A Reflection for Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time
Find today’s readings here.
“If only you would put up with a little foolishness from me! Please put up with me.”
Although scholars continue to debate many aspects of St. Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, one thing is for sure: It is genuinely disruptive. Reading it today, we may imagine Paul‘s surprise that we can relate to it (and to him) 2,000 years later. Even if the idea of two millennia between us is incomprehensible, Paul’s vulnerability brings us close. The apostle wants to communicate with a community he loves and sound multiple alarm bells that we need to hear, too.
1. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
Reading Paul brought me to one of the most iconic phrases of film history (Network, 1976). There’s a sense of “I’ve had enough” and “I want to scream!” pervading Paul’s letter. If Paul was writing today, this would not be one long email, but many. Our incoming mail alert would be ringing at all hours. Paul is super upset and, let’s face it, he’s venting. His string of emails reminds us that righteous anger is sometimes necessary, because as he asserts in multiple places, it is motivated by love.
Paul shows us how messy of an undertaking it can be for human beings to follow Christ, and how only by reminding himself that he was doing the best he could in the midst of it all, could he keep going.
2. We are just humans doing the best we can.
Paul calls himself a fool and disarmingly acknowledges he’s not a great speaker. He also calls attention to the practicalities of life. As lofty as the proclamation of the Gospel may seem, Paul reveals that it is work done within the limitations of being fragile human beings. He acknowledges he has “needs,” meaning he has to eat, he needs a place to sleep and he clearly gets tired and discouraged. What he also makes clear is that the important work of being church can only be accomplished by a community for a community. And so, the folks from Macedonia are helping him out financially, so the folks from Corinth don’t have to. From our earliest days (Paul is writing this around the year 57 A.D.!) we have had to deal with the complexities of raising money, of redistributing our goods so others may have enough to live and of calling out wrong priorities.
3. Pay attention because the lies come fast and all dressed up.
What English translations call “superapostles” may resonate uniquely with our contemporary culture’s obsession with superheroes and power. Some scholars suggest that in this letter Paul is openly declaring war on some (super)men. They are dressing themselves up in all the finery of being great apostles but their attitudes (they want money), manner (self-promoting) and teachings (we get a sense there’s much lying going on) should expose them for the charlatans that they are. Paul seems explosively upset that these men are gaining adherents among people who should know better, and he is asking them to notice that the Jesus, spirit and Gospel the ”superapostles” pretend to bring is not the one they know. Today, how often are we hearing people wrapping themselves up in a faux Christianity, while they support capital punishment, or unfettered access to guns, or the exclusion of vulnerable immigrants? I think Paul would most definitely be calling out this deception and corruption.
St. Paul was a master rhetorician. Scholars reading him in his original Greek point out he uses wordplay (which cannot be translated) and the form of a “diatribe” (what we might call a rant) to forcefully get his point across. And his point is this: Stuff is going wrong in the newborn communities of Christians, and the real Jesus Christ and his work of bringing us to God and each other is getting lost in all the infighting. Sound familiar? Paul shows us how messy of an undertaking it can be for human beings to follow Christ, and how only by reminding himself that he was doing the best he could in the midst of it all, could he keep going. Yep, St. Paul, we hear you; go ahead, brother, let it all out. How can we help?
