Everything in American church culture fights against weakness as a way to let the power of God rest on us as individuals, as families and as churches. It’s all about position and influence and money and energy and momentum and celebrity and excellence and skill. None of those things are bad in and of themselves. But the power when all are arrayed is hard to overcome. At least in the minds of those who wield it.
If this is true (and I imagine there are some who would say it isn't because, well, this is America) why would everything in the American church fight against weakness as a way to let the power of God rest on us as individuals, as families, and as churches?
Let me offer a playful answer, because we conflate weakness with sin. If weakness in the life of a Christian isn't because of sin it is an opportunity for sin.
Now maybe boasting in weakness is something we're reluctant to do because even the way Paul does it in 2 Corinthians may count as one of the world's earlier cases of what has been called a humblebrag. :)
Maybe we think of "the weaker brother" passages and how for the sake of the weaker brother we won't eat meat, or how we're just going to eat meat and the weaker brother should just deal with it because that's needless legalism. There's a whole category of professing Christian that is, as it were professionally offended and professionally offensive. It can often come in the form of claiming to speak truth to power or claiming that there are weaknesses or things to be offended by within a church or the Church. Whether from a presumed position of institutional power or speaking truth to power the power plays can look startlingly similar.
Often the most brazen attempts at controlling the behavior of other Christians takes on the guise of appellations to weakness of condition or status. Back when I was in college every spring there'd be some knuckle-headed bromide about the need for women to be modest and hand-wringing about women wearing outfits that let a guy realize she had secondary sexual characteristics. Granting that times changed and what may seem normal now would have been considered hoochie attire forty years ago ... the weakness of the abstracted other as a substitute for our own power plays can make boasting in weakness feel weird.
When we talk about areas where we feel "weak" in our Christian life we can often talk about areas where we feel apt to fall into sin, or so it often seems. Boasting in weakness as Paul does it in 2 Corinthians shows us that there can be boasting in the physical abuse endured for apostolic work. Paul even goes on to write about divine revelations he partook of that were too wonderful to find words for. To keep him from being conceited a messenger from Satan was sent to torment him. How many Christians have you met who have boasted that God permitted a satanic affliction to beset them to prevent them from being conceited? A thorn in the flesh that was not only not removed but remained, with an answer to a prayer that said "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness."
Forget the usual pious bromides about how "God answers every prayer" and think about this boast, Paul's boast was that the answer to his three petitions for the removal of the thorn in the flesh, the messenger from Satan was ... "Praise God, He's leaving it there!" If the goal of the prayer was, let us note, the removal of that affliction, then Paul is boasting in a prayer that was answered with "no". After all, did the affliction remain? Paul tells us himself it did. Let's put away pious reinterpretations that would say Paul was not boasting in his apostolic role giving him the opportunity to witness divine mysteries but in the fact that to keep him from being conceited he was afflicted and that, crucially, when he asked that the affliction be removed, was told "no". When's the last time you bragged that God didn't give you want earnestly prayed for because you needed to be kept from becoming conceited? Even boasting in that weakness acknowledged along the way what sin Paul said he needed to be guarded from.
When Paul wrote that he was about to get into crazy talk we can be tempted to not take him entirely seriously there. Boasting in weakness arguably can't get any bigger than boasting in how God providentially opted to not answer your prayer that He would remove physical suffering from you. Boasting that, instead of removing the affliction, His answer was "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness" and that now you have to live with the affliction the rest of your life, that thorn in the flesh, whatever it was, that messenger from Satan, that's kind of crazy. We're given the impression the super-apostles were not the sort who would brag about the prayers they prayed that God didn't answer.
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