1 Cor 4:6-15 / Luke 6:1-5
Paul rebukes the Corinthians: We are fools; you are wise.
1. Greek dramatists portrayed Corinthians as drunk, depraved, and
boisterous. When Greeks wanted to put someone down, they'd say, "He
behaves like a Corinthian." The Greeks also used the
expression "Corinthian girl" to refer to a prostitute. The
Corinthians were not noted for gentility. They were citizens of a port
city with all the vices of such a population. This explains Paul's biting
irony in today's reading. Some Corinthian Christians had grown smug and
complacent with their spiritual progress. Paul tried to wake them up. They
were not half as spiritual as they made themselves out to be.
****
Paul criticizes his Corinthians in an
ironic way for their pretenses, but he says he does so because he loves them.
What do they have that they have not received? A frequent sign of their own
insecurity is that people seek security in laws and traditions. The more they
insist on these, the more they try to bend people to these, the greater their
insecurity. Laws are supposed to be in the service of the community, not vice
versa. They may never become a block or a screen between people. They are not
absolutes but servants of people.
****
Do we sometimes grow smug and complacent in our own spiritual
progress? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Happy are those
who know they are spiritually poor; the Kingdom of heaven belongs to
them!" Mt 5:3
****
A maxim is a written set of principles or rules of conduct. In the 1st
reading, St. Paul used this word to state a simple principle or rule and that
is "Keep to what is written". Most probably he was referring to the
Scriptures and to the written set of teachings that were handed to the
Christian community at Corinth. He made recourse to that maxim because the
Christians at Corinth were beginning to interpret the teachings to their own
convenience and advantage. What was too demanding and affected them personally
they would give leeway for themselves and go with the broadest possible
options. St. Paul wanted to bring them to their senses and to help them see the
truth and the reality of their spiritual deterioration.
Yet in the gospel, it was the Pharisees who were harping on keeping to
the Law of the Sabbath. But their intention was to reinforce and propagate
their religious fundamentalist ideas. But it is not a question of rigidity or
laxity when it comes to religious teachings. Jesus came to teach us the Truth
so that we will have freedom when we keep to His teachings. In Jesus, we have
the Truth who will lead us to the Way of Life. Let that be our spiritual maxim.
****
Many of the events in the Gospels are reported to make a point not only
to the various early Christian communities but to make a point valid for all
time. Jesus is the founder of the Christian community. His attitudes toward
Law, Sabbath and religious observances are normative for all Christians at all
times. For this reason, the story of grain-picking on the Sabbath was retold to
show that Jesus' attitude toward Sabbath Law did not share the absolutist,
obsessive quality that Pharisaic legalism had imposed on it. The Lord saw the
Sabbath as celebrative of our liberation from sin and our new relationship with
the Father. He refused to turn it into a burden that would cage people into a
new slavery. This attitude remains normative for us.
****
(In Corinth there were evidently problems of the human ego. The
question of the inflated ego led to one person’s being championed over another.
But when all is said and done, everything they had was gift. People began to
brag about their accomplishments. The apostles continued to work incessantly as
ministers of the gospel, often ridiculed and seen as fools; at the same time,
there were those in Corinth who exalted themselves.
Paul writes to them as their father in Christ; it is a paternal admonition.)
****
Self-esteem is something that we all cherish. But when this leads to
self-adulation, we are wandering from true Christian humility. Christ rejected
the request of James and John for places of honor in his kingdom. For anyone to
be first, he must be the servant of all. It is the last who will be first. This
is not an easy lesson to learn, but it is at the heart of the gospel. It is not
surprising that Jesus showed little interest in the apostles’ plucking grain on
the Sabbath. His concerns went far beyond that. When we are tempted to place
ourselves on a pedestal, let us remember the apostles, who went hungry and
thirsty while they followed Christ. It remains a great and noble thing to give
oneself entirely for the cause of Christ, even if it escapes human notice.
****
****
(Jesus loved to go through the cornfields. He will often speak about the
corn, the sower, the weeds in the field, the great harvest. He will speak about
the grain that dies only to rise up to new life. He sees in grain the bread
that will be baked into the bread of life. The seed is me word that his
apostles prepare, to satisfy the hunger of the soul. The bread is his body. The
maturing wheat meant so much to him.
He meditates on it. That is how he spent his Sabbath. As the ears
of wheat stroke their clothes, the apostles top feel hungry. They pluck
those ears of corn, they eat them and they thank God for them. Filled with joy,
they hear the Pharisees' vile accusation, that they violated the sabbath:
reaping, threshing, winnowing and preparing food. Plucking the corn they
called harvesting, rubbing it in their hands was threshing, flinging away
the husks is winnowing. Eating it shows they prepared the food. Jesus had to
tell them this. The apostles accepted that he is the Lord of the Sabbath.)
Let us Pray:
Lord our God, Jesus your Son came not to abolish the law but to fill it
with the dimensions of love. Do not allow commandments and rules to stand
between you and us nor between people, but let them lead us gently, as good
educators, to you and to our neighbor and teach us to go beyond the law in
generosity and serving love. Make us free with the freedom brought us by your
Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. God bless.
***
St Gregory the Great (c. 540 - 604)
Gregory was the brilliant and energetic son of a wealthy Roman patrician. At 33
he was already mayor of Rome, but soon gave up all worldly ambition and joined
the Benedictines whom the invading Lombards had driven from Monte Cassino to
Rome. From 579 to 586 he acted as Papal legate in Constantinople, and upon his
return was elected Abbot of his monastery on the Coelian Hill. Three years
later there occurred a disastrous inundation that destroyed the Papal
granaries, caused a dreadful pestilence, and decimated the population. It even
carried off the Pope; and a very reluctant Gregory, who had been the Pope’s
chief adviser for some years, was unanimously elected to succeed him in 590—the
first case of a monk becoming Pope.
One of Pope Gregory’s first acts was to call the Roman people to converge in
seven great penitential processions upon the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore,
to implore God’s pardon and the cessation of the plague. Legend has it that the
Archangel Michael then appeared above Hadrian’s tomb and sheathed his sword,
thus indicating the end of the dreaded disease.
Gregory ruled for only 14 years, but his work was of such far-reaching
consequence that he is considered the most notable Pope of the first 1000
years. Living with monastic frugality, he continued to wear his coarse monk’s
habit on all but formal occasions. He combated simony, incontinence, heresy and
injustice, and promoted a wider interest in the Church’s liturgy and sacred
music (“Gregorian Chant”).
Gregory is venerated as the patron of singers, scholars and teachers.
Reflection: “No sacrifice can be more acceptable to God than labour with genuine
zeal for the saving of souls” (St Gregory).
