Our New Testament reading this afternoon begins and ends with boasting. At the beginning, Paul writes: we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God; and at the end, we even boast in God. As Fr Jim reminded us a few weeks ago, ‘boasting’ is a word that comes up time and again in Paul’s letters, particularly in this one to the Romans, and in his second letter to the Corinthians. Which is a bit of a problem, because the very word boasting is one we shy away from. Even at the age of about nine, I remember being taken aback by an uppity clever-clogs of a class-mate, who when charged with boasting, simply insisted that he had plenty to boast about. When words failed, I fear we may have found other ways to put him in his place. In our culture, boasting simply isn’t acceptable, so what are we to make of Paul’s boasting? He says – we boast. He evidently wants us to share in his boasting. So what does he want us to boast about? Are there any terms on which we can do that?
First of all, we need to recognise that Paul himself disparages what we might regard as ordinary human boasting. He calls it ‘boasting as a fool’. In that sense, like my young friend, he has plenty to boast about – as an Israelite, as a descendant of Abraham, in his time a zealous and highly respected Pharisee – and now as a minister of the gospel. Not only has he endured more persecutions than anyone else – 39 lashes on five occasions, beaten with rods three times, shipwrecked three times, not to mention imprisonments, floggings and dangers of every kind – but he has also had exceptional visions and revelations (2 Cor. 11.1 – 12.4). Yes, Paul could boast.
Much as I admire him, I have to admit that I find all this boasting rather distasteful. Even though everything he says is true, and he claims to indulge in it only to make the point that he is at least the equal, even on their own silly self-aggrandising terms, of any of the so-called super-apostles, to whom the Corinthians have been attracted in his absence, it still turns me off.. In Paul’s defence, it should perhaps be said that he is just as ready to boast about the Corinthians, as about himself. Severe as he is on them when they are tempted to follow other leaders, he is at the same time immensely proud of them, and especially of their eagerness to contribute to the collection he is making for the impoverished church in Jerusalem, and their expected generosity in doing so (2 Cor 8.24, 9.3/4). He has boasted about them to Titus and to the churches in Macedonia, and his letter expresses his concern, on their behalf as much as his own, that they should live up to the reputation he has given them. Though such boasting about others is kindly meant, I believe Saint Paul would be the first to admit that all such boasting – even on behalf of others – is foolish, since it buys into the culture of competitive virtue which is totally at odds with his own understanding of how we are saved, not by our own virtue or even our own suffering, but simply by the reconciling love of God. Having said enough, perhaps more than enough, to remind the Corinthians of his special authority as founder and father in God to their community, he ceases to boast as a fool. Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord, he urges, for it is not those who commend themselves that are approved – ie the boasters – but those whom the Lord commends (2 Cor 10.17/18).
It is this boasting in the Lord which Paul want us to share with him, though I should point out that more venerable translations don’t use the word for this sort of boasting at all. The King James version, for example, refers instead to joy and rejoicing. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God (v 2) and we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ (v 11). This hands us an important clue to Paul’s meaning. When he boasts in the Lord in this sense, he is commending his experience of God’s reconciling love as something we can all rely on and rejoice in.
The joyful apprehension of God’s steadfast love which Paul boasts about, is a more familiar concept. The author of tonight’s psalm could quite reasonably be said to boast in God. After four verses in which, apparently forgotten by God, he laments his lot, he suddenly makes an astonishing leap of faith into the last two verses in which, without experiencing any apparent change in his situation, he nevertheless praises God’s steadfast love, singing to the Lord ‘because he has dealt so lovingly with me’ (Psalm 13). It is not the fool who boasts in God, but rather the fool who begins Psalm 14 with the words: There is no God.
Moses and Aaron, in our first reading, have a harder time trying to convince the miserable down-trodden Israelites that the Lord has not forgotten his promise. They lack the intuitive faith of the psalmist. Things have been going from bad to worse since Moses and Aaron appeared on the scene, and now, because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery, they refuse to accept the assurance of God’s love which Moses and Aaron convey to them (Ex 6.9).
The Israelites would soon have every reason to boast in the God who would rescue them from slavery by a series of mighty acts, but they don’t know that yet. Paul, on the other hand, is able to point to the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross, which has already done all that was needed to overcome the barrier of sin which separates us from God, and rescues us from the tyranny of our slavery to sin and death. Sin simply cannot exist in the presence of God – so nothing less could bridge the gap and effect that essential reconciliation than an act of self-sacrifice which so completely identifies with me, that my soul is flooded with his love, and I am not just forgiven but washed clean, put right in my relationship with God, welcomed home by him as a beloved child, treated as if I had done no wrong.
Such reconciliation goes way beyond any concept of criminal justice, since the punishment is taken for us by another. There is no justice in that, only love. Such reconciliation has more in common, perhaps, with the concept of Restorative Justice, whose goal is not so much to punish as to restore the harm that has been done But even under Restorative Justice, the offender is expected to engage actively in a process which may include restitution, community service, meeting the victim and so on. The restoration to which we have access through our Lord Jesus Christ requires only that we should recognise our sinfulness, turn to him in our need, and accept the gift of new life which he has won for us at such cost.
Without that assurance of God’s love reaching out to us, even in our greatest misery, any suffering that comes our way is likely to be experienced as a terrible burden that will break our spirit, like that of the Israelites under the cruel yoke of their Egyptian taskmasters. With that assurance, Paul is able to boast that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Rom 5.3/4). These assurances may strike you as a bit breezy, even heartless, but one has to respect the personal experience from which Paul could speak, and pray that we may find it so if we are put to the test.
If boasting is all about claiming credit for our achievements, then there is absolutely nothing here for us to boast about, even in such suffering as we may be called upon to bear for his sake. But I think I begin to understand what Paul is saying, when he boasts in the God who, through our Lord Jesus Christ, has done so much for us, identifying with us in every aspect of our frail humanity, loving us when we were so unlovable, even to the point of dying for us – even if I might still prefer to respond not with boasting but rather with the joy of the psalmist:
My trust is in thy mercy: and my heart is joyful in thy salvation.
I will sing of the Lord, because he has dealt so lovingly with me: yea, I will praise the name of the Lord most Highest.
Perhaps the additional point that we should pick up from Saint Paul is that the grounds of our salvation, the peace and the joy which is ours through our Lord Jesus Christ, is not something to be treasured in private, but rather something to which we should bear witness enthusiastically and in public. If that is boasting in God, then so be it.