Utter Confidence?
Sermon
Despite all the awful disciplinary problems there seem to be in many high schools today, there is at least one noticeable improvement, certainly in teenage girls. Many girls today are much more confident and able to speak up for themselves than they would have been thirty or forty years ago. For centuries, the future for many girls was marriage to a man who would take care of the girl just as her father had taken care of her. This was reflected in the wedding service by the words directed to the bride's father, "Who gives this woman to be married to this man?" The bride's father responded, "I do," and the girl was duly handed over into the care of another man.
Those words are still often used in the wedding service today, but they don't appear in the book and so are an optional extra added in by priests. In today's society the idea of handing a girl over from one man to another as though she's goods owned by them, is somewhat abhorrent, even though the tradition of the bride being accompanied up the aisle by her father is lovely.
The effect of being owned by father and expecting a future in marriage, was that although girls were educated to quite a high standard, the hidden, unspoken agenda was that they were trained first to be good wives and mothers. This involved a considerable degree of submission. Girls were taught to submit first to their fathers and then to their husbands. And this again was reflected in the wedding service when the girl had to promise to obey her husband, just as she had obeyed her father. Those words have long since disappeared from the wedding service, and are now only very rarely requested. Marriage is now usually recognised as a partnership of equals.
The result of all this early conditioning was that girls and women often tended to be quite timorous. It's still very common for women to take responsibility for all sorts of problems which really aren't their fault at all. For instance, women who are beaten up by their husbands or partners, often shoulder the blame for their ill-treatment as though they somehow caused it.
Women often take on responsibility for the feelings of others. Women tend to moderate their own behaviour because they're so concerned about upsetting other people or hurting other people's feelings.
Perhaps this is even more true for Christian women. Christians are expected to love all and sundry and therefore Christian women tend to be very careful to display that love in their lives by not hurting other people's feelings.
But in recent years, the position seems to have started to reverse. Young women have become quite confident and well able to speak up for themselves, but a significant number of young men seem to be losing this ability. It's as though as the girls have blossomed, so the boys have shrunk back into their shells.
Perhaps we reach a position of confidence in life when we finally reach the conclusion that we can only be responsible for our own feelings, not for other people's feelings. Nobody can make me feel anything. I might feel a certain way in response to something somebody has said or done, but how I feel is up to me, not up to them. And I can't make anyone else feel anything either. I might attempt to do so, by saying or doing something which I calculate is likely to produce a certain response, but I can't make that response happen.
St Paul wasn't treated very well either physically or emotionally during his ministry. But he was very sure of himself, with plenty of confidence, which was just as well otherwise he would never have survived. Today's reading from the second letter to the Corinthians is a response Paul sent to the Corinthians. He had been reproached by the Corinthians for his preaching. Surprising as it may seem from a distance of two thousand years, Paul wasn't reckoned to be much of a preacher. We know he used to preach at great length, because on one occasion a young man who was sitting on the third floor windowsill fell asleep in one of Paul's sermons, fell to the ground below and was killed, although fortunately Paul was able to revive him (Acts 20:9). Paul may also have been quite obscure in what he was saying, and even today his letters demand considerable effort to read and understand and absorb. All in all, Paul was a great theologian, but not a great preacher.
After all he had done for them and for others, a lesser person might have been quite upset by this complaint from the Corinthians about his preaching. But Paul had no intention of standing for it. With complete confidence he tells the Corinthians that there is no veil obscuring his presentation of the gospel. If they are unable to perceive its light, it's not because of Paul's preaching but because of their own unbelief. Paul refuses to take responsibility for what the Corinthians are feeling, and tells them in no uncertain terms to take responsibility for themselves.
He tells them that only those who are perishing fail to understand and receive the light of the gospel message he has proclaimed, and that the reason they have failed in this way is because they are still in thrall to the things of this world. "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers," says Paul, "so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ."
Paul goes on to say that preachers don't preach themselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord. Preachers are servants who say what they're given to say by God. Of course some preachers are better than others at transmitting that message, and the best preachers are a kind of transparent medium in whom people can see Jesus. But those who are best at transmitting the message may not necessarily be those who are best with the use of words.
It can be easy to blame the Church for the lack of faith in our society today, and the media do so with monotonous regularity. But maybe we shouldn't shoulder all responsibility for the all the ills of society. We're called by God to be Christian in the world in which we live and to tell others about Jesus Christ. If we're doing that, we're doing all that God requires of us and we must leave the world to accept or reject the message as the world wishes.
We are responsible for our own feelings, but not for the feelings of others. Like St Paul, we need to find the confidence to tell the world that those who are perishing are the ones who are unable to hear the message. And when we find that confidence, which we find in Christ himself, we too will be able to say with Paul, " Indeed, this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience: we have behaved in the world with frankness and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God..." (2 Corinthians 1:12)
Those words are still often used in the wedding service today, but they don't appear in the book and so are an optional extra added in by priests. In today's society the idea of handing a girl over from one man to another as though she's goods owned by them, is somewhat abhorrent, even though the tradition of the bride being accompanied up the aisle by her father is lovely.
The effect of being owned by father and expecting a future in marriage, was that although girls were educated to quite a high standard, the hidden, unspoken agenda was that they were trained first to be good wives and mothers. This involved a considerable degree of submission. Girls were taught to submit first to their fathers and then to their husbands. And this again was reflected in the wedding service when the girl had to promise to obey her husband, just as she had obeyed her father. Those words have long since disappeared from the wedding service, and are now only very rarely requested. Marriage is now usually recognised as a partnership of equals.
The result of all this early conditioning was that girls and women often tended to be quite timorous. It's still very common for women to take responsibility for all sorts of problems which really aren't their fault at all. For instance, women who are beaten up by their husbands or partners, often shoulder the blame for their ill-treatment as though they somehow caused it.
Women often take on responsibility for the feelings of others. Women tend to moderate their own behaviour because they're so concerned about upsetting other people or hurting other people's feelings.
Perhaps this is even more true for Christian women. Christians are expected to love all and sundry and therefore Christian women tend to be very careful to display that love in their lives by not hurting other people's feelings.
But in recent years, the position seems to have started to reverse. Young women have become quite confident and well able to speak up for themselves, but a significant number of young men seem to be losing this ability. It's as though as the girls have blossomed, so the boys have shrunk back into their shells.
Perhaps we reach a position of confidence in life when we finally reach the conclusion that we can only be responsible for our own feelings, not for other people's feelings. Nobody can make me feel anything. I might feel a certain way in response to something somebody has said or done, but how I feel is up to me, not up to them. And I can't make anyone else feel anything either. I might attempt to do so, by saying or doing something which I calculate is likely to produce a certain response, but I can't make that response happen.
St Paul wasn't treated very well either physically or emotionally during his ministry. But he was very sure of himself, with plenty of confidence, which was just as well otherwise he would never have survived. Today's reading from the second letter to the Corinthians is a response Paul sent to the Corinthians. He had been reproached by the Corinthians for his preaching. Surprising as it may seem from a distance of two thousand years, Paul wasn't reckoned to be much of a preacher. We know he used to preach at great length, because on one occasion a young man who was sitting on the third floor windowsill fell asleep in one of Paul's sermons, fell to the ground below and was killed, although fortunately Paul was able to revive him (Acts 20:9). Paul may also have been quite obscure in what he was saying, and even today his letters demand considerable effort to read and understand and absorb. All in all, Paul was a great theologian, but not a great preacher.
After all he had done for them and for others, a lesser person might have been quite upset by this complaint from the Corinthians about his preaching. But Paul had no intention of standing for it. With complete confidence he tells the Corinthians that there is no veil obscuring his presentation of the gospel. If they are unable to perceive its light, it's not because of Paul's preaching but because of their own unbelief. Paul refuses to take responsibility for what the Corinthians are feeling, and tells them in no uncertain terms to take responsibility for themselves.
He tells them that only those who are perishing fail to understand and receive the light of the gospel message he has proclaimed, and that the reason they have failed in this way is because they are still in thrall to the things of this world. "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers," says Paul, "so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ."
Paul goes on to say that preachers don't preach themselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord. Preachers are servants who say what they're given to say by God. Of course some preachers are better than others at transmitting that message, and the best preachers are a kind of transparent medium in whom people can see Jesus. But those who are best at transmitting the message may not necessarily be those who are best with the use of words.
It can be easy to blame the Church for the lack of faith in our society today, and the media do so with monotonous regularity. But maybe we shouldn't shoulder all responsibility for the all the ills of society. We're called by God to be Christian in the world in which we live and to tell others about Jesus Christ. If we're doing that, we're doing all that God requires of us and we must leave the world to accept or reject the message as the world wishes.
We are responsible for our own feelings, but not for the feelings of others. Like St Paul, we need to find the confidence to tell the world that those who are perishing are the ones who are unable to hear the message. And when we find that confidence, which we find in Christ himself, we too will be able to say with Paul, " Indeed, this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience: we have behaved in the world with frankness and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God..." (2 Corinthians 1:12)
