This blog follows the daily bible readings of the Catholic Church

I Corinthians 6: 1-11

Brothers and sisters: How can any one of you with a case against another dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment instead of to the holy ones? Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you, are you unqualified for the lowest law courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels?

Then why not everyday matters? If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters, do you seat as judges people of no standing in the Church? I say this to shame you.

Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers? But rather brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers?

Now indeed then it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated? Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers.

Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers

will inherit the Kingdom of God. That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

In a litigious society like ours, Paul’s teaching about not using the civil courts is relevant. Certainly church members should not sue each other. His question, “Why not rather put up with injustice?” is a good one. There are also good answers to it. A poor person may have to defend his/her rights in this way, for example. But Paul’s insistence that the church constitutes a separate society, with different standards, is an important counterweight to our worldliness.

His description of the Corinthians as former fornicators, boy prostitutes, robbers etc, is hardly flattering, but is good evidence of the effectiveness of the Gospel. If the churches lack any serious sinners, has something gone wrong?

Luke 6: 12-19

Jesus departed to the mountain to pray,

and he spent the night in prayer to God.

When day came, he called his disciples to himself,

and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles:

Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew,

James, John, Philip, Bartholomew,

Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus,

Simon who was called a Zealot,

and Judas the son of James,

and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

And he came down with them and stood on a stretch of level ground.

A great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people

from all Judea and Jerusalem

and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon

came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases;

and even those who were tormented by unclean spirits were cured.

Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him

because power came forth from him and healed them all.

This is a symbolic narrative. Jesus goes up a mountain to be close to God, as Moses was, and he calls all his disciples to him there, on that holy mountain, from which, as from Sinai, word will go forth. Those appointed represent Israel’s twelve tribes, but they are also apostles that is, people sent out to the gentile world. The list of names is interesting in that it is not exactly the same as the lists is other gospels. Doubtless they all go back to Jesus’ ministry or soon after. These named people are presented as authorised sources of the Jesus message. Or are they? Judas name is still there, the stubborn evidence that Jesus’ choice could be wrong. All the others, as we learn, also betrayed Jesus. Only those who have shared in the forgiveness and renewal of the resurrection could fulfil their calling as Apostles.

When they come down to earth from the mountain, the crowd is composed, Luke hints, of Jews (Judaea/ Jerusalem) and Gentiles (Tyre/Sidon). They hear the word and receive healing the core elements of the apostolic mission.

Every believer can see his/her own calling in this story. Called closer to God by Jesus and named by him; sent back into the world to preach the gospel and heal the sick.