SECOND SUNDAY BEFORE LENT
(Sexagesima Sunday)
Readings:
Key Verses (using the New Revised Standard Version):
2 Cor: 11:19: “For you gladly put up with fools, being wise yourselves! For you put up with it when someone makes slaves of you, or preys upon you, or takes advantage of you, or puts on airs, or gives you a slap in the face.”
Luke 8:15: “But as for that in the good soil, these are the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.”
Reflection
Paul’s relationship with the Church of Corinth was so volatile that he had to write to them (at least) twice! Yes, he also wrote the Thessalonians twice, but, at a mere eight chapters, those letters are just half of the 16 chapters he wrote to the Corinthians. Clearly, they had issues, and clearly there was much they needed to hear.
So what was all the fuss about? The root of the problem appears to have been their divisiveness, which then cascaded into a litany of behavior that, even to this day, seems shocking to us: a man’s adultery with his own stepmother, drunken celebrations of the Lord’s Supper, disorderly worship, the list goes on. Today’s excerpt from Second Corinthians throws us into the middle of yet another dispute: the arrival of some “false apostles”. Paul, most likely with sarcasm, calls them “super-apostles”, and for those who would follow them, Paul’s got a litany of his own.
In one of his angriest tirades, Paul presents us his curriculum vitae—his resume—the implication being that those qualities alone are enough to put him on par with other apostles. He’s giving in to emotion and anger, “speaking as a fool” as he puts it, but at this point he doesn’t care anymore. If they want a fool, he’ll give them a “madman” because now he’s going to prove that he’s “better” than they are! You can almost hear the cinematic swelling of an epic film score. And just what makes him better than the “super-apostles”? For the sake of the gospel, Paul has been imprisoned, flogged, beaten, and punished with stoning. He’s gone sleepless, hungry, thirsty, cold, and naked. His list of dangers deserves quoting at length:
“on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers…” (2 Cor. 11:26, NRSV)
I find these to be the most poignant and candid of all. For me, they paint a sad picture of a man who feels threatened and completely abandoned by everything imaginable—nature, civilization, humanity, even the trust of a friend. Does that sound to you like somebody else?
Evidently, the “super-apostles” experienced none of this hardship, or else Paul would be arguing in vain. So what did they do? We can glean from Paul’s writings that, as New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman writes, “their notion [was] that life in Christ was already an exalted, glorified existence…”1 So since we’re saved in Christ already, “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” This appealed to the Corinthians’ already famous reputation for social excesses, and Paul was quick to call them out on their smug superiority, their idea of “being wise”. Elsewhere in his correspondence, Paul writes, almost mockingly: “Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Quite apart from us you have become kings!”
The road to follow Jesus is an arduous path of selflessness, which ends only when you lose yourself, just as Jesus’ own walk ended at the cross. I think that’s why Paul got so angry. He knew the harsh truth, knew it firsthand, and when the Corinthians began to realize it for themselves, Paul didn’t want them to end up like the lost seeds of Jesus’ parable. He wanted them to hold the gospel “in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance.” We run the same risk today. And so, as we approach Lent, the Church’s solemn season of repentance, reflection, and renewal, we must ask ourselves: what modern super-apostles, and their “gospels”, have we fallen prey to? The “gospel” of prosperity? Of selfishness? Of hopelessness? What “gospels” have we become slaves to? The “gospel” of materialism? Of image? Of prejudice?
The promise of the gospel of Jesus, however, is that when we answer these questions truthfully to ourselves, we are one step closer to the kind of riches, which no “super-apostle” can give us.
1(The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, Bart Ehrman, p. 301)
Prayer of the Day
O Lord, we pray you, protect your people;
be ever near us with your heavenly grace
during the coming holy time of remembrance,
so that the help of your visible comforts
may promptly spur us on
toward invisible good things;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
—Collect for “Sexagesima Sunday” in the Gelasian Sacramentary, 5th century; translation by Joseph A. Soltero
O Lord God,
you see that we do not put our trust
in any thing that we do.
Mercifully grant that, by your power,
we may be defended against all adversity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
—Collect for the Second Sunday before Lent, Book of Common Prayer, 1662
Hymn: “Alleluia, song of gladness”
(Words: “Alleluia, dulce carmen”, Latin, unknown, 11th century; English translation by John M. Neale, 1851; adapted by Joseph A. Soltero, 2015
Tune: ‘Tantum Ergo’, Samuel Webbe, 1792)
Alleluia, song of gladness,
Voice of joy that cannot die;
Alleluia is the anthem
Ever dear to choirs on high;
In the house of God abiding,
Thus they sing as times go by.
Alleluia, you resound in
True Jerusalem and free;
Alleluia, joyful mother,
Sing your children cheerfully,
But by Babylon’s sad waters,
Mourning exiles now are we.
Alleluia, we deserve not
Here to chant for evermore;
Alleluia, our transgressions
Make us for a while give o’er,
For the holy time is coming,
Bidding us our sins deplore.
Therefore, in our hymns we pray you,
Grant us, blessèd Trinity,
At the last to keep your Easter
In our mansions heavenly,
There to you forever singing
Alleluia joyfully.
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