What then was the injustice inside the church? Has Paul mentioned it to this point? Well, of course he has. He has already written “For when it is time to eat, everyone proceeds with his own supper. One is hungry and another becomes drunk… are you trying to show contempt for the church of God by shaming those who have nothing?” (11:21,22b) This may seem trivial at first glance, but when placed in perspective, there is an element of injustice at work, and it is being perpetrated by the members themselves. It should most certainly be the case that inside the gathered body of Christ, and especially as they were coming together for a meal that carried a considerable amount of theological weight, that all share in the meal.
If the church itself was unwilling or unable to feed those inside the body, and to be sure that those that were counted as brothers and sisters of the kingdom of God did not go hungry, how could it possibly find itself in a position to do the same thing for the world? Some eating and drinking, and doing so to their fill while others went hungry, with this occurring within plain sight of those that ate and drank to their fill, who were in a position to exercise a very small amount of the self-sacrificial love that took Christ to the cross, by sharing so as to insure that nobody went hungry, was nothing short of an injustice that has no place inside the church. Indeed, Paul was right to bring up the issue of shame. If the church was not the example that it needed to be, in modeling out a different kind of living, and if it did not put that different mode of living on display at the meal table, where it could be easily recognized by those both inside and outside of the church (no divisions, no separations, no stratifications, no inequality), then how was that church going to inspire the viewing world to change its mode of living? If those that were supposed to be representing the kingdom were more than happy to eat and drink, while their brothers and sisters went hungry, then they were certainly not operating in love.
Now, this is not to say that there is anything wrong with eating and drinking, but it is to say that those that lay claim to a confession of Jesus as their Lord, who are ambassadors for the existing kingdom of heaven while serving in anticipation of its consummation, are called to a position of conscientious love. We are very much in the right to enjoy that with which we have been blessed (in food and drink and in all other areas), but we should do so in a way that is tempered by an understanding that there are those, through no fault of their own, who go without much of that which is basic to life. Perhaps the position here called for is to offer praises to God for His bountiful provisions, while also offering a lament for the evil that is active in this world (in so many ways), which is working against the proliferation of the provision of the God that shows forth His rule through our Lord Jesus and through His church. Of course, it is not enough to praise, and it is not enough to lament. Both suggest a call to dutiful action by the church, for the world, in humble and loving service to our Lord and our God.
By informing this body that they should not be glad about injustice (13:6), Paul not only comments on a pervasive mindset, but he also reveals to them their unjust behavior. By tagging his mention of injustice with “but rejoices in the truth” (13:6) he also reminds them that they should be glad that he is correcting them in a way that is designed to lead them into the truth that will come to be exercised in both word and deed, so that (again, considering his words within the flow of the letter) they will not be judged (11:31,34). In the light of Corinth’s receipt of truth, so that they might understand the way that love will actually look when it is put in practice, contrary to what was on display at what they also may have been referring to as their “love feast” (a fact which also helps to explain why Paul takes the time to make this explanation about love), Paul then adds that love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends” (13:7-8a).
Throughout the whole of this letter, Paul builds and builds, never ceasing his offerings of correction, expressing his desire that this church over which he so dutifully labored, with their location in an important and somewhat influential city, be a shining light of the kingdom of heaven. However, while we see that he is being critical, we should not imagine that the problems to be observed here in this church at Corinth were somehow unique to them. When we read Paul’s letters (along with the rest of the New Testament) while keeping in mind that the Gospel of Jesus and the kingdom of God was being preached in a world that was shaped by glaring and pronounced social divisions (and we are by no means reducing the message of the Gospel to merely a social gospel), in which the lines of demarcation (ethnic, religious, economic, etc…) between peoples were carefully drawn and tacitly enforced, we are not surprised to find Paul hitting on this problematic theme of divisiveness in the church on more than one occasion.
Chances are, however, because most of us that find ourselves in the western world are so far removed from a societal context that would allow us to easily recognize this (which means that many of us are terribly handicapped, with this made even more problematic because we believe ourselves to be in a position of superiority in Scripture interpretation), we have read over Paul’s treatment of similar situations without ever considering the world into which it was delivered. Just like we have so often done with the Corinthian letter, we have heard Paul’s words in the context of the cultivation of an individual spirituality and focused pursuit of personal holiness that will result in our achieving heaven (and avoiding hell) at our deaths rather than hearing Paul in the context of our responsibility to cause God’s will to be done on earth.
No comments:
Post a Comment