Last Sunday after Epiphany, Year B
2nd Corinthians 4:3-6
I want to talk this time around about 2nd Corinthians. And if I'm going to do that, we're going to have to talk about Paul, whose letters are likely anthologized and edited into the form that we have in 2nd Corinthians. So let's get this out of the way. Paul's an asshole. He's also very likely one of the best pastors, successful missionaries, and accidental theologians our Christian community has ever known.
So much debate on the popular level of Christianity these days, carried on in the front seats of cars and at brief Bible studies, hangs on whether the participants "like" Paul or not. In general, conservatives 'love' Paul; liberals, not so much. While I relate to desire to have that debate, I'm not sure the answer to that question does as much as we want.
For example, if Paul were here in the flesh, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't like him. In his letters, he's often pompous, frequently angry, and insufferably self-righteous. Over the course of his life, it's pretty clear that he runs off a number of his friends, and he often undermines the very people who try to defend him. It would be interesting to compare Paul's character to Jesus'. It's hard to imagine two people who would have been less alike--although Jesus was hardly likable in his own way.
But even if I don't like Paul, or wouldn't have liked Paul in flesh, I'd have to admit that his writings are really pretty good--and more than pretty good, many of them are pretty amazing in spite of themselves. Sure, they have problems that very much reflect the man. It is very interesting to wonder if, as a member of the communion of saints, he regrets his hasty comments about sexuality and women. I have long suspected that were we to ask him, he would blame other people--somehow, that seems like his modus operandi to me, and I suspect that spiritual bodies change us only so much.
But anyone who has ever seriously heard his words at a funeral knows that the Holy Spirit speaks directly through them. "Neither height, nor depth, nor angels, nor principalities" and "putting on new bodies" indeed. For all that it is true that Paul was and may well still be an ass, that didn't prevent him from also being the accidental source for most of the New Testament. So profound were his thoughts and cares, and so deep his faith, that they still manage to come through even some of his worst moments.
And to anyone who struggles with Paul, I'll share one last thought. A very helpful mentor in my life once told me that the distance between me and someone I don't like is really only the distance between two different parts of myself. If Paul is a jerk, maybe how much that bothers us tells us more about us than about Paul. Our faith asks us neither to agree with Paul nor to like him. Our faith asks us to recognize God speaking in his writings and claim him as a member of our family.
So, as we look at this lesson 2nd Corinthians, it's helpful to note that Paul doesn't start it simply. "Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing." The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who are unbelievers, says Paul.
This passage alone is enormously difficult and could easily be controversial. It's one of those things we often let sail in church, and no one really listens to it, so no one really complains, and we all go about our business without dealing with the fact that it was just read in our midst. But deep down, I find that this phraseology bothers folks. It makes it sound like we live in clear-cut world, at least at a quick read, made worse when we don't acknowledge it. It makes it sound like: believer=life, unbeliever=perishing.
Perhaps the first quesiton is: Are, in fact, unbelievers perishing--that is, are people who aren't Christian dying? And Paul doesn't seem to mean this in some purely eschatological, end-of-the-world sense. He also doesn't seem to mean it in a strictly biological sense, as all of us, believing and otherwise, are still dying biologically. Instead, he seems to mean that right now, the 'perishing' are leaking life and becoming like the dead. Is that true?
That's a hard question. Most of us are friends with a great number of people who are not Christians, and either our fear or defensiveness immediately asserts itself to make us deny that unbelievers are perishing--that seems like a nasty thought about our friends. But the truth, at least in my experience, is quite a bit more complicated. I have known 'unbelievers' who were most definitely not perishing, but instead were gaining life. And I have known believers who were most definitely perishing, dying right there on the vine.
So let's do something unusual--let's cut Paul some slack, and let's assume that he is as bright as we are. Perhaps Paul, too, has had just this experience--that the relationship between perishing and belief is not so straightforward. And this certainly is true of Paul--after all, Jews, who were nonbelievers, do not seem to be perishing in Paul's view. And Paul has all kinds of writings about the believers who are be perishing.
So what, then, is Paul talking about? Perhaps, instead, he's making a general point, not intended to apply in every case. Just like I make general points like: going to the DMV sucks. Does it literally always suck? No--sometimes, it's quite painless. But nonetheless, I would assert without fear that going to the DMV sucks. Or going to the emergency room. That sucks, too--unless, of course, my heart has stopped, or I've broken a leg. Then, there's nowhere else I'd rather be--officially, being there does not suck in those situations. We, too, make general statements that are true, even if they have a number of perfectly good exceptions. So perhaps holding Paul to the letter of this sentence reveals not that Paul was childish, but that we're being childish.
Paul, therefore, on a the simplest level, seems to be noting the fact that not everyone believes this nutty business about Jesus. This is pretty obvious, something we all see as clearly in our own era as Paul had seen it in Corinth (which, I think we should try to remember, was the Branson, Missouri of the Roman Empire, if Branson were a primary seaport full of diverse ethnic groups, and if Branson specialized not in washed-up celebrities but in finest cheap hookers and easily obtained drugs. Las Vegas is much classier than Corinth was, so I think Branson captures it better).
So why don't other people 'get it'? That's the natural question, when we have gained so much life from our faith and other people role their eyes at us. Why doesn't everyone embrace new life? Paul says: well, it's like the god of this world has blinded their minds. It's like greed, the desire to live without pain, and the cruel happiness of the torturer have all occluded the mind's eye, like a cataract, or near-sightedness, or blindness. Paul isn't trying to say what all nonbelievers are like--he's trying to say what some of them are like, some of them that we encounter more often than we'd care to.
And then Paul moves forward with this analogy. What characterizes us, the Christians, is not that we proclaim ourselves 'Christians.' What characterizes us is not a proclamation about us. It is that we proclaim Jesus as Lord--and don't lose the power of that image and analogy. Jesus is the individual who owns us body and soul, the person who lets us lease his land so that we can grow our vegetables and livestock, the person who protects when neighboring countries attack. Jesus, an odd and short-lived individual from Nazareth and Galilee--that's our Lord. Not only this, but what further characterizes us is that, if we watch the grammar closely, we have declared that we are slaves to one another, out of respect for Jesus.
And then Paul adds this business about the same God who spoke light into being has spoken into being the knowledge in our heads about God in the light of Jesus' life. That's a really extended image, so let's unpack it for a moment. Here it is briefly:
God speaks. Heart opens. Sees Jesus in new way. Seeing Jesus is seeing God. We see a new thing about God.
So, let's put it all together. The passage seems not to be much about 'unbelievers.' It is, instead, reflecting how those who have been believing for a while might understand their own faith. Perhaps a worldly god has blocked the eyesight of others, says Paul, but whatever the case, this need not interfere with the truths we have seen. Instead, the passage is mostly about God has opened a new light in us, showing us to look at Jesus, and there we have seen the truth about God.
Whew. Reading Paul can be rather complex.
But what does this mean? A few things, I think, as we read these last lessons and then plunge on into Lent. First, there's just the raw theology that Paul is doing there, and we as Christians have done a bad job teaching and speaking this theology to one another. Jesus is the clearest picture of God. In him, we see God's glory--that is to say, God's love. From his care for the sick, from his challenging of his friends, from his willingness to die--we see what that kind of love looks like, the kind of love God holds for us.
Nowhere here do we hear that Jesus is our friend, or about holding a moral standard on abortion, or do we sing about holding his hand. There may be other parts of scripture that lend themselves to that kind of conversation--fine. But we ignore this part. We look at Jesus because there we see what is true about God--we don't see everything true about God, but there we see something that we can know that is true about God. God loves us, and this inspires us to take Jesus as our Lord, giving up our lives to each other like slaves do.
Second, let's develop some of the imagery here. If Jesus is the clearest picture of what is true about God, a vision so inspiring that it changes us, this does not mean that there are no other pictures of God that can be, to varying degrees, true. Jesus may be the clearest picture, the most truthful, even the best, but this does not preclude God being evident in other ways. As Christians, we may well say that, for example, our Buddhist friends certainly seem to have some picture of the truth that is God. In that sense, those who seem to have seen part of the picture that we have seen are most certainly not perishing--maybe not life in the same way or to the same degree, but certainly not perishing.
It may sound condescending to say: well, I see this perfectly, and those poor benighted not-like-mes see imperfectly. But we can also say it in ways that are not condescending. I do believe Jesus is the clearest picture of God. My Buddhist friends disagree with me. But I see something admirable in the picture they see of God, even if they don't use that word or language--and they, perhaps, see something admirable in the picture I see.
This is, best as I can tell, the basis of all interfaith conversations that happens. We don't expect each other to agree, but we can find admirable things in one another, and we can work together on some things.
However, I am constantly surprised how many apparently faith Christians speak to me about whether they could ever be truly Christian since that would mean that they would therefore believe everyone else went to some kind of hell. Somehow, what good interfaith groups do has in no way touched the hearts of most of us--mostly, our hearts are still shaken by the judgmental among us.
But this is based on the false belief that in order for me to be right, all others who disagree must be wrong. Paul clearly doesn't believe this. If Jesus is the clearest vision of God, this suggests that other visions of various qualities exist. Paul strongly defends what he believes, and believe it he does--other visions are flawed, and Paul will go to great lengths to explain why. But that does not make them wrong, not the sense that our popular culture seems to understand Christian faith.
In other words: just because I think I'm right, doesn't mean I have to think everyone else is wrong. That's a false dichotomy--it's capitalist, actually, assuming a zero sum game around the 'commodity' of truth.
Because the question of truth, as Paul is describing it, is not a black/white issue. It's a relational issue, or a visual issue, and visions can be blurry, partially blocked, or clear, and all still be visions.
I can't help but think we should send sing fewer songs about Jesus becoming my boyfriend, and more songs about how through Jesus, we have all seen with clarity.
