IN IT (THE MERDE) TOGETHER: EUROPE’S ECONOMY TOTTERS  

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

1 Corinthians 2:14-3:15

14 Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are discerned spiritually. 15Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.

16 ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord

so as to instruct him?’

But we have the mind of Christ.

3And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarrelling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? 4For when one says, ‘I belong to Paul’, and another, ‘I belong to Apollos’, are you not merely human?

5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labour of each. 9For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

A heresy which ignores paul (and Jesus)

10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. 12Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. 14If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15If the work is burned, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.

Yesterday I emphasised that the distinction Paul makes between spirit and flesh is misinterpreted if it’s seen as spirit v body. Rather it means divine humility v human arrogance. The mystery of God is the cross of the Messiah Jesus which undermines political and religious power. The petty quarrels and cliques of the Corinthians are manifestations of their human all too human faith. They think faith can become a means of self-assertion. Paul’s images of the plant and the building are meant to exclude human boasting (although there’s just a hint of boasting in Paul’s “I planted” “I laid the foundation”) because it is God who gives the growth and Christ who is the foundation.

One of the problems about Paul’s vision of the common life in Christ is that it may seem to exclude his own authority as an apostle. Later in this letter, when he articulates his doctrine of the body of Christ, he shows that there is a special function for the authority of the Apostle. The body of Christ is articulated, and although there is no hierarchy, there are specific functions, one of which is the capacity of the Apostle to “know the mind of Christ.”

Amongst reformed churches today where there is great emphasis placed on the task of the “whole body of Christ” (interpreted as the membership of a congregation) to direct worship and church life, it would be helpful to keep in mind the Pauline teachings about “spirit” and “flesh”, along with his insistence on apostolic authority, if degeneration into mere folksiness and current intellectual prejudice is to be prevented.

Matthew 5:1-10

5When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. 2Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

3 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5 ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7 ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

8 ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. 

9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Matthew sets up a parallel between Jesus and Moses. Just as Moses went up the mountain to bring God’s Torah to the people of Israel so Jesus goes up to bring a new “law” which will guide the people of God. And just as the books of Moses begin with the story of God’s blessing on all creation, so the law of Jesus begins with blessings. Some time ago one Matthew Fox published a not very good book called “Original Blessing” in which he argued in a new age-ish way for what he called “creation spirituality”-when I see the word “spirituality” I reach for my vaporizer-but his insistence that blessing is more original than sin is truly biblical and can be used to distinguish good teaching from bad.

In the English- speaking churches there are those who wish to keep blessing as separate as possible from happiness, as if Jesus meant something more spiritual. I also believe we should keep the word and even more the practice of blessing but we should be aware that biblical blessing is very earthy. An accurate translation of the Aramaic (the language Jesus spoke) form of these blessings would be:

Happiness to the poor in spirit!

Happiness to the meek!

These are kingdom blessings but they are not to be made “spiritual” as opposed to “material”: the poor will rule; the sad will be comforted, the gentle will possess the land; those who hunger for justice will be satisfied etc.-the rewards are real. God’s blessings come to those who are ready to receive: that’s Jesus point. Those who think they have a right to rule are by-passed in favour of the “poor in spirit”; those who think they only are God’s children are by-passed in favour of those who make peace; those who persecute others are deposed in favour of those they persecute.

The loveliness of Jesus’ blessings is that the promised happiness is real; and although the promise will only be fully delivered in the fullness of the kingdom of God, even now in the time of the ministry of Jesus, which continues to this day, disciples enjoy a down-payment, in Paul’s metaphor, on what is to come.