A Sermon Preached at St. Stephen’s on July 9, 2006, by the Rev. Cork Tarplee

A guy’s truck slid off the road in upstate New York , so he went to the nearest farm house to ask the farmer if he could bring a tractor to pull it out of the ditch. “Nope, but I got my mule, Blue,” said the farmer. “I doubt a mule is strong enough to pull my truck out,” objected the motorist. “You don’t know Blue,” said the mule’s proud owner. So Blue was hitched to the truck. “Pull, Blue!” ordered the farmer.  The truck didn’t move. And the farmer then called out, “Pull, Elmer!” The truck moved a little. Then the farmer yelled, “Pull, Biscuit,” and the truck was free. “Thank you so much,” said the truck owner. “But I have a question. You called your mule by three different names. How is that?” “Simple,” said the farmer. “Blue is blind. And if he thought he was the only one pulling, your truck would still be in the ditch!” As long as Blue didn’t think he was doing it all himself, he was up to the job!

For me, this morning’s New Testament readings have a lot to say about being up to the job.  First, in his second letter to Corinth , Paul confesses a mysterious weakness that beset him.  Nobody knows what the weakness was, but we know that it embarrassed Paul and he tried to root it out of his life to no avail. Paul reports that God’s message to him about this weakness was that it was good for his character that he keep being weak: God says, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” We would all do well to remember that it is not our own star qualities that gets stuff done, but God working in us. Then, in the Gospel, two stories of inadequacy are offered.  First is Jesus’ own inadequacy to do any works of power in his own home town. This, it seems to me is an important reminder that even Jesus was not able to surmount all situations.  Then the second story in the Gospel is the commissioning of the twelve to go out into Galilee sharing in his ministry.  The twelve, we know from other stories, have no special qualifications for ministry—they are ordinary untrained workers and business people.  As if to underscore their inadequacy, Jesus sends them out with no physical equipment, either: no bread, no bag, no money, no change of clothes, no place to stay. The result of this unlikely mission is that the twelve seem to have done just fine in spite of their weaknesses.

These are important reminders to us.  All of us, you know, are supposed to be God’s representatives in the world, and if the job of making the world a better place doesn’t scare you, it should. We are all wonderful people, but we all have glaring weaknesses.  There are things we would like to change about the world around us and things we would like to change about ourselves, but we don’t really know where to begin.  This morning’s readings are a great reminder that we aren’t supposed to be up to every job.  Like Paul, we might reflect that our weaknesses highlight God’s strength.  The miracle for Paul and for us is that considering our weaknesses we manage to get anything done at all.  And yet we have faith that God can work through us.  Even Jesus wasn’t up to every situation, and yet even Jesus’ weak friends, sent out with no special equipment managed to accomplish a great deal.

The important thing, I think, is to trust that somehow, God will work through us.  Probably for most of us it seems as if God hasn’t much to work with, but perhaps there’s more going for us than meets the eye.  In Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott muses, “I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox, full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience.  But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools—friendship, prayer, conscience, honesty—and said, Do the best you can with these; they will have to do.  And mostly, against all odds, they’re enough.”

Perhaps in that toolbox, the greatest is friendship.  Even Jesus didn’t try to do it all alone.  Perhaps the first lesson for all of us when we’re feeling inadequate is to ask for help.  That’s what works the miracle of twelve step programs and psychotherapy—we ask for a little help and suddenly we are not alone.  That’s what works the miracle of the parish church—we are faced with insurmountable problems like homelessness, and when we go to our friends at St. Stephen’s suddenly we are not alone and together we can do more than any one of us could have done alone.

It is important to remember that there isn’t any blueprint for growing into God’s service and being able to do a little good in the world.  To paraphrase a wise old rabbi, when you get to the judgment seat God’s not going to ask why you weren’t Mother Theresa; God will ask why you weren’t you—the you you were created to be.  That wonderful mystic Meister Eckhart put it this way: “A pear seed grows into a pear tree, and a hazelnut seed grows into a hazelnut tree, and a seed of God grows into God.  God does not ask anything else of you but to let yourself go and let God be God in you.” We are all God’s seeds, growing in our own places and times to serve God as we are best able to.  One of us has a talent for cooking that has grown into a casserole ministry—when there’s a loss or illness, she’ll support and love you with something nourishing and practical.  Another has wrestled long and well with an addiction and after years in recovery is sought out as a 12-step sponsor because he has a gift for speaking the truth. Another has spent a lifetime living in foreign cities and recognizes a special affinity for the stranger in our midst, offering friendship and friendly counsel to newcomers to the community. 

Each of us has a part to play.  None of us feels exactly equal to the role we have been given, but that doesn’t matter so much as long as our feelings of inadequacy don’t get the better of us.  So don’t forget the mule “Blue.”  As long as we think we’re going it alone, we will never be up to the task.  But we do have our friends along the way, our God, and the invisible witness of so many like the twelve Jesus sent out into Galilee .  None of us by ourselves is likely to accomplish much, no one alone has ever done much, but together and with God’s help we can help bring in the kingdom.

                                                                                    AMEN