Faith

The Alexamenos graffito  is a piece of Roman graffiti scratched in plaster on the wall of a room near the  Palatine Hill in Rome

Alexamenos worships his god; preaching Christ crucified – Friday, 21st Week in ordinary time – 1 Corinthians 1:17- 25

The unity of the Church at Corinth was threatened by dissensions. There was a rift in the community. It was not so much that there were opposing groups in the community but rather little cozy cliques were forming with allegiances to people or ideologies. We know that “Chloie’s people”, presumably slaves or business associates of this woman reported the matter to Paul in Ephesus from where he wrote this letter.

Paul condemns the spirit of these schismatics, not their opinions. He exposes their common errors not their respective claims. While many may think that the community was plagued by some heretical thoughts the matter was more petty that initially plagued the community. It had become rather obvious that the dissension in the Corinthian Church was clearly attributed to personal loyalties rather than theological or ethical issues.

For Paul, the primacy of Christ was paramount and not personal loyalties to him or others leaders in the community. Among the issues, there was the matter where some who with their misguided sentiments boasted that it was Paul who baptized them and flaunted it around like it was a badge of honour or a privilege to be exploited. While Paul does not disparage baptism nor was he opposed to it, he rather focused his energies on preaching leaving the work of baptism to others in the community. Because it was becoming a divisive issue, Paul was grateful that he had not baptized very many in Corinth.

Paul was clear, no group or clique could own Christ or claim to be his favourite and no apostles word or action could eclipse Christ’s lordship. Such is Paul’s steadfast love for Christ and his lordship that in 17 verses he mentions Christ ten times. The name of Christ alone is the rallying point for the unity of Christians.

Paul preached Christ to the Corinthians but he comes to them not with lofty words or wisdom or cleverness in the way he communicated; he admits this himself in 1 Cor 2 :1-5. There were others in the community like Apollos who were eloquent and sophisticated. Yet for Paul it was not the wisdom of the world or the powerful actions of few leaders that was important but the message of the cross which ever so often appeared foolish. Yet to those who had been saved, it was the power of God. For Paul the cross of Christ speaks for itself and our lofty words and eloquence robs and distracts the way God chooses to speak to us from the cross; simply but to the heart. There is a constant tendency to think that the smartest and wisest humans will know the most about God. But God cannot be found through human wisdom, but only through the message of the cross.

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Speaking the truth with love – Thursday – 21st week in ordinary time – I Cor1:1-9

We begin today our study of St Paul’s letters the Corinthians. This letter is one of the most important documents of the New Testament and contains some of Paul’s most central teaching.

Corinth, a Greek city was situated on a plateau in the southern end of the isthmus and backed by the 1,750 feet Acrocorinth. The city was one of great wealth derived from the land and sea taxes it levied. The city was destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC but rebuilt in 44 BC by Julius Caesar. The new settlers were freedmen; former slaves now freed who hailed from Greece, Syria, Egypt and Judea.

Corinth did not only spring back from the ashes but it rose to become a formidable city. The Isthmus games, second in popularity to the Olympics which ceased to be organized after the destruction in 146 BC was revived within 40 years of its re-foundation. It was funded entirely by the merchants of the city; a testimony to the recovery and wealth of the city.

Corinth also had a reputation for sexual immorality; although scholars claim that it was exaggerated. Even though Corinth may have not been any worse than any Mediterranean city for its sexual immorality, it’s very name became a byword in the Greco-Roman world for vice. In the theatre, a Corinthian was the stereotype for a drunkard and to “live like a Corinthian” was a slang term from debauchery.

To many men, this city might seem a most unlikely place to preach the Gospel, but Paul was challenged by the mighty metropolis. Paul stayed here for 18 months, longer than anywhere except Ephesus, and even there he kept in touch with the Corinthian community and guided its development. Acts 18 gives us details of Paul’s sojourn in the city and also details the opposition to his ministry. When the Jews opposed him, he left the synagogue to begin to work primarily among the Gentiles (Acts 18:5-7). However, Crispus, a leader of the synagogue became a believer, along with his family (Acts 18:8), so Paul did not turn his back on the Jews. It was the Jews who hauled him before Gallio the proconsul but to no avail. We are told the Jews having not got their pound of flesh vented their ire on Sosthenes the official of the synagogue. Paul left to go to Ephesus, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Galatia (Acts 18:18-23).

While at Ephesus, around 54 AD Paul heard of the distressing moral laxity in the Corinthian Church. A delegation from the Church had come to him and a letter was sought from him concerning certain divisive matters. In answer to these disturbing reports obtained from several sources (1Cor 7:1 and 16:17), Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. Among the other sources that contributed to the writing of this letter is a reference to ‘Chloe’s people ‘ (1Cor 1:11) who on their return from a business trip from Corinth to Ephesus recounted to Paul those aspects of the life of the Church that had surprised them but which apparently were not problematic for the Corinthians themselves. These observations revealed to Paul revolved around the understanding of the Christian community.

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“Cease and desist”- Paul’s message to the Thessalonians – Tuesday, 21st Week in ordinary time – 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3a,14-17

Sensational news always gets our ears puckered up. News agencies thrive on breaking news and our fingers suffer from a new compulsive disorder to share the ‘misfortunes’ of others, sensational or tragic, on the world of WhatsApp. So much of this news thrives because there are no dearth of alarmists in the world or for that matter in the church. The text of today is an appeal to those in Paul’s community in Thessalonica, not to be ‘shaken’ by the doomsayers who have been allegedly announcing with precision the clock and calendar coming of the Lord’s Parousia. All this is a distraction from the truth and reality of what God has done, is doing, and will yet do.

Paul is writing to community he is familiar with for he begs his ‘brothers and sisters’ not to pay attention to the alarmist in the community. Paul was addressing the community in Thessalonica which was a port city in Macedonia (modern day Greece). It was founded in 315 BC by Cassander who was a general in Alexander the greats’ army. Cassander had married Alexanders half-sister and named the city after her. The city fell to the Romans and in 146 BC became the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia.

At the time of Paul, this was an important city. It thrived in commercial trade and was strategically and politically important. Located on the via Egnatia which linked Rome to the Balkans, Thessalonica became a cosmopolitan city and being cosmopolitan it had a substantial Jewish community, large enough to support a synagogue.

Paul evangelised this community in about the year 50 AD while on his second missionary journey. St Luke tells us that having fled the persecution in Philippi (Acts 16:16-40) St Paul and his companions found lodging in the house of Jason in Thessalonica and it here that he preached for three weeks. Paul’s success had his Jewish detractors draw their knives, and a riot ensued. Paul and Silvanus were expelled from the city and arrived in Beroea and from there he had to flee to Athens to a rather unsuccessful sojourn in that city. It was from here that he went to Corinth.

Paul desired to visit Thessalonica but because of the hostility against him he sent Timothy (1Thessalonians 2:17-3:3). Acts 18:5 tells us that Timothy joined Paul in Corinth where he brought the good news of the work being done in Corinth. However, there was also a matter of concern and misunderstanding in the matter of faith; in particular about the fate of those who had died. To address this situation Paul wrote immediately the letter we now have in 1Thessalonians. However, while the second letter to the Thessalonians cannot be precisely dated, it took on issues that was vexing the community; the second coming of the Lord or the Parousia as we call it.

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God returns – Saturday, 20th week in ordinary time – Ezekiel 43:1-7a

We complete our study of the prophet Ezekiel based on the texts that have been read at the Eucharistic celebrations on weekdays, over the last two weeks. This final, great vision of Ezekiel is recorded in chapters 40 through 48 and is a conclusion for the book as a whole. These chapters fulfil the promises made in Ezekiel 20: 40-44 and 37:23-28 in which God promised that his sanctuary would be restored. In choosing this text the lectionary brings to a close the book of Ezekiel.

This text is almost the last prophecy that was dated, and was made many years after the fall of Jerusalem (the fourteenth year after the city was captured). Ezekiel insisted that the source of this rather long prophecy was God himself. Yahweh was also the source of the minute and sometimes strange detail of this prophecy. The audience for this vision was primarily the house of Israel. It was most relevant to them as part of God’s promised future restoration.

The first stage of the visions (40;1- 43:27) is a guided tour of the new temple ending with the description of the return of God’s glory. Ezekiel must remember every detail of this description and bring this to the people who will execute it. We hear of the outer dimension of the new temple to be situated on Mount Zion. It will have its gates on the northern, southern and eastern side with an outer court and inner court. The temple is then described in great detail. Now that the temple had been described, it was necessary to signify that the building was accepted by God.

In chapter 11:23, God departed from the temple from the eastern gate and now he returns for the very gate that he left . Without the glory of God, Ezekiel’s temple was nothing more than a building. With the glory of God, it was a sacred place, a habitation for God and the radiance of His presence. As Ezekiel experienced in his vision, the glory of God had an aspect that could be heard and seen. It sounded like the awesome and inspiring sound of a great waterfall (the sound of many waters). It looked massive and radiant (the earth shone).

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A dead nation restored to life – Friday, 20th week – Ezekiel 37:1-14

The passage summarises Ezekiel’s mission to the exiles. He is to preach the word of God thus bringing new life to a dead Israel symbolised by the very, very dry and bleached bones scattered in the valley. Ezekiel was brought out in the Spirit of the Lord, that is, in vision, and set down in the valley which was full of human bones. These bones represented the total destruction of Israel by the attacking army of Babylon.

The people represented by these bones were not only dead; they were also disgraced. In the thinking of ancient Israel (and the ancient Near East), an unburied corpse with exposed remains was a shocking disgrace to the dead. These bones were obviously denied proper burial.

After this grisly tour, the God who knows how long these bodies have been exposed asks Ezekiel a straightforward but stupefying question: “Can these bones live?” (verse 3a). Clearly, all the evidence is to the contrary; after all, these bones have been dead for so long that they are now so dry, so brittle. Ezekiel responded to God’s question with the only hope that could be found, saying “O Lord GOD, You know.” Ezekiel had no hope in the bones, but he did have hope in God.

God now asks Ezekiel to speak life to these dead bones. By all outward observation this was a foolish act. But God promised to fill the dry bones with breath. He promised to bring flesh upon those bones and cover them with skin. God would make the once dead and dry bones live. Ezekiel was not asked to create life from nothing; it was the restoration of life to something that had been long dead. Ezekiel obeyed the Lord and the bones came together, bone to bone and began to assemble themselves into skeletons.

The previous instruction of the Lord left the valley full of revived, activated bodies. The bones were full of activity, yet they lacked breath. The second prophecy to the bones brings life and strength. Ezekiel was told to call upon the spirit, that these bones may live. The breath of God came into the reanimated bodies, and they stood upon their feet.

The bones were not revived to become a group of spectators or to live for their own comfort. They became an army, and an exceedingly great one. They lived to act under the orders of the one who gave them life.

God then explained what he done through Ezekiel. These bones are the whole house of Israel not only those from the kingdom of Judah. The restoration would include those from the northern kingdom of Israel that fell to the Assyrians some 150 years earlier. This restoration was meant for a dispirited people who had lost hope and felt cut off. God promises to bring them back to their land. This was a promise God made to Ezekiel in 36:24 and 36:28.

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