YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT RISES

This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:

1 Corinthians 2:1-13

2When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written,

‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the human heart conceived,

what God has prepared for those who love him’—

10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God. 12Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. 13And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.

The world's wisdom: London Arms Fair

God’s wisdom, according to Paul, is his love expressed in the crucified Messiah Jesus. This is utterly different from the wisdom of the world whose ruling spirits were responsible for the crucifixion. The wisdom to understand the apparent failure of the crucifixion comes from God, whose Spirit both understands and communicates the mystery of God. This distinction between the wisdom of the Spirit and the wisdom of the world or the “flesh” is a fundamental and often misunderstood theological concept in Paul’s thinking: it does not signal hostility to the human body and its pleasures; rather it targets the human arrogance of religious and political systems which oppress rather than liberate their subjects. It’s good for readers of Paul to work hard at grasping this distinction which remains a handy tool for religious and political analysis still.

Matthew 4:18-25

18 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. 19And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ 20Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

23 Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. 24So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. 25And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.

compassionate liberation

Jesus begins by finding disciples among the fishermen of Galilee, who show the right response to Jesus’ summons by leaving their nets to “fish for people”. The immediacy of their response is theologically rather than historically accurate. Jesus’ announcement of God’s rule in the world is made real by authoritative teaching and the compassionate exorcism of evil spirits. People’s lives are oppressed equally by wrong teaching as by disease. This compassionate liberation of the whole person is God’s rule which is utterly different from the rule of religious leaders or the Roman Empire. If disciples of Jesus are fishing for people today they would be best to offer the same teaching and the same “therapy”.