Most of us expect to get a little easier treatment when we're at home, among family and friends, in settings that are familiar and comfortable. No doubt, Jesus may have looked forward to something very similar when he returns to his hometown in the Gospel today. But as we hear, what he finds is anything but "home cooking". He's met instead with skepticism, perplexity, and above all, a lack of faith. The Gospel writer Mark tells us that he was "not able to perform any mighty deed there." It's not that he lacked the power or no longer had the ability to work a miracle – rather, the faith that warranted and elicited the mighty deeds he had done elsewhere was wholly lacking in his hometown, among his own family and friends. How truly sad that must have been for the Lord.
While we tend to expect things at home to go easier for us than in more unfamiliar, less welcoming places, the reality of course is often much different. For many people, "home" is often a place of great challenge and the setting of much suffering. Home can be the place of domestic troubles, marital strife, illness, isolation, addiction, even despair. Home can be the place where people who may seem perfectly fine and happy to the outside world have to face their crippling fears, their sorrowful memories, their inner demons, or their broken relationships. The place that should be a place of rest, welcome, and peace can become for many a place of true pain.
The Apostle Paul (c. 1657) by Rembrandt van Rijn
In our second ready today, we hear Saint Paul confide to the Corinthian community about an experience of suffering that he has had. He seems to be sharing something that is not perceptible to everyone else, something private and personal. There has long been debate about what exactly he was suffering from. Some think it was a debilitating illness, like epilepsy, while others tend to think it was some broken personal relationship, or even a temptation of some kind. Whatever it was, we know it caused him great pain – he refers to it as "a thorn in the flesh" and even "an angel of Satan". Clearly, this was no small thing, but a source of great suffering.
Paul very understandably prays to the Lord, with whom he clearly has a very close relationship, asking for healing and for this suffering to be taken away. And he is told, "No." Jesus, the Divine Friend, the one who had changed Paul's life and was the driving force behind all of his missionary work, tells him that he wants him to continue to bear the pain that he has. How strange this is to our way of thinking! But Paul comes to understand the Lord's true desire – that the pain he felt would keep him from growing too proud, too "elated," and would remind him of the sufferings that must always be a part of our life on this side of heaven. The Lord could surely have taken away Paul's pain, changed his situation to undo the hurt and no doubt bewilderment that must have come, wondering why he was being asked to suffer. But as Paul explains to the Corinthians, he came to realize that he was stronger with his suffering than without it, because it forced him to rely upon the Lord's strength and not his own. Paul was humbled, and in his humility, he found a deeper faith, a renewed strength, a joy that comes not from the absence of pain but endurance despite it.
When we look at our own lives, especially those private and personal things, those aspects of our domestic world and home life that others may not see, perhaps known only to us, how do we face those challenges? As I said, there is no end to the number of hidden thorns that can afflict us in the very place, the very setting that we would most wish to take solace in. All of us likely have some aspect of our "home" life that not only could be better, but is in need of healing, that is a place of pain which we wish the Lord would touch and heal. We can and should ask for that healing, as Paul did. But if we are told "No" – that is, if the Lord says that his grace is sufficient for us, and that his power is made perfect in our weakness – then we must find the same faith that Paul found. Our natural response might be skepticism, perplexity, and perhaps even a lack of faith – a belief that God has rejected us, has not heard our prayer, or doesn't wish to respond. But perhaps that is not it at all; perhaps the mighty deed God wants to work in us is not healing but something greater, something that doesn't take away our pain but allows us to overcome it, to move beyond it. It is then that, unlike the people of Jesus's hometown, our faith in what God can do must not be found lacking. How powerful it can be if we understand, like Paul, that God has heard our prayer and responds instead, "Yes, you are suffering, but your suffering is making your stronger, holier, more perfect". The thorn in our flesh may be the very part of our life that is drawing us closer to God, making us more Christ-like, perhaps even paving our own personal path to heaven.
Friends, none of us expect to get "home cooking" all of the time. All of us know there are times when the calls will seem to go against us, and things won't go our way. But perhaps we do at times tend to believe that if we are good people, if we believe in Jesus, that will we be saved from the worst parts of life, that God will prevent us from encountering anything truly terrible, truly painful. We must learn that that is not what the Lord grants to us. Like Paul, we must come to understand, "when I am weak, then I am strong." Don't shy away from the sufferings you are asked to bear, the hidden wounds that only you know, the situations that you wish to be fixed but are not. Instead, let your hidden thorns become signs of your faith – marks in your "flesh," as it were, that mimic the marks of Christ, that make you more like him, even as you struggle on. There are few things in this world that are as profoundly hopeful and inspiring as a person who bears nobly a great suffering, a humiliating pain, especially when they do so out of their faith in Jesus. Whether known to others, or even if known only to ourselves, it may be that exactly at that point, exactly in that place, the Lord is doing something amazing within us – offering us, if not healing now, the strength and grace and perseverance to bear our sufferings with faith and hope, furthering us on the road to the Kingdom where pain and sadness have no place, where every tear has been wiped away.
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