Wednesday of Week 24 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 1 Corinthians 12:31—13:13

In today’s First Reading, we have likely one of the most quoted passages from Paul—if not from the whole Bible. We have seen Paul speaking to the Corinthian Christians about the various gifts of the Spirit with which different people are endowed so that they can better serve the needs of the community in many different ways. He had been criticising them for laying too much emphasis on and even desiring to have the more prestigious gifts. Using the analogy of the human body he had said that the overall unity of the community was more important than any one gift, just as the unity of the body depended on its having a full complement of limbs and organs for it to function properly.

However, today he goes further and says that, above and beyond any gifts or ‘charisms’, there is “a still more excellent way”. That way is the over-riding element of love. Love is not on the same level as the other gifts. Rather, it is one of the most evident signs of the presence of the Spirit of Christ in the community and its members.

‘Love’ here, as in many parts of the New Testament, translates the Greek word agape, a word with a very specific meaning. The word ‘love’ can mean many things and CS Lewis has written a book called The Four Loves, each one of which can be found in the Scriptures. Let us just briefly focus on three of these: eros, philia and agape.

Eros describes physical, sensual love, the love of lovers sharing physical intimacies with each other. At its best, it is a genuine and very beautiful form of love which involves the total giving of two people to each through their bodies. Paul is not talking about this.

Philia is really the highest form of love. It is the love of friendship, where friendship implies a total mutuality and sharing between two people in a mutual self-giving to each other. It is the love of lovers at its best, the love of the happily married couple, and of friends who are deeply committed to each other. Sex may or may not be part of it. It implies an enduring relationship which may not be present in an eros situation. Again, Paul is not talking about this type of love in today’s reading.

Agape is reaching out to another person with a deep desire for that person’s total well-being and wholeness. It is the love of compassion and caring. It differs from philia in that it does not expect a return (though that may be given); it is a totally unconditional form of loving. It is the love that God extends to all creatures whether they return that love or not. In the First Letter of John we are told that God IS (agape) love (1 John 4:8). It is a constituent of his very being. Agape is a form of love which desires the good of the other quite independently of that person’s ‘lovable-ness’. It is the love that God extends equally to every single person, irrespective of who they are or how they respond. So it is a love that can be extended even to enemies, criminals and those who want to destroy us. It is the love that Jesus showed for those who who nailed him to the cross. It is the love that Paul is speaking about here. It is a love which desires the good of the other, and hence is then especially offered to those who lack it most.

Parenthetically, it is important to also add that a person cannot survive only on agape, the giving form of love. No one can remain permanently in a totally altruistic mode. At bottom whatever we do must ultimately be for our own good and well-being. What we really need for our wholeness is a true philia relationship. It is interesting how Jesus asked Peter the three questions after the resurrection. Each one is translated:

Simon son of John, do you love me? (John 21:15-17)

But in these verses, Jesus used the verbs for both agape and philia. As well, it may not be possible to show a great deal of agape unless we have a philia experience as part of our lives. We can live without eros, but when joined with philia, eros adds what we might call an incarnated dimension to our lives, although eros is also the form of love most abused.

Paul speaks of the supremacy of agape over everything else we do or achieve. If our actions are not motivated by an agape love, then they are of no real value as far as our Christian life is concerned. Using hyperbolic language, Paul gives four exaggerated examples of some of the gifts to be found in the community:

• eloquence, even to the point of being able to speak not only every earthly language, but the language of angels;
• prophecy (in the sense we described it yesterday), the ability to understand all mysteries and “knowing everything” that can be known;
• faith, strong enough to move mountains (as Jesus said true faith could do);
• generosity, which would give away everything one has, even to offering one’s body in martyrdom.

To have any of these gifts in the highest degree could make one a prominent and highly respected person in the community. But if, at bottom, these things are not motivated by genuine agape, they are rated as nothing.

Speaking both positively and negatively, Paul now lists some of the qualities of this kind of agape-love:

• It is patient and kind. (These virtues were apparently not very conspicuous in the Corinthian community.)
• It is never jealous. (Jealousy seems to be present in those Corinthians who were more ambitious for certain charisms than satisfied with what they had.)
• It is never boastful or conceited. (Paul accuses the Corinthians of a certain arrogance which their overall moral behaviour in no way justifies.)
• It is never rude or selfish. (Paul mentions the divisive factions and also the selfish behaviour of some when celebrating the Lord’s Supper.)
• It does not take offence and is not resentful. (True agape is totally focused on the needs of the other and is not upset by hostility or rejection. Such inner resentment is a sign of an insecurity in oneself. People who love with true agape-love cannot be offended because they are people who totally accept themselves as they are.)
• It takes no pleasure in other’s sins, but delights in the truth. (The reaction to the weaknesses of others is neither delight nor judgement, but rather compassion. True love also is never afraid of the truth, but always wants to see it come to the surface. At the same time, the truly loving person will always speak the truth in love, being sensitive to the weaknesses of those for whom the truth can be very painful. One can speak the truth in a very unloving way.)
• It is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. (True love always wants to find the good in everyone. It is biased towards believing that people act in good faith. In spite of outward circumstances, it never loses the certain hope that the truth and the good must ultimately prevail. It is ready in the worst of times to hang in there and to believe in the ultimate goodness of people.)

Love alone, says Paul, outlasts everything else because love is part of God’s very nature; God is love. Loving is not just something God practises—it is a part of his very essence.

On the other hand, many of the church’s most highly prized gifts will eventually pass away. Paul mentions prophecy—there will come a time when it is no longer needed. The gift of speaking languages will not be part of the life to come. Knowledge, however wide, will eventually be shown to be inadequate when we come face to face with the Infinite Source of all knowledge and wisdom:

…when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.

‘Complete’ is one translation of the Greek word pleroma, which means ‘fulfilment’, ‘perfection’, ‘maturity’. That ‘completeness’ will be realised when Christ comes at the end to bring all creation to himself to share in his glory.

Right now, says Paul, we are like children, talking like children, acting and arguing like children. We think we are adults, but it is not really the case. We are like a man looking at his reflection in one of those polished metal mirrors of those days. The image can be seen, but is somewhat blurred. But then, when the Lord comes, we will have the extraordinary experience of seeing God clearly face to face. Though now:

I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.

That is, I will know the Lord to the fullest extent possible for a human creature, analogous to the unlimited way in which God knows me.

And so, Paul sums up by saying that in the end only three things will perdure: faith, hope and agape-love. We will not need faith when we are face to face with our infinite Creator. We will not need hope because every possible desire of our being will be fulfilled forever. But agape will remain. Face to face with God, we will be eternally bathed in that agape which pours from him and fills us with the happiness for which we were created.

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Tuesday of Week 24 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on 1 Corinthians 12:12-14,27-31

In today’s reading, Paul moves on to another issue in the Corinthian community—the question of ‘spiritual gifts’ or ‘charisms’ (Greek, charismata). Here too there were disputes among community members.

The gifts under discussion were granted to certain members of the community and were the signs by which the Spirit helped the community to function. We need to remember that the organisation of the communities at this stage was not very developed. The later hierarchical ministries we know now were still in the process of evolution. This led to a certain amount of confusion in the community, and was the cause of some of the factional disagreements which were occurring. Some of the gifts were even disruptive, being rather eccentric in form. Clearly, there had to be a discernment between which gifts were beneficial and which were not.

In this part of his letter Paul makes five points:

1. All the gifts come from the Spirit, who is working in the community;
2. All the gifts, though given to individuals, are for the good of the whole community;
3. The importance of each gift is to be measured by its benefit to the community;
4. The gift of ‘prophecy’ is far more important than being able to ‘speak in tongues’, a gift about which the Corinthians apparently thought very highly.
5. Love (agape) transcends and is present in all the genuine gifts and is in a class by itself. This is dealt with in the famous ‘Hymn to Love’ (1 Cor 13:1-13) which we will be reading tomorrow.

To illustrate what he wants to say, Paul uses the analogy of the human body. Although it is made of many different parts, each with its own functions, it is basically a single coordinated unit. So it is with Christ, says Paul. By ‘Christ’ here he means the Risen Christ, which includes his new Body, the Church and each local church community. For Paul, Christians are bodily united with the Risen Body through their Baptism and the common celebration of the Eucharist. The community becomes, in effect, the Risen Body of Christ—of which he is the Head. Hence, the importance of its unity and mutual complementarity is obvious.

The source of unity is the Spirit of Christ in which all, both Jews and Greeks, citizens and slaves, were baptised and given that Spirit. In the community, there can be no ethnic or social discrimination where the giving of the Spirit is concerned:

…we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

Paul now emphasises that a body is not to be identified with any one of its parts. This is what was happening in the Corinthian community, where groups were giving excessive importance to the charism of one or other of their leaders, or to the gifts which some individuals were experiencing.

Continuing his analogy, he tells them that they, in their community, are the Body of Christ, but like a body, each one has a different role to play. He singles out three particular charisms as being of prime importance.

First of all, come the Apostles. They are those who were specially and personally chosen by Jesus during his time among us to carry on his work of proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom. They were also to be witnesses of the resurrection. They are the founder members, the ‘pillars’ of the Church and the unique bearers of the tradition which Jesus handed on.

Next to them in importance come the prophets. The special role of the prophet is not to foretell the future. The prophet was any person through whom God wishes to communicate a message to a particular community. It might be an encouragement; it might be a warning. The prophet, unlike the apostle, is a ‘non-institutional’ figure and can appear at any time. Clearly, careful discernment is needed to distinguish the true from the false prophets. Because the message they give may be unpleasant to hear or may challenge the status quo, prophets may not be welcome and may even face efforts made to get rid of them. At the same time, we ignore the message of the true prophet at our peril, and at all times we need prophets to wake us out of our complacency.

Thirdly, there are the teachers, those whose gift was to form the community and to hand on the content and meaning of the tradition received from Jesus. Again, they make an indispensable contribution to the life and growth of the community.

After these come charisms of less crucial importance, although they can greatly enrich the life of the community.

Some members had the gift of performing miracles, namely, actions which could not be explained by natural means. Their main function was to reveal the power of God working in the community and to be spurs to a deeper faith (as such, it does not really matter that at a later age, there might be a natural explanation for what happened).

The gift of healing was given to some, and again was the means by which the Lord brought wholeness back into people’s lives.

‘Helpers’ are those who make charitable contributions or support the community in some other way; ‘leaders’ are those who do the administrative work and provide guidance on a practical level.

Lastly, there are those who “speak in tongues”. It is not clear whether this means an actual ability to speak in different languages and dialects (quite useful in cosmopolitan Corinth) or whether it refers to making ecstatic utterances, i.e. the ‘gift of tongues’, under the impulse of the Spirit (and which needed interpretation by those gifted to understand their meaning).

These gifts are all spread among the community and not given to all, or even to many. Not all can claim to be apostles, or prophets, or miracle-doers, or healers. That would result in a very lop-sided body. So, the gifts are many, but the community is one.

It is also important to realise that this list is not meant to be exhaustive. There are hundreds of possible charisms, and surely every single member in the community has a gift by which a positive contribution can be made to the life of the community. Everyone, in however small a way, can and should make a difference by their presence.

And, if we are to desire any gifts, let us seek those which are of greater benefit to the community, and not just those which are more spectacular (like speaking in tongues) or seem to give higher status in the eyes of others. However, in conclusion, Paul says that behind all these gifts lies something much more important; it is “a still more excellent way”. We will see what that is tomorrow.

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