Fourth Sunday after Epiphany; 29 January 2023; Epiphany 4A (RCL); Micah 6:1-8; Psalm 15; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31; Matthew 5:1-12.
How many times have we heard the Beatitudes, particularly in Matthew’s version? Luke’s version is a little more direct: Blessed are you poor, for the Kingdom of God is yours. Matthew seems to spiritualize the stark message — poor in spirit is not the same as poor. Hungry and thirsty for righteousness is not the same as hungry. Third person plural is not the same as second person plural.
And I would like to see the word “Blessed” translated “How honorable.” The Greek word is used in speeches honoring a benefactor. How startling it would be to think of the poor and the hungry as our benefactors, yet I think that is the purpose of the Beatitudes. The presence of those who are honorable in our communities is of benefit to us. That requires us to rethink our charity to those we tend to see as needed our benefaction. It’s really the other way around.
Paul, in this passage from his letter to the Corinthians is saying much the same thing. We think that the presence of the wise and powerful in our communities gives us gravitas and heft. Instead, Paul says, not many of you were wise or powerful, and that is not at all the important thing here. We preach Christ crucified.
A recent study all over the news channels suggests that most gun violence is motivated by personal grievance. Someone believes they have been disrespected, someone fired or laid off from a job, or facing divorce or other humiliation, and a turn to firearms seems the way to assuage the hurt.
The Corinthians were claiming to be special: I speak in tongues; I have knowledge; I have wisdom; I prophecy; I have special powers. Paul suggests that none of that matters. From here to chapter 13, he builds a crescendo of argument that they should be living by different standards. We preach Christ crucified.
Atonement theory in Western Christianity (at least in its American incarnation) has tended to focus on the idea of penal substitution. Due to its sin, humanity owes God a penalty that it cannot pay, so Christ becomes human in order to pay that debt. I think such an atonement theory just plays into the epidemic of gun violence in our nation. God has been insulted, so someone must pay.
There is another way to look at the atonement. In its sin, humanity damaged itself and the cosmos, not God, and the result of that damage was a return to a state without God’s grace, in other words, to the nothingness from which it was created. God was unwilling that what God had created out of love should fall apart, and so entered it to restore it. God accepted the worst that human beings can do to one another and to the world into the divine self (this is Christ crucified) and transformed it through the resurrection, showing that human evil is not the last word. God chooses not to exact punishment, but to accept it and transform and heal the results of human sin.
So, when Paul says, “We preach Christ (or the Messiah) crucified,” he is suggesting that making any kind of claim of superiority is out of court. Extracting any punishment for harm done is in fact a symptom of sin. Does that mean we should let ourselves be walked over? No, but it also means that exacting revenge only deepens the wound. It is a wound that only God can heal, and the cure looks like the death and resurrection of Christ. Our only boast is a boast in the Lord.
The paschal mystery (the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ) shows us what the healing of the world looks like, and baptism and eucharist provide the means for us to participate in that mystery. Our life as the Body of Christ foreshadows the day when the wound will have been healed, and the cosmos taken back into the life of loving self-gift that is the Trinity. In the meantime, our need for revenge looks like Christ crucified.