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The Catholic Telegraph
April 13, 2001The Lectionary provides two second readings for Easter Day, one from Colossians, the other from First Corinthians. The latter was the reading for Easter in the pre-Vatican II liturgy, and it is that one that is the subject of these reflections.
Chapter five is in the part of First Corinthians that deals with the disorders in the church of Corinth that had been brought to Paul’s attention "by Chloe’s people" (1.11). Among these sinful situations was that of a man who had married his stepmother. This constituted incest, a scandalous breach of morality, yet the Corinthians were tolerant of the arrangement, presumably out of a false broad-mindedness that they thought was consistent with the freedom offered by the gospel. Paul orders them to excommunicate the offender. This is where our reading begins.
Paul wonders whether the Corinthians are unaware of the danger their tolerance puts them in. After all, he says, "a little yeast leavens all the dough." This seems to have been a kind of proverb. Paul uses it in a similar context in Galatians (5.9). In order to understand the thrust of the proverb, we need to recall that, for the ancients, there was something impure, unclean, corrupt about yeast. Its mysterious action had a sinister element about it. That’s why, in times of special purification, pious Jews got rid of yeast and of dough that had undergone leavening by yeast. Paul is saying here that the misbehavior of the incestuous man is like yeast that could infect and corrupt the whole community if left unattended to.
He goes on to remind the Corinthians that they themselves are "unleavened," purified by their association with Christ. Consequently, they should clear out any of the old leaven that is still around, i.e., their pagan ways that are no longer appropriate.
The mention of unleavened dough calls the Passover to Paul’s mind. (Cleaning out the yeast was part of the Passover celebration.) He tells the Corinthians that they are in a Passover situation, a time of celebration that involved the sacrifice of Christ, imaged by the Passover lamb. Given the ongoing celebration of the new Passover brought about by Christ, they were to purify themselves by getting rid of the old leaven and live lives characterized by consistency with their real, true newness of life in Christ.
The Church gives us this reading on Easter not to remind us that inappropriate marriages within a family are wrong, but to teach us about some of the implications of being a Passover people, involved in the ongoing acceptance of and response to the self-gift of Christ. This self-gift was expressed by His sacrificial death. Its acceptance by the Father was expressed by Jesus’ resurrection. Our salvation consists in participating in this new Easter life of the Lord.
Paul calls us to Easter consistency, to a life that is in accord with what we have become in Christ who died for us and who rose from the dead.
This Easter consistency consists, first of all, in our personal and individual extension of the life of the risen Christ. Just as Christ was free from sin and so offered a perfect sacrifice, just as Christ was freed from corruption and so lives again forever, so we are called to lead lives of sinlessness and to reject anything that might lead us into spiritual decay.
But what Paul has to say is not just concerned with individual behavior. It also reminds us that the life of each of us has its effects in all the others. As the community of believers, we are, as it were, one mass of dough, all of us kneaded together into the one life of the risen Christ. Sinfulness and corruption on the part of any of us brings with it the danger of corrupting all the rest.
Easter is a complex feast. It marks the end of our lenten period of repentance and reform. It brings new members into the community of faith. It recalls for us the final outcome of the life and ministry of Jesus. It offers hope and reassurance to all who believe in Christ. But, at the same time, it also makes demands on us. It reminds us that the gifts we have received demand a fitting response from us. The risen Christ is the source of our Christian existence. But He is also the exemplar of Christian life, the model that we are to assimilate, the life and energy that we are to extend to others. True Christian life is a life that is consistent with the risen Christ Who is in us. It is a life that has implications for all the other women and men who live in Christ.
The basic behavioral lessons of Easter are twofold. One is that each of us who has been remade in Christ owes Him a Christian life. The other is that each of us owes the life of Christ to all the others. We each live in Christ ourselves. We all live in Christ together. Consequently, we must not be involved with anything that would bring corruption or sin to us or to those whose lives are involved with ours. "Clear out the old yeast."
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Conversation Questions
What needs to be cleared out of my life to make it more pure?
How does what I do affect others?
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