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| “Two Christians before the Judges“ by Niccolò Semitecolo, 1367 |
Reading 1: 1 Corinthians 6:1-11
Brothers and sisters:
How can any one of you with a case against another
dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment
instead of to the holy ones?
Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world?
If the world is to be judged by you,
are you unqualified for the lowest law courts?
Do you not know that we will judge angels?
Then why not everyday matters?
If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters,
do you seat as judges people of no standing in the Church?
I say this to shame you.
Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough
to be able to settle a case between brothers?
But rather brother goes to court against brother,
and that before unbelievers?
Now indeed then it is, in any case,
a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another.
Why not rather put up with injustice?
Why not rather let yourselves be cheated?
Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers.
Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the Kingdom of God
Do not be deceived;
neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers
nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor thieves
nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers
will inherit the Kingdom
of God
That is what some of you used to be;
but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified,
you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
and in the Spirit of our God.
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Commentary on 1 Cor 6:1-11
St. Paul encourages the Christian
community at Corinth to deal with litigious issues internally, rather than take
their cases to the pagan courts. He asks why there are cases brought between
members at all, proposing the same idea as Jesus in St. Matthew’s Sermon on the
Mount: "But I say to you, offer no resistance to one who is evil. When
someone strikes you on (your) right cheek, turn the other one to him as well.”
(Matthew 5:39-43).
This passage concludes with
a catalogue of sins that will result in a fall from grace (see also Romans 1:26-27; 1 Timothy 1:10).
"In this list of sins, similar to that given in the previous chapter
(cf. 1 Corinthians 5:10-11), St
Paul explicitly teaches that those who commit these sins will not inherit the
Kingdom, that is, will not attain eternal salvation. The whole list is a kind
of explanation of what "unrighteousness" means. Thus, not only those
go against righteousness who wrongly go to law or defraud others:
righteousness, justice, in the language of the Bible is equivalent to holiness
and therefore is opposed to every kind of sin."[4]
However, the apostle points out
that some of the members had been in just such a state before being washed
clean in Baptism.
CCC: 1 Cor 6:1 823; 1 Cor
6:9-10 1852, 2380; 1 Cor
6:10 2357, 2450; 1 Cor
6:11 693, 1227, 1452,
1695, 2813
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Responsorial
Psalm: Psalm 149:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a
and 9b
R. (see 4) The Lord takes delight in his people.
Sing to the Lord a new song
of praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel
let the children of Zion
R. The Lord
takes delight in his people.
Let them praise his name in the festive dance,
let them sing praise to him with timbrel and harp.
For the Lord loves his people,
and he adorns the lowly with victory.
R. The Lord
takes delight in his people.
Let the faithful exult in glory;
let them sing for joy upon their couches;
Let the high praises of God be in their throats.
This is the glory of all his faithful. Alleluia.
R. The Lord
takes delight in his people.
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Commentary on Ps 149:1b-2, 3-4, 5-6a and
9b
Psalm 149 is a communal song of praise. This passage rejoices in
God’s kingship, and invites the faithful to celebrate his saving works. We
rejoice because God brings victory to the lowly and hope to the oppressed.
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Gospel: Luke 6:12-19
Jesus
departed to the mountain to pray,
and
he spent the night in prayer to God.
When
day came, he called his disciples to himself,
and
from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles:
Simon,
whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew,
James,
John, Philip, Bartholomew,
Matthew,
Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus,
Simon
who was called a Zealot,
and
Judas the son of James,
and
Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
And
he came down with them and stood on a stretch of level ground.
A
great crowd of his disciples and a large number of the people
from
all Judea and Jerusalem
and
the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon
came
to hear him and to be healed of their diseases;
and
even those who were tormented by unclean spirits were cured.
Everyone
in the crowd sought to touch him
because
power came forth from him and healed them all.
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Commentary on Lk 6:12-19
This passage is the call of the
Twelve Apostles from St. Luke’s Gospel. It is noteworthy that Jesus began this
process with a prayer of discernment. He then names the twelve (including
Judas Iscariot who was replaced after his suicide). This important event
extends Jesus' mission through these chosen ones (selected from the ranks of
Jesus’ disciples: see Mark 3:14-15).
This selection marked them with special authority (Matthew 10:1ff), and
responsibility to transmit the Gospel to the world. The Lord is conscious of
establishing the “New Israel” by his selection of the “Twelve.” It is symbolic
of appointing new leaders of the 12 tribes of the Hebrew people, who are
rejecting him as Messiah.
In addition to giving the names
of this special group, we are told that, once the choice had been made, he
immediately went on with his teaching and healing ministry with renewed vigor.
All “wished to touch him” because of his power to heal mind and body.
These concluding verses are a prelude to St. Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain.”
CCC: Lk 6:12-16 1577; Lk 6:12 2600; Lk 6:19 695, 1116, 1504
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Homily:
St. Paul continues to put
flesh on his vision of the living Body of Christ, which is the Church. Today he tells the Corinthians something in a
subtle way that the Lord said more dramatically. It comes down to the great paradox of
discipleship, “Be in the world but separate from the world.” In this case, St. Paul is telling the
community at Corinth that they need to settle disputes that occur in the
community themselves, and not refer their complaints to the civil courts.
We can actually feel a little
sorry for the Corinthian Christians.
They must have been good people, or why would they have signed up for
the difficult road that is Christianity in the first place? They did not have an active community model
to be a part of, so they had to find their own way based upon what Paul left
with them after he proclaimed his Gospel to them. They live in a secular community that has a
reputation of being very unsavory. Paul
even says that some of them have past lives that are less than moral icons:
Do not be deceived; neither
fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor boy prostitutes nor sodomites nor
thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit
the Kingdom of God
Imagine trying to pull
together a “God fearing” Christian community amid a secular community where the
debauched and amoral sins in the above litany are present? Wait a second. All those things are fairly rampant in our
secular community today. Yes, we can definitely
identify with those ancient forerunners of our modern Church. The big
difference is supposed to be that we have a codified body of teaching and
examples that guide us.
It seems that we will always
find ourselves forced to be somewhat counter-cultural. Christ’s teachings will never be popular with
individuals who put their own interests in front of all else. Our model in dealing with this situation must
be the Savior himself. He shows us that
our constant attention must be on prayer and discernment, a delicate balancing
act. How are we to know when to judge
and not to? How are we to love a person
who cannot change and repeatedly causes us or those we love pain?
Our prayer today is one of
discernment. As Christ prayed before
calling the apostles to their great task, and as St. Paul prayed for those to
whom he ministered, so we ask for God’s guidance, that we too might experience
the peace that comes from placing things in the hands of the only one who can
choose the right path for us.
Pax
[1]
The picture used today is “Two Christians before the Judges“ by Niccolò
Semitecolo, 1367
[3]
The readings are taken from the New American Bible with the exception of the
Psalm and its response which were developed by the International Committee for
English in Liturgy (ICEL). This
re-publication is not authorized by USCCB and is for private use only.
[4]
Letters of St. Paul , The Navarre Bible, Four Courts Press, 2003, pp. 219
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