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Letters Thirteenth Sunday
in Ordinary Time |
The Catholic Telegraph
June 30, 2000For the moment, Paul has finished his treatment of the tensions between him and the Corinthians and his reflections on the nature of his ministry. Now he turns his attention to another matter, to something very dear to his heart: the collection for the Christians of Jerusalem.
Early on in his apostolic career Paul had been chosen to bring financial assistance from Antioch to Jerusalem at a time of famine (cf. Acts 11.27-30). Later, when the problems connected with Paul’s mission to the Gentiles had been discussed and dealt with, Paul had been encouraged to make responding to the material needs of the Christians of Jerusalem one of the elements of his ministry (cf. Acts 15.1-29 and Gal. 2.1-10). It was a mission that he undertook with earnestness and enthusiasm. He speaks of it in both letters to the Corinthians as well as in Galatians and Romans.
The young Church in Jerusalem was no doubt experiencing hard times because of the suspicion, rejection, and even persecution that it was suffering from official Judaism. Financial help would be welcome. At the same time, however, there were other reasons for generosity. It would serve as a sign of the oneness of the Church. Though Gentiles Christians and Jewish Christians were separate in general culture and in their manner of Christian religious observance, they were nonetheless one in Christ. Moreover, Paul’s dedication to dealing with the needs of the Christians of Jerusalem could also serve as a sign of his personal respect for Jewish Christianity and might even diminish the hostility of those who were suspicious of his ministry and who seem to have been very interested in making Paul’s converts suspicious of him, too. (We have seen evidence of the activities of such persons in our readings from Second Corinthians.)
In chapters eight and nine of our letter, Paul specifically addresses the collection. Our Sunday reading is from chapter 8. Chapter 9 may originally have been a separate note, written later than chapter 8 but appended to it when the various parts of Second Corinthians were brought together.
This Sunday reading has been edited to remove the specific details of the collection and the Corinthians’ response to it while leaving the basic rationale for Christian generosity that Paul offers them - and us. The text offers three reasons for being generous.
First of all, the Corinthians had received many spiritual gifts as part of their conversion to Christianity. (Paul had dealt with some of the implications of these in chapters 12 to 14 of First Corinthians.) The exercise of generosity toward those in need would seem to be in keeping with the other gifts.
Next, the generosity of Christ, who gave up the richness of His being God for the sake of becoming poor for our salvation and our spiritual enrichment should elicit gratitude and generosity from us in return.
Finally, Paul tells the Corinthians that he is not asking them to impoverish themselves for the sake of the Christians of Jerusalem. It’s rather a matter of evening things up. Just as the Jewish Christians shared their spiritual riches with the Gentiles, so the Gentile Christians should be willing to share material abundance with the Jewish Christians. The result will be a kind of ecclesial balancing out. Paul cites God’s directions to the Jews in connection with the manna in the desert: everybody ought to end up with more or less the same.
This Sunday’s reading teaches us several lessons. One is that fund raising has been part of the Church’s life from the very beginning. Another is that, while the specific pragmatic purpose for which the funds are raised is important, there are generally additional dimensions to the effort that may be equally significant. Third, Paul’s appeal to the Corinthians suggests that giving itself has many dimensions. In this reading we hear him telling his converts that generosity ought to be a consequence of the other spiritual blessings they have received, that generosity makes them like Christ, that generosity is not a matter of depriving themselves of what they need but of engaging in the healthy give and take that is part of life in the Church catholic.
The basic truth is that our need to give is more urgent than the causes for which we give. Obviously our parish needs the support of its members. The missions need our help. The Holy Father depends on our annual contribution to the Peter’s Pence collection. But we have a need, too, and our need is to be part of our parish, part of the Church’s mission effort, part of the Pope’s concerns. We respond to that need in many ways, one of the most prominent of which is our financial giving.
Sometimes people say that their priest never talks about anything but money. I’m not sure that’s ever really so, but even if it is, it may well be that when the priest talks about money, he’s really talking about something a lot more spiritual, a lot more significant.
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Conversation Questions
Does my generosity depend on what the Church needs or on my need to be generous?
What to I get out of my giving?
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