Sermons
June 29, 2025 (Proper 8)
“This is beyond me.”
1 Corinthians 10:1-13
Modern technology is truly amazing. Yes, it has its drawbacks; but consider this statement, which has circulated all over social media for years…“We carry in our pockets computers more powerful than the ones that helped put humans on the moon—and we mostly use it to look at cat videos.”
Some folks have even joked that the internet is made of cats; spend more than a few minutes on social media and you’ll see the truth of it.
One of the fun things you can find out there is lots of pictures posted by people with the hashtag #NotMyCat. Cats seem to have a way of slipping into houses where they don’t actually live.
One I saw was a photo someone took of their dad. “I left my dad napping and came home to this”—a tabby cat has joined him on the couch. “We don’t have a cat.”
Every now and then there’s something added to the caption…“This cat just walked in my front door. I don’t have a cat. Is this how you get a cat?”
The internet calls it the “Cat Distribution System.” Of course we know it’s imaginary, but we talk about how cats just have a way of appearing and making themselves at home, as though there’s some force out there directing them to assorted people’s houses. Those of us who have way too many because they just keep showing up often joke that “the Cat Distribution System is broken.” It’s distributing them unequally, so some of us are getting more than our share while others don’t get any.
It’s not just cats that don’t seem to be distributed evenly among the population. Some people find themselves with more than their share of troubles. For instance, a friend of mine, after enduring a nightmarish upbringing, has seen two close friends murdered—one of those by a person they previously had welcomed into their home—and another lost to suicide; and then on top of that a narcissistic ex has utterly destroyed my friend’s reputation with false accusations spread on social media.
Even one of those things could leave a person reeling. But people will say to someone like my friend, “God never gives us more than we can handle.”
Really?
That statement seems oftentimes to be repeated for a couple reasons. First, we might say it about ourselves, as though to reassure others that we’re doing just fine bearing the burdens that have landed on our shoulders. Or we might say it to someone who is going through hard times, perhaps to encourage them to hang in there. I’m not sure it’s all that helpful in either case.
A lot of people think it’s in the Bible—but it’s not, at least not in the way we typically use it.
The verse that is often paraphrased, and I would argue wrongly paraphrased, as “God never gives us more than we can handle” is the last verse of our reading from 1 Corinthians for today.
One of the most important things to do when we’re trying to figure out the meaning of a Bible passage is to look at its context. Paul isn’t writing this section of 1 Corinthians to encourage folks facing trouble or tragedy. He’s writing because, in the religiously diverse city of Corinth, Christians faced some pretty serious temptations.
This passage is part of a discussion of whether it’s appropriate for Christians to participate in pagan—in other words, non-Christian—religious practices. In that time and place, a great deal of networking happened at feasts celebrating various pagan gods. Some of the wealthier Corinthian Christians might have considered these feasts to be an important part of their economic lives. And maybe they wrote to Paul asking whether it was okay to keep attending them, and to keep eating food that made its way to their tables after being offered to the pagan idols.
This discussion of food offered to idols and pagan religious practices actually begins in chapter 8 of 1 Corinthians. The Corinthians who wanted to keep eating idol-meat and attending feasts at pagan temples might have written to him saying, “All of us possess knowledge,” and “no idol in the world really exists”;[1] but others in the church, who might have been newer to the Christian faith, could have been troubled by things these supposedly more “knowledgeable” and wealthier believers knew couldn’t hurt them. So Paul wanted them to temper their “knowledge” with consideration for those they considered weaker, or perhaps more superstitious, and not exercise their right to eat whatever they wanted if doing so might harm the others’ faith.
But by the time he gets to chapter 10, Paul has begun to urge them to refrain altogether. Those pagan feasts and rituals might have been business events, but there was a whole lot more than just networking going on. There were assorted behaviors, immoral behaviors, that were part of pagan worship, and Paul urged the Corinthians to flee from such things, from even the temptation toward such things.
So when Paul gets to verse 13, and says, “No testing” [actually the word might more properly be translated as temptation rather than testing] “has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested [tempted] beyond your strength, but with the testing [temptation] he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”—Paul is not talking about the normal difficulties of life, or about sickness, or tragedy; he’s talking about temptation.
And what he’s saying there could be quite helpful for someone who is dealing with the temptation to wrongful behavior or something contrary to what we know Jesus has taught. If you are tempted, he says, God is faithful and will provide you with the fortitude to withstand the temptation.
But what he is not saying is that “God never gives us more” [trouble, sickness, loss, tragedy, or whatever] “than we can handle.”
That statement, “God never gives us more than we can handle” is problematic for two major reasons, in my opinion. First of all, there is the assumption that the difficulties of life are given to us by God. My friend that I mentioned a bit ago: was it God who heaped all that trouble and tragedy on them? Does a loving God do that? Why would a loving God pile on us burdens like that? To prove to us, and to God, how strong we are?
If that’s what God is like, then I personally don’t want any part of him. That’s a cruel God. And we know—because our best revelation of what God is like is Jesus Christ, who once said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest”[2]—our God is not a cruel God.
Life is hard, and we all go through especially difficult times. And yes, it does seem like some people get more than their share of trouble. But God doesn’t give us trouble and tragedy. Sickness and death and abuse are not God’s will for us.
The second problem with “God never gives us more than we can handle” is that just about everybody has gone through something that was beyond them.
I remember a time, years ago, when I was struggling through a situation that I couldn’t deal with. Everything I did to try and rectify the situation backfired, and I simply could not figure out what to do. It was more than I could handle.
I think just about everybody has experienced this at one time or another. If you haven’t yet, you probably will.
It’s absolutely not true that “God never gives us more than we can handle.” It’s not true because the troubles of life aren’t given to us by God, to test us, to punish us, or to strengthen us like lifting weights strengthens our muscles. And it’s not true because we don’t have to handle those troubles alone. We don’t have to rely on our own ability—which often falls short.
Instead of “God never gives us more than we can handle,” what if we said this: “God will help us handle all that we’ve been given.”[3] This alternative doesn’t lay the blame for the troubles in our lives on God. And it gives us permission to admit when something is beyond us, and ask for help.
As I did when I was in trouble, we can call on God for help. But we also realize that God often works through other people. So if we have called out to God: “I can’t handle this!”, God may well send a friend, a family member, or a professional like a therapist, pastor, or doctor, to help us.
God never means for us to bear our burdens alone. God has placed us in families, communities, and churches where we can bear one another’s burdens and accompany one another through hard times.
And if that’s the case, then we whose lives are currently going smoothly have an assignment: How can we be God’s hands and feet, God’s strength, God’s compassion, and God’s encouragement for a friend, relative, or neighbor who is bearing a burden too heavy for them?
[1] Both these statements appear at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 8, and may be Paul quoting what the people from Corinth said in a letter to him.
[2] Matthew 11:28
[3] This alternative is suggested by Adam Hamilton in his book Half Truths: God Helps Those Who Help Themselves and Other Things the Bible Doesn’t Say (Nashville: Abindgon Press, 2016).