A Reflection for the Thursday of the Twenty-first Week in Atypical Time
“I give due to my God all the time in your account
for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus,
that in him you were enriched in every way,
with all discourse and all knowledge,
because the testimony to Christ was confirmed amongst you,
so that you just aren’t lacking in any spiritual gift
as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 1:4-7)
Most of us have had a friend in a relationship where our first thought is: What does she see in him? We are able to’t see past the bad haircut or corny humorousness, but she is completely head over heels for this guy.
That’s type of how I feel reading the introduction of St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. He has such confidence in these brothers and sisters of his. “I give due to my God all the time in your account,” he writes. They’ve been enriched “with all discourse and all knowledge” and “ aren’t lacking in any spiritual gift.” Aren’t these the identical people Paul has learned are continually fighting to be first, engaging in religious “prostitution,” sacrificing at temples, failing to look after the poor and carrying out all manner of liturgical abuse? After his glowing greeting, chapter after chapter catalogs the issues of the community.
So that you may be tempted to ask, what exactly does he see in them?
Paul sees through eyes of affection. Not the style of love that ignores flaws, but one which knows that individuals aren’t defined by their flaws any greater than your friend’s boyfriend is defined by his haircut.
I feel that’s the mistaken query. Few of us would need to be judged solely on the “what” of our lives (much less have it written out in excruciatingly honest detail in a letter). It’s more necessary how Paul sees the Corinthians, and that’s what we learn from his introduction. He sees through eyes of affection. Not the style of love that ignores flaws, but one which knows that individuals aren’t defined by their flaws any greater than your friend’s boyfriend is defined by his haircut.
And that how is just possible due to who has enriched and transformed each Paul and his interlocutors—Jesus Christ. It’s due to “grace of God bestowed” by Jesus that Paul is in a position to deeply love the imperfect people of Corinth, and it’s because they’ve received that very same grace that he’s so confident about that they can be found “irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
That is how we’re called to see others, to see ourselves, to see our world. It is simple to list the issues of all these items. And as in the remaining of Paul’s letter, sometimes those flaws must be called out. But his introduction shows us easy methods to see others and ourselves: with confidence that, as Paul says, “God is faithful” and that those he has created are ultimately good and worthy of our love.
