Category Archives: Bible Study

Rich By His Poverty

Posted on by
Reply
One of the greatest existent examples of Norman architecture, the cathedral in Monreale, Sicily was begun in 1174 by William II of Sicily. In 1182 the church, dedicated to the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, was complete. The stunning mosaics were added one hundred years later.


For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: though he was rich, he became poor for your sake, so that you might become rich by his poverty …. For if that desire is present, the gift will be acceptable according to what one may have, not according to what one does not. (2 Cor. 8:9, 12)

St. Paul is raising money to aid the parish in Jerusalem because there is a famine there, adding to the political troubles facing the area which would soon boil over into open revolt against Rome and cause the Romans to tear down the Temple. He’s saying that the Corinthians will get “credit” from God based on what they want to give, even if their actual financial situation does not allow them to be as generous as they would like to be.

It’s always tricky to talk about God giving “credit” to humans. But we understand that impulse because we honor the intention if the person is unable to follow through, through no fault of their own. It’s a different situation if the person promises what they know they cannot deliver, raising hopes that can never be achieved.

God acknowledges–gives “credit”–our faith, our hopes and trust in him, and in our brothers and sisters. So this passage of 2 Corinthians is about more than fundraising. St. Paul is also talking about how we become rich through Christ’s poverty even if we don’t always follow through on being poor in spirit, forgiving as we have been forgiven, sharing our resources with those who have less–less time, less cash, less emotional bandwidth to bear whatever their current situation is. If we WANT to be as forgiving and as poor in spirit, etc. that’s at least a start. It’s something. Even if we don’t always live up to our intentions. But as the famous Easter sermon says,

… the Master is gracious and receives the last, even as the first; he gives rest to him that comes at the eleventh hour, just as to him who has labored from the first. He has mercy upon the last and cares for the first; to the one he gives, and to the other he is gracious. He both honors the work and praises the intention.

Paschal Homily, attributed to St. John Chrysostom

Christ takes off all his clothes in order to wear a towel and wash our feet. He hangs naked on the Cross. Holy Week makes us rich. The point of wealth is to share it. How can we share some of what we are given during Holy Week? Even if we can’t do everything we want to make those riches accessible to ourselves or others, we can at least do something. We can do a little bit more than we did last year. We can be present. We can at least begin to want to intend to receive those riches and then share them with someone else.

What human being could know all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden in Christ and concealed under the poverty of his humanity? … When he assumed our mortality and overcame death, he manifested himself in poverty but he promised riches–though they might be deferred; he did not lose them as if they were taken away from him. How great is the multitude of his sweetness which he hides from those who fear him but which he reveals to those who hope in him!

St. Augustine of Hippo, On the Nativity 194.3

Sadness That Brings Joy

Posted on by
Reply
Alexei Ivanovich Korzukhin’s painting from 1877, “Before confession,” shows people waiting to make their confessions–waiting to out their repentance into words–in order to make right their relationships with God and their neighbors.


For even if I saddened you by my letter, I do not regret writing it. Even if I did regret it–because it saddened you for a brief time–I now rejoice, not because you were dad but because your sadness led you to repent. You were saddened according to God so that you did not suffer damage from us. Sadness according to God produces repentance without regrets and leads to salvation; the sadness of the world, however, produces death. (2 Cor. 7:8-10)

St. Paul tells his readers in Corinth that he did not intend to make them sad or depressed but he is glad that their sorrow–depression?–led them to repent and correct themselves. Their sorrow proved to be life-giving; secular sorrow and depression leads the other way and results in death … metaphorical death if not literal death. Certainly, spiritual and emotional death. The sadness he provoked in the Corinthians was a good thing, finally. It was, as Fr. Alexander Schmemann calls it, a “bright sadness.”

The person who is sad with a Godly sorrow repents for his sins; sorrow because of one’s iniquity produces justice. First, let what you are displease you so that you may be able to become what you want to be …. Will you, my brethren, ever find dung in a pile of sifted wheat or flour? Nevertheless, the wheat or flour is beautiful because of the dung; the foulness was the path to a beautiful result.

St. Augustine of Hippo, Easter Sermon 254.2

Sin gave birth to pain; pain destroys sin. Just as a worm is born by a tree consumes the very same tree, likewise pain, which is born of sin, kills sin when it is supplied by repentance …. Pain is good for those who repent sincerely. Mourn for the sin so that you do not lament the punishment.

St. John Chrysostom, Homily on Repentance and Compunction 7.6.19

Sometimes we are not patient enough to see the good thing that results from a painful–or at least, uncomfortable–process. We want results RIGHT NOW and we don’t want it to hurt in the process. But we live in time and everything we do is a process. Time–and pain–are the gift and opportunity we have to set right what we got wrong before. As Fr. Jay Smith–who serves the Church of St. Mary the Virgin Times Square–wrote recently, the ashes we are smudged with on Ash Wednesday are precisely that: reminders that we live in time and that we have a limited time to get our relationships with God and our neighbors set right. Death is coming for all of us and although death is not the end, it is a definite change in our circumstances and we can’t postpone our repentance to when our circumstances change. We have to take advantage of the time we have now. Even if it hurts–like taking a bandage off a wound that is healing but needs exposure to the air to finish the healing process.

See more about Bright Sadness here.

Christ vs. Belial?

Posted on by
3
Believers would be baptized in this ancient Christian baptismal font, stepping down three steps into the water. The font was kept supplied with “living water” (i.e. running water) by a series of pipes and plumbing–the first directions (in chapter 7 of the Didache, written AD 60) for how to baptize said that it was always better to use living/running water for baptism. Baptism is what distinguished the Church from the pagan world. There could be no agreement between the Church and the world, between believers and the Devil, between Christ and Ceasar because–as Tertullian said in the 2nd century–if Ceasar were to be baptized he would have to renounce being Ceasar!



What fellowship does light have with darkness? What does Christ have in common with Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God …. (2 Cor. 6:14-16)

I have heard many preachers use this passage to insist that believers should not marry unbelievers. But there is no direct mention of marriage in this passage. The passage itself seems to suggest that there should be a radical separation between the Church and the society in which believers live. St. Paul seems to be saying that outside the Church there is nothing but darkness and devils; what could that world have in common with the Church, the Body of Christ and the light of the world?

The great teachers of the Church have understood this passage to condemn a person’s efforts to have two opinions in their own mind.

There cannot be two contradictory loves in one person. Just as there is no harmony between Christ and Belial, between justice and iniquity, so it is impossible for one soul to love both good and evil. You that love the Lord, hate evil, the devil; in every deed, there is love of one and hatred of the other. “He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me…” [John 14:21] You that love the things that are good, hate the things that are bad. You cannot love good unless you hate evil.

St. Jerome, Homily 73 on the Psalms

The Church understands that our baptism cannot be something that we put on or take off, depending on whether it is convenient on any particular day or not.

Neither the wetness of the water in which we are baptized not the oiliness of the oil with which we are anointed remain with us…. But the Holy Spirit, who is mingled in our souls and bodies through the oil and water, does remain with us, both in this life and after our death.

Philoxenus of Mabbug, On the Indwelling of the Holy Spirit

A person can try to have a foot in two camps but that never works. Not in the long run. If we are the temple of God because we are baptized and anointed, then we cannot also worship idols. Most baptized people don’t think they worship idols. But anytime we put ourselves first–before God’s command to love–we are making an idol of ourselves. Anytime I prefer injustice–because it is convenient for me–I am not loving my neighbor and I am worshipping the idol of myself.

If the Church cuts herself off from society, she cannot be the Church–the fountain of health, the fountain of salvation for the world. We cannot hide from the world and refuse to participate in it and still call ourselves followers of Christ. Even the hermits and monks in the desert did not cut themselves off from the world. They cut themselves off from distractions so that they could pray the more earnestly for the world and the people living in it. Scrooge in his counting house on a busy London street cut himself off from the world more completely than any monk or hermit ever did.

Jesus didn’t tell the apostles to teach all the nations so that the nations would believe what he said; he told the apostles to teach the nations so that they would obey what he said. (Matthew 28)

Obey. Do. “Love is the soul of justice; justice is the body, the flesh, of love.” (M. Borg and J. Crossan, The Last Week)