christian life.