Under Pressure
Sermon on Sunday, February 8, 2026
Dear church,
If I asked you, “Have you ever been under pressure?” it would be such a stupid question, right? Almost as pointless as some of the questions that coaches are asked by sports reporters at halftime, like during the Super Bowl. “Coach, what are you going to do to get your offense going?” And coach says, “We will play harder, avoid mistakes and come out stronger the next half.” I mean, you don’t even need AI to write those comments and save the coach from sharing his platitudes. So, before I go further on my tangent, let me make the obvious clear: we are all under pressure many times in our lives, and it starts early. No one is exempt. The better question is: how do we deal with pressure?
That’s what we were trying to figure out last weekend at Bear Creek Camp inside the chilly Retreat House. And we came to some good ideas I believe, including spiritual and behavioral techniques, such as prayer, meditation, staying away from certain pressure situations, but embracing others or sharing stress with the important people in our lives, including the Holy One, because sometimes we need a release valve. As for this Sunday, I would like to explore the Epistle text, written by a man under great pressure. He received tons of negative feedback. I am talking about the Apostle Paul and his rocky relationship with the church in Corinth. Let me give you some context.
It is fair to say, based on the biblical record, that a large part of the church in Corinth did not like Paul, did not fully respect him either, preferred other leaders over him and clamored for a different kind of gospel. The name Paul literally means “little one,” and from references in his letters we learn that some people in the congregation didn’t think he was big enough for them, not charismatic enough, not eloquent enough, not powerful enough. They said his preaching was weak. Ouch!!! They said he came across strongly in his letters but when he showed up in person, he was boring. Ouch again!!! We must remember Corinth wasn’t any old place.
Paul had founded the church during his second mission trip; we know that from the Book of Acts. The church in Corinth was his baby, plain and simple. And now he faced resistance, opposition, criticism, distrust, almost rebellion from his own people. What’s more, it wasn’t just about popularity, the issues went much deeper. Many people in Corinth didn’t believe in the resurrection of Christ. Many continued lifestyles that were incompatible with the message of the gospel: how they treated the poor, how they conducted their personal lives. Many Corinthians preferred flashy worship and ecstasy (Not the drug, but the adrenaline rush!) over the message of the cross and the example of Jesus. So, from far away, Paul fought for the soul of this congregation with the power of his pen. That’s how two long letters to Corinth became part of the Bible.
Pressure can create some beautiful things. We know that from the way diamonds are formed, 100 miles beneath the earth’s mantle. Out of Paul’s pressure came one of the most profound and beautiful interpretations of the gospel, the message of the cross, also sometimes referred to as the “theology of the cross.” Well, what does that even mean? Let me quote Paul first from the reading we heard earlier. He said: “When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness, with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.”
In essence, Paul turned all the pressure on its head, turned the negative into a positive. He was not trying to pretend that he was someone he wasn’t, which is an important lesson for all of us, including our youth. You never have to pretend to be someone else because people don’t like you the way you are. And even if some of your attributes aren’t all glorious, don’t hide them. Be who you are. Under pressure, Paul decides deliberately to own up to his own weaknesses. That takes courage, but it can be so powerful to own your weaknesses! Paul became vulnerable. He knows he is not the most eloquent orator in a culture that adored sophisticated rhetoric. He knew he was not as hip as some of the other people. But he also knew that Jesus brought glory and salvation to us on the cross, that God himself became unspeakably vulnerable, shedding his own blood for us. And in that sacrificial act lies great power: power to forgive, power to endure the greatest darkness, knowing you will never fall out of God’s light, and power to be who you are in Christ.
“I came to you in great fear and trembling,” the great Saint Paul admitted to the congregation in Corinth only to shift the focus away from himself to the gospel. What we can learn from Paul is this: not camouflaging our weaknesses but allowing God to work through them in surprising ways. It’s not our perfections that will impact other people most but oddly, our imperfections. In that sense, God takes pressure away from us. We don’t need to be perfect, just humble and willing to learn and receptive of God’s grace and love. That’s all. And that pressure? O, in Christ’s name, we can deal with that!
Amen.
