Posts Tagged ‘1 Corinthians’

The Holy Spirit – wild and exuberant or quiet and restrained?

June 7, 2014

Pentecost – 2014

Acts 2:1-21, 1 Corinthians 12:1-13, John 20:19-23

Marian Free

In the name of God whose holy Spirit energises, enlivens and empowers us. Amen.

 

We have a feast of readings today. They reveal, among other things, a variety of ways in which we can think about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. Of course, there are other readings that would shed a still further light on the subject and give us an even wider perspective. Today however, let’s just look at those we have heard this morning – Acts, John and 1 Corinthians. The first two provide us with two different accounts of the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples whereas the letter to the Corinthians gives us a glimpse into how the Spirit was experienced by at least one early community.

The descriptions in Acts and in John are so different that we could be excused from thinking that they were accounts of different events. In Acts the Spirit is explosive, uncontrollable, empowering and life changing. The Spirit appears out of nowhere and yet is visibly and audibly present to the disciples in the violent wind and tongues of fire. Jesus had promised that the Holy Spirit would give the disciples power that would enable them to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, still I imagine that the actual event took them by surprise. Whether it did or not the effect was immediate – without warning and without years of study – the disciples discovered that they could speak in the variety of languages represented in a cosmopolitan Jerusalem. As a consequence of their newly acquired skill 3000 people joined the believers on that day.

In contrast to the very dramatic and public event described by Luke, is the report in John’s gospel. Here the coming (or the giving of the Spirit) is quiet, discrete, peaceful and controlled. In Acts, the disciples are depicted as a confident community – they meet together to pray and sing. They have just elected someone to replace Judas which suggests some sort of leadership structure. This more settled situation may reflect the fact that in Luke’s account the Holy Spirit comes to the disciples at least forty days after the resurrection. They have had time to get used to Jesus’ risen presence and to think about the future. John’s version however, takes place on the very same day that Jesus rose from the dead.The disciples have heard the reports of the empty tomb, but they are yet to see Jesus for themselves. They are frightened and disorganized and have no apparent plan. Into this fear filled situation Jesus (not the Spirit) quietly appears. He offers them peace and breathes his Spirit on them. There is no wind or fire, just the gentle breath of the risen Christ. The event is private and personal and the consequences subtle and indeterminate. Instead of being given the ability to speak in difference tongues, John’s disciples are empowered to forgive or to retain sins. No converts are added to John’s community on that day, but the disciples have been armed with an important tool for the formation and building of a community of faith – the forgiveness of sins. The giving of the Spirit and Jesus’ resurrection appearance occur concurrently. Frightened disciples are not only assured of Jesus’ victory over death, but are powerfully reminded that, as promised, Jesus will not leave them alone.

Finally (for today) the reading from Corinthians provides us with an insight into the experience of the Spirit in one particular situation – the community in Corinth. Here the work of the Spirit does not equip the recipients for mission. Rather the Spirit endows members of the community with the gifts that will enable them to play a variety of roles within that community – the use of unintelligible language to worship God and to prophesy, the ability to utter wisdom and knowledge or to work miracles and heal. If we read further, we discover that the Spirit also empowers those who teach, lead and administer. In this fledgling community the Spirit seems to be inwardly focused rather than outwardly directed. The Spirit gives to members of the community different skills and these are to be used within the community for the building up of the church. As in Acts, the impression here is that the Spirit is exuberant and unable to be contained and that it leads it recipients to behave in ways that they would not otherwise behave.

What are we to take from all this? It seems clear that we will be able to build a coherent or accurate historical picture of the sending/receiving of the Spirit or that from today’s readings we will be able to neatly sum up the way that the Spirit is manifested in the communities that made up the early church. What we can do is to use all the information that we have to hand to help us to understand and to interpret our own experience. In so doing, it will be important for us to hold together the various biblical accounts and to allow each to inform the other, to recognise that just as the first Christian communities experienced the Spirit in different ways, so too, our experiences may differ one from the other. For some the presence of the Spirit might be wild and unrestrained and for others it might be understated and contained. Some of us will be gifted with the more extraordinary gifts and others will have to be content with those that seem to be less glamorous.

As we try to interpret our experience and to recognise our gifts it is important that we heed Paul’s caution and understand that the Spirit is of God and cannot be used or manipulated for our own ends, nor should the Spirit provide us with a means to compare ourselves favourably with others. The Holy Spirit is not something that we own or control, but a gift from God – the presence of God with and in us that prods us to take risks, that reveals skills that we did not know that we had, that gives us courage in the face of persecution, provides us with wisdom and understanding and opens us to new things, new teaching and new experiences and helps us to build and sustain Christian communities.

As we seek to recreate and renew the church both here and elsewhere, let us be alert to the Spirit in and among us, open to the Spirit’s leading and willing to be led into whatever future the Spirit has in store for us.

 

 

Tags:, , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on The Holy Spirit – wild and exuberant or quiet and restrained?

A lesson in letter-writing

January 19, 2014

Epiphany 2 – 2013

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Marian Free

In the name of God who reveals Godself in many and varied ways. Amen.

1:1 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 1Cor. 1:2   To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 1Cor. 1:3   Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus,  5 for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind—  6 just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you—  7 so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.  8 He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.  9 God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

John and Joan McFee have great pleasure in inviting Mark and Mary de Angelo to the wedding of their daughter Susan Maria to Joseph Anthony on July 31st at St Margaret’s Church, 4 George St, Marland, at 4:00pm and afterwards at Maryville Reception Centre, 23 Victoria St, Marland. RSVP July 17, 33458687.

Times have changed, but when I was at school children were taught how to write letters – personal letters, business letters, job applications, wedding invitations and replies and so on. Each form of communication had its own style. Even the form of letter closure differed according to how formal the letter was and the relationship between the writer and the recipient. It did (and does not) not make immediate sense that personal letters were signed “yours sincerely” and formal letters with “yours faithfully” but that is how it is done. These days there is a lot more flexibility. Text messages and emails have created entirely new and less formal styles of writing. Some forms such as Job Applications still have very structured formats – possibly even more structured than previously. So rigid are these styles that consultants exist to assist people in writing their CVs and job applications.

Given that in our more informal world we continue to have set formats for at least some style of letters, we should not be surprised that the Greek world also had criteria for writing different forms of communication. It is important to understand these forms when we read the letters in the New Testament. Paul’s letters exhibit a uniformity of style because Paul is using the letter-writing format common to educated people of his time. That said, there are some immediately obvious differences between first century Greek letters and twenty-first Australian letters. Our form of letter-writing might have an address at the beginning but with some exceptions (wedding invitations) the author is generally not identified until the end of the letter – “yours faithfully, Marian Free”. When we write a letter, we usually begin with an address to the recipient – “Dear Sam”. Greek letters reverse this pattern and begin with the name of the author and some means of identifying that person. In the letter to the Corinthians we read – “Paul, called to be an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God”.

Unless we use a line that indicates what the letter is in regard to, the reader has to wait for the body of the letter to discover why we have written. In Greek letter writing and certainly in the letters of Paul, the greeting prepares us for what is to follow. In his first letter to Corinth, Paul appears to be laying claim to his authority. Not only is he “an apostle of Christ Jesus”, he is an apostle by “the will of God”. This provides much more detail than is provided in the first letter to the Thessalonians which reads very simply: “Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy”. It is only as the letter progresses that we understand that Paul is drawing on his God-given authority in order to pull the Corinthians into line. No doubt the Corinthians were immediately aware of the tone that Paul was setting. He is making it clear that he is an apostle and that his authority comes directly from God.

Having begun with an introduction to the author, the letter introduces us to the recipients. Again, if we compare 1 Corinthians with 1 Thessalonians, we notice a significant difference. The Thessalonians are addressed quite simply: “To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”. The letter to Corinth includes much more detail:  “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” Compared with the Thessalonians where the address is purely descriptive, here there is not only more detail, there is a degree of flattery. Those in Corinth are described as “sanctified, called to be saints” what is more, they are skilfully connected with all the other believing communities,  “together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.” How do we explain the difference in detail? Is it because the lives of the Corinthians exhibit a deeper spirituality than those in Thessalonica? As we read on, this conclusion seems unlikely. The letter reveals that the Corinthians are a divided congregation who compete with each other and whose members engage in immoral behaviour. A more plausible explanation for the long greeting is that Paul, who will later castigate this community, is using both flattery (saints, sanctified) and coercion (with all who call on the name of our Lord). Paul uses flattery because he wants them on side, open to what he has to say. At the same time, he is drawing on the practices of all the other churches to pull them into line, to make them conform.

As you can see, already, in just three verses, we suspect that Paul has something difficult to tell the Corinthians and that he will use the example of other churches to pressure them to change their behaviour. Paul follows the introduction with a standard greeting: “Grace to you and peace.” Paul adapts the usual greeting (charein – hello) to a term associated with the gospel (charis – grace) and adds the Semitic greeting of peace (shalom).

In most letters, the greeting is followed by a Thanksgiving. This serves to get the reader on side and to ensure that they are receptive to what is to follow. (The absence of a Thanksgiving rings alarm bells. For example, there is no thanksgiving in the letter to the Galatians. As we read that letter we can see that Paul has nothing for which to be thankful – he is very angry.)

Again, the content of the thanksgiving provides an introduction to the content of the letter as a whole. In this instance Paul says: “you have been enriched in him in speech and knowledge of every kind”; “you are not lacking in any spiritual gift”. As we read on, we cannot help but wonder if Paul is being sarcastic here. The Corinthians it seems put a great emphasis on wisdom, knowledge and spiritual gifts. They think that they have already achieved some sort of spiritual perfection (“Already you are rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings!” 4:8). In chapter 12, Paul tries to put their spiritual gifts into perspective – no gift is more significant than any other. Over and over again, Paul confronts the arrogance of the Corinthians, their belief in their own wisdom and knowledge and the fact that they compete with one another in areas of knowledge and spirituality. The refrain: “Do you not know?” is used repeatedly in Chapter 6 in which Paul exposes the fact that they do not know. “Do you not know the saints will judge the world?” Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” (6:2,3) and so on.

A good way to begin to understand Paul and his letters is to read the Greetings and Thanksgivings of his letters and to identify the similarities and differences between them. In so doing, it is essential to remember that Paul did not set out to write theology. He wrote letters to communities of faith, communities that – with the exception of Romans – he himself founded. Paul’s intention and deepest desire is that these communities share his faith, his knowledge of God and Christ, his conviction that faith in Jesus leads to freedom and that a life that is Spirit-led is a life that most closely conforms to the will of God. What is amazing is that these letters that were written to encourage, to chide and to correct, express the most profound theology and that over two thousand years later, these letters have become an integral part of our Holy Scriptures. Not before or since has one person’s letter-writing had such a profound effect.

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in 1 Corinthians | Comments Off on A lesson in letter-writing

An unusual body

January 26, 2013

Epiphany 3

1 Corinthians 12

Marian Free

 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.

In December 2009, in Melbourne, conjoined twins – Trishna and Krishna – were separated in a complex process that took a large team of people thirty-two hours to complete.  You will all remember the details. As the twins were joined at the head, it was a particularly difficult operation. Doctors had studied the brains of both children to identify where the blood vessels and brain material needed to be separated. For months they had practiced on models of the twins until they were sure that they knew exactly what they had to do and how to position the girls at exactly the right angle in order to be able to carry out the operation with sufficient skill to cause the least amount of damage to their brains and to give the twins the best chance at survival.

The surgery required a team of sixteen surgeons including plastic surgeons and neuro-surgeons. Also taking part in the marathon event were anaesthetists, cardiologists, doctors nurses and goodness knows who else. Each member of the team would have been trained over a long period of time to ensure that everyone was proficient and knew exactly what their role was and how to carry it out. The absence of any one member of the team could have jeopardized or delayed the whole operation.

Surgery, particularly complex surgery, is not the only example situation in which individuals have to put their egos aside to work together to achieve a common goal. Fire-fighting, rescue work and the distribution of aid all have the best results when no one person is striving to stand out from the crowd and when each person is carrying out their allotted task to the best of their ability in order to contribute to a successful outcome. The reverse is also true, when teams do not work together or when one individual is seeking their own aggrandisement, the effort is at best ineffective and at worst damaging.

Good team work can save lives. Failure to work as a team can cost lives. Working together can achieve a desired result. Working against each other can be totally unproductive.

There are a variety of ways to talk about working together (or not). We talk about team-work, team building or pulling together. If a team is not working, we use language that refers to the weak link in the chain or to people not pulling their weight. In 1 Corinthians Paul uses the image of body to capture the idea of the interdependence of members of the Christian community. In using the term body, Paul is not being original. The term was used by the Greeks as a symbol of social unity. In fact “body” was the most common expression for unity as was the idea that all people are different and that all members of the body should work together for the greater good.

While it is not original, Paul’s use of the body imagery differs from that of his contemporaries in a number of ways. Firstly, Paul identifies God as the source of both difference and of unity. Second, rather than urging some (usually the less gifted) individuals to subordinate themselves for the sake of the body, Paul argues not only that members of the body should work together in such a way that everyone would benefit, but he makes the extraordinary claim that the weaker members are indispensable and deserve greater honour and respect. Further, when Paul suggests that the Corinthians are one body, he doesn’t mean just any body or the sum total of the community. The body that the Corinthians are called to be is Christ’s body.

Transferred to our time and place, the implications of Paul’s discussion on the body are profound and deserve some serious consideration. For a start, it means that on our own, you and I are not Christ’s body. The body of Christ on earth is expressed best when Christians together exemplify Christ. It means too that we are called collectively and not individually to be the presence of Christ in the world. It means that the community that formed in Christ’s name – the church – has to recognise that each member is dependent on all the other members, and how much Christ’s continuing mission relies on the efforts of the community as a whole and not on our individual efforts. Our part in Christ’s body, our contribution to the continuation of Christ’s mission on earth depends not just on what we ourselves do, but on what the community – with our help – does. What is more, the body of Christ is dependent on our recognition of the value of the contribution of every other member  – not just those whose contribution stands out or is more obvious. “We simply cannot afford for any part of the body to consider themselves unnecessary to the whole[1].” Nor can we allow ourselves to believe that our contribution is more significant than that of anyone else – that we alone make the difference.

In some ways the image of the body is comforting. It is reassuring to know that the continuation of Christ’s mission in the world does not stand or fall according to what I do – or for that matter what you do. At the same time the image is challenging. In order for Christ’s body to be a living reality, we all have to learn to work and grow together, to value, support and encourage each other.

In this individualistic, privatized western world, it is easy to think that it is our personal relationship with God that is all important, that our salvation stands or falls on what we do and how we behave. It is easy to convince ourselves that we can be a Christian without coming to church or that developing our personal spirituality is as important, if not more so than participating in the spiritual growth of the body as a whole. However, the opposite is true. Not only do we need the body, but the body needs us. Whether we are a foot or a heart, an arm or a nose, our contribution is essential to the proper functioning of the body. When we are not functioning, when we are absent or when we are suffering, the body as a whole suffers. Equally, whether we are a brain or a toe, a hip or an eye we will be unable to function properly if we are not connected to and working with the remainder of the body.

Our life in Christ is just that – in Christ – and therefore in the body of Christ – the gathered community of believers. One of the challenges for the twenty first century church is to recover a sense of our interdependence, to learn to recognise and value our place in the whole, to celebrate each other no matter how great or small, how visible or invisible their contribution and to understand that without us (or for that matter without any one of us) the gathered community is in some way diminished and impoverished. Unlike a surgical team, or a rescue crew, our commitment to the body doesn’t end when the job is done. Being part of the body is our life, our Christian responsibility and God’s gift to us.

 

Week after week we affirm “We are the body of Christ.” Let us do all that we can to ensure that that is in fact our lived reality.

[1] Gooder, Paula. Everyday God: The Spirit of the Ordinary.Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2012, 113.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in 1 Corinthians, Paul, Paula Gooder | Comments Off on An unusual body