Lectionary Commentaries for June 23, 2024
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Unlike Matthew (8:23–27) and Luke (8:22–25), Mark 4:35–41 clocks this episode at evening (verse 35), when a lake’s crossing would have been more hazardous. That some disciples took Jesus with them in a boat “just as he was” (verse 36b New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition) may suggest that no special precaution was taken for a journey fraught with peril.

Only Mark refers to “other boats … with him” (4:36c), but that escort fades away. Attention is riveted on the ship carrying Jesus. Even today, sudden squalls on the freshwater Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) can be terrifying. Mark depicts “a mighty blast of wind, and waves cascading into the boat, such that already the boat was filling” (verse 37, my translation). 

Tightening the narrative focus, Mark leads us into the ship’s stern to Jesus, “asleep on the cushion” (verse 38 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition). Throughout the Bible the sea is associated with chaos that only the Lord can master (Psalms 74:13–14; 89:8–9; 104:4–9; Jonah 1:4–16). Sleep is a typical posture of trust in God (Job 11:18–19; Psalms 3:5; 4:8). By contrast, the disciples’ strident appeal to Jesus—“Teacher, don’t you care that we are dying?” (Mark 4:38b, my translation)—recalls the wording in several psalms (35:23; 44:23–24; 59:4b). The correspondences with Psalm 107:23–30 are so striking that Mark 4:35–41 seems to be its christological reinterpretation.

Mark’s modifications of that scriptural template are noteworthy. Two harsh verbs express the sea’s stilling (4:39a). The first, “Be quiet!” (siōpa), was used to dramatize Jesus’ silencing of antagonists (3:4b); later, one of his questions will shush the Twelve (9:34). The second, “Shut up!” (pephimōso), is the same verb Jesus used to muzzle an unclean spirit (1:25). So also 4:39b: Jesus conquers diabolical forces that threaten human life.

Jesus’ riposte to his disciples is no less gruff: “Why are you such cowards [deiloi]? Do you still have no faith?” (4:40, my translation). Matthew (8:25–26) and Luke (8:24a, 25a) soften both the disciples’ cry to Jesus and his rejoinder. 

Mark uses this occasion to point up a lack of trust, or faith (pistis), among Jesus’ followers. To this point in the Gospel, he has called upon his listeners to entrust (pisteuete) themselves to the good news of the kingdom’s encroachment (1:15) and, in acknowledgment of some companions’ faith, has released a paralytic from his sins (2:5). Faith, or trust, and its lack (apistian) recur at critical points in Mark (5:34, 36; 6:6a; 9:24; 10:52; 11:22). As in 4:40, so also in 5:15, 33, and 36: pistis is contrasted with phobos (fear)—not the “fear of the LORD” that is the beginning of wisdom (Psalm 111:10; Proverbs 4:7; 9:10), but dismay that degenerates into wimpishness.

In Psalm 107:30 the sailors for whom the Lord calms a tempest respond with gladness for their deliverance. By contrast, this group of seamen (Mark 4:41) “feared a great fear” (a literal translation), the awe with which mortals react to divine manifestations (Exodus 3:1–6; Isaiah 6:1–5; Jonah 1:10, 16; Luke 2:9). They ask one another who this Jesus is. At this pericope’s conclusion their question dangles, like that of the scribes about Jesus’ authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:7). 

Anyone familiar with Scripture knows that only divine power can quell chaotic waters (Genesis 1:2, 6–9; Job 38:8–11; Psalms 65:5–8; 93:3–4; Isaiah 51:10; Jeremiah 5:22). Doubtless, Mark would concur. His manifest interest is to leave the reader with the disciples at sea, wondering just who Jesus really is.

In Mark 4:35–6:6a faith acquires finer definition and deeper coloration. Trust is a human response to calamity. Occasions for faith in 4:35–41 and the stories that follow in 5:1–6:6a depict hopeless situations: peril at sea, possession by a demonic legion, chronic and incurable illness, sickness tipping over into death. The one episode in which Jesus’ restorative power is compromised is in his home synagogue, where people are beset by skepticism and offense (6:2–3).

Unlike those described in John’s Gospel (2:11; 4:46–54), Jesus’ mighty works in Mark do not stimulate faith. The sequence flows in reverse: first comes faith, fostering conditions in which God’s power to restore, executed by Jesus, can be realized (Mark 5:23, 34a). Even in 4:35–41, faith is at work to quell a deadly tempest: not faith among the disciples (4:40), but the trust of Jesus himself, peacefully asleep (4:38). Jesus’ mighty works are noteworthy, not merely for their happy endings, but for what they disclose about observers’ faith.

In Mark, pistis and apistia are not static. Faith waxes and wanes. It is neither a block of unassailable belief nor an arrow released irrevocably toward its target. Faith is an oscillating fan: veering from one extreme to another, caught for a time by weak mortals before slipping from their grasp, in need of Jesus’ reassurance. Because faith depends more on human volition than on cognition, its opposite in Mark 4:35–6:6a is not atheism, but cowardice (4:40) or fear (5:15, 33, 36): a lack of conviction in, or repudiation of, Jesus’ ability to wield God’s healing potency. Ultimately, in spite even of death (5:39; 11:21–22; 16:1–8), that power is unvanquished.

We live in frightening times. Pastors and congregants all: we’re right there with Jesus’ disciples in a boat being swamped, terrified that God has gone AWOL and Jesus doesn’t care. I encourage my students to expose our society’s fearmongers, driven by an obscene lust for power, to remind the church that Jesus—and no one else—is Lord, and that God remains dedicated to our welfare. This Sunday you can do the same. Ask the questions: Who then is this? Do you trust him?

He lay with quiet heart in the stern asleep;
Waking, commanded both the winds and sea.
Christ, though this weary body slumber deep,
Grant that my heart may keep its watch with thee.
O Lamb of God that carried all our sin,
Guard thou my sleep against the enemy.

—Alcuin of York (735–804) 

The season after Pentecost—an extended season of ordinary time—feels like Groundhog Day in the pulpit and pew. But this season invites Christians to dwell, notice, and articulate God’s movement in the ordinariness of life.

Because, for some of us, Job’s story resonates with what is ordinary in our lives.

This week, the first reading is Job 38:1–11. If you are choosing this pericope rather than the crowd-pleaser from 1 Samuel, give yourself a pat on the back. Perhaps you and your congregation are hungry for a message that provides a reflection on our limited view of the cosmos Yahweh created rather than a tidy victory story about David and Goliath.

When suffering interrupts ordinary time

This pericope marks a turning point in Job’s drama. For 37 chapters, humans have been debating the cause of the sudden decimation of Job’s relationships: the death of his entire family, his livelihood, and his reputation. For 37 chapters, Yahweh has been silent. All that is about to change in chapter 38, known as “The Theophany: Yahweh’s First Discourse.”¹

The lectionary has not provided any scaffolding for Job. Rather, we dip our toe into a complex and mystifying book for just this one week (my hunch is to connect the wind and waves that Jesus stills in Mark 4 to Yahweh, who speaks to Job from the storm—theophany is often connected to meteorological events). To move forward, you may need to go back in your sermon preparation.

First, ask what question from Job the Lord is answering (38:1).

You will need to go way back in the book of Job to pick up his voice. Since chapter 32, Elihu—whose name means “He is my God” or “He remains my God and does not change”—gives a counter-response to the weak theological responses of Job’s friends (Zophar, Eliphaz, and Bildad) to Job’s undeserved suffering. As the drama of Job unfolds, Elihu first reframes Job’s question—Why is Yahweh punishing me when I have been a holy man?—by challenging Job to see the suffering not as punishment from God but as helpful discipline, then hints at an intermediary who will restore Job to Yahweh. Then, Elihu poetically articulates Yahweh’s omnipotence and justice.

Not really a surprising response when a guy’s name implies a steadfast commitment to and trust in Yahweh’s plan. Elihu: “He remains my God and does not change.” Names often provide clues to the character of people in the drama of Scripture.

For six chapters, Elihu has had the floor. Now it is Yahweh’s turn to speak to Job.

What does Yahweh say to this helpless man who has lost everything? Like Elihu said, will Yahweh claim that suffering is for the greater good? Will Yahweh, like Job’s three friends, call out secret sins that did indeed lead to Job’s punishment? Or will Yahweh draw back the camera lens to the cosmic level, reinforcing Yahweh’s mystery and our inability to know Yahweh’s ways?

Yahweh pulls back the camera lens, far away from the immediate pain of Job’s circumstances that gave birth to his question, his cry, of “Why?” and does not offer an answer. Rather, Yahweh “assails Job with questions he cannot answer.”²

An invitation to a counter-testimony

In this ordinary-time sermon, where might the preacher focus the message? Will they sound like Elihu, defending God’s omnipotence no matter the circumstance of the one suffering? Will they amplify God’s perspective in the ordinary drama of human life and proclaim the Creator as one set apart with bigger fish to fry than Job’s questions?

Or will the preacher consider adding another voice to the drama of Job, in their sacred imagination? Will they answer Job, answer others in their orbit who suffer, with an alternative perspective on theodicy, suffering, sin, and healing?

Preachers may want to explore Dr. Kimberly Wagner’s Fractured Ground: Preaching in the Wake of Mass Trauma (2023). In this unfortunately necessary text, Wagner offers two preaching forms that resist the narrative tidying that brushes over the pain(s) communities face when suffering interrupts ordinary time. This may be a week not to defend God’s power, but to acknowledge narrative fracture—I thought God was good to those who follow God, so why has this happened? Perhaps this is an invitation to lament with Job, and with the children of Job in 2024, who await the healing of their bodies and souls.

In the midst of ordinary time and in the season after Pentecost, it might be tempting to only focus on God’s self-disclosure in this text; it might be tempting to preach about stars and the cosmos, to ponder images from NASA that make us stand slack-jawed at the awesomeness of God.

But when taken in context, there is a different sort of slack-jawed awe taking place in the drama of Job—sudden loss.

When sudden suffering interrupts ordinary time, how will we as clergy testify to God’s goodness?

Notes

1. Marvin H. Pope, “The Theophany: Yahweh’s First Discourse (38:1–41),” in Job: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (New Haven: The Anchor Yale Bible, 1975), 288–303, http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9780300262063.0007.CH037, accessed April 11, 2024.
2. Ibid.

After the narrative of killing Goliath, David grows in military skill and notoriety; King Saul feels threatened. The palace intrigues begin!

Textual horizons

There is a red thread through the books of 1–2 Samuel and 1–2 Kings. It is the theological framework of the author(s), called the Deuteronomist, because the theology is based upon the book of Deuteronomy. Writing from the Babylonian exile (587/586 to 539 BCE), the author argues that the reason for being in exile—preceded by the destruction of Israel (722/721 BCE), then Judah and Jerusalem (587/586 BCE)—is due to the failure of God’s people to be faithful to the covenant with YHWH.¹

The broader narratives reinforce the core of faithfulness by highlighting that disobedience has consequences, while obedience sustains covenant blessings. This theme is laid out from the beginning in Hannah’s song, where the reversal-of-fortune motif illustrates that the humble faithful are raised up, while the arrogant disobedient are brought low.²

If read reductionistically—not holding the tensions with books like Job, the lament Psalms, and even Jesus’ life in the Gospel accounts—this “Deuteronomistic History” can be fuel for the prosperity gospel. However, the central theological concern is faithfulness to YHWH regardless of outcomes.

Enter King Saul with the beginning of the palace intrigues, resulting from Saul feeling threatened by David’s ever-increasing notoriety following the narrative of the killing of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:10–58).

In the reversal-of-fortune motif, Saul’s power is diminishing, while David’s military skill is growing, as is his reputation among the people. While a close reading of the full narrative may unsettle 21^st-century American sensibilities,³ the tiny nation of ancient Israel, geographically located between superpowers, would find consolation in knowing they had a war hero who was known for slaying giants and personally killing tens of thousands of the enemy’s warriors. Remember, this story was compiled and edited when the people of God were in exile and had no army. The military glory of the past was connected with God as the “mighty warrior” (or YHWH Sabaoth,⁴ see 1 Samuel 4:4), who was with them. This would have been of great comfort for those in Babylonian captivity.

Because YHWH was with David (1 Samuel 18:14)—in contrast to an evil spirit that came forcefully upon Saul (verse 10)—these aspects support the narrative of God’s choice of David to supplant the disobedient ruler and attempted murderer⁵—Saul.

Homiletic horizons

A key text in this pericope is: “David had success in all his undertakings; for the LORD was with him” (1 Samuel 18:14). Here, we see the Deuteronomist’s theological concern of faithfulness to YHWH, evidenced in the blessings that are manifested through obedience to the covenant.

The meaning of success, also defined as “to prosper,”⁶ in the broader biblical context is a holistic well-being grounded in shalom, a peace that is obvious when the enemies are vanquished. However, this peace goes beyond the absence of war. Shalom is centered in a right relationship with YHWH that is lived out in blessing all the people groups of the world and being gardeners who serve creation—that is, peace with others and with nonhuman creation. Thus, prospering is directly related to YHWH’s blessings poured out on those who are faithful to the covenant.

In contrast, Saul is “afraid” (1 Samuel 18:12), clearly lacking the peace that comes from being with God. Many pray to God for peace but without realizing that a deeper peace can only come from being with God—in relationship with God.

While a flattened understanding of the Deuteronomistic History can foster prosperity gospel perspectives, thoughtful analysis and good teaching can mitigate this reductionism. First, hold these texts in tension with the whole of Scripture. Then, we understand that living as reconciled to Christ in faithful obedience means loving God and loving others in ways that place comfort and “success” (as defined by the world) as subservient to the calling to be a priesthood of all believers and servants of all.

In a biblical understanding, success is not how much money you have in your bank account (or for David, how many people he killed), et cetera. Instead, success comes from increasingly trusting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and leaving the outcomes to God. Blessedly, we have the Holy Spirit, who empowers us to walk by faith and who gives a deeper peace beyond circumstances—even when we do not fit the world’s definition of success.

Finally, this text shows us that God is at work, even when the dominant power is selfish, manipulative, and dangerous.

Notes

1. Sandra L. Richter, “Deuteronomistic History,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books, ed. Bill T. Arnold and H. G. M. Williamson (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2005), 219–30.
2. Mark Throntveit, “Enter the Bible – Books: 1 Samuel,” n.d., accessed February 1, 2020, http://www.enterthebible.org/oldtestament.aspx?rid=29.
3. Perhaps that is why the chant about killing tens of thousands is cut from the lectionary reading!
4. C. L. Seow, “Hosts, Lord of,” The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 306. “From the start, the epithet YHWH Sebaʾot is understood in military terms—at least in part.” See also L. Daniel Hawk, “Joshua, Book of,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Historical Books (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2005), 568.
5. This limited discussion is not adequate to deal with the text’s reference to the evil spirit rushing (“coming in power” in the Hebrew) upon Saul, which then prompts Saul twice to try to spear David. One of many cogent approaches is to recognize that the ancient authors had such a deep respect for the sovereignty of God that all actions must be connected to this God.
6. Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs, Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), 968.

Psalm 107 begins the same way that Psalm 106 begins, but Psalm 106 concludes Book IV, and Psalm 107 begins Book V. Despite this division, the two psalms are related since 107:1–3 responds directly to the plea of 106:47, “Gather us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to your holy name.” The people have been “gathered in from the lands” (107:3), and as a thanksgiving psalm, Psalm 107 expresses the thanks that is anticipated from the people. As Robert Alter concludes, “The language suggests some sort of return from exile, and this psalm could conceivably have been recited at a public ceremony of thanksgiving during the return to Zion in the sixth century BCE.”¹

A poetic sermon on hesed

Psalm 107 is a thanksgiving psalm, a carefully constructed poem beginning with an introduction (verses 1–3) and continuing with four scenarios (verses 4–9, 10–16, 17–22, 23–32) that illustrate the goodness and hesed (“steadfast love”) that are mentioned in verse 1. Each of the four scenarios contains two refrains. In the first, the needy cry out and their deliverance is recounted (verses 6, 13, 19, 28); in the second, those delivered are invited to thank God for their deliverance and for the hesed that moves God to act (verses 8, 15, 21, 31).

The poem concludes with a section that reflects upon God’s characteristic activity on behalf of the needy, including a final invitation that defines wisdom as attentiveness to and appreciation for God’s hesed (verses 33–43).

While Psalm 107 is a thanksgiving psalm, it also is something like a sermon on the fundamental character of God, which is best summarized by the word hesed (see Exodus 34:6). The word occurs in the first and last verses of the psalm, an envelope-structure that suggests that everything in between pertains to hesed, and hesed is also featured in the second refrain. Like any good sermon, Psalm 107 invites a response. Ultimately, the desired response is wisdom (verse 43). This wisdom is embodied by living in fundamental dependence upon God, and it is expressed in overflowing gratitude for God’s hesed.

Verses 23–32

The lection includes the fourth scenario. It is noticeably different from the first three, all of which narrate experiences that could have characterized the exile and the journey involved in the return from exile. Not so with verses 23–32: there was no sea passage from Babylon to Judah! So unique are verses 23–32 that Alter wonders “whether the whole section might have been regarded as a different poem that was somehow inserted into our psalm.”²

In any case, verses 23–32 perform a valuable function. The seafarers encounter God’s activity “in the deep” (verse 24), amid “the waves of the sea” (verses 25, 29), and as they descend “to the depths” (verse 26). Elsewhere, these locations represent cosmic forces of chaos and danger. It’s as if the poet intends this climactic scenario to be a worst-case scenario—that is, even in the face of threatening cosmic forces, one may cry out to God in anticipation of deliverance (verse 28) and ready to express thanks for the hesed that motivates God’s “wonderful works” (verse 31).

In this fourth scenario (as in the third; see verse 22), the expression of gratitude is to be accompanied by public testimony. Those who have been delivered are to praise God “in the congregation of the people” and “in the assembly of the elders” (verse 32). Genuine and overflowing gratitude cannot and will not remain a private experience!

To be noted is that in the background of all four scenarios stands Israel’s prototypical experience of deliverance, which also started with the people’s crying out (see Exodus 3:7). As James L. Mays observes, this exodus pattern “elevates the prayer for help, the voice of dependence on God, to the central place in the relation to God.”³  And one more related thing: the seafarers “cried to the LORD” (verse 28) when they “were at their wits’ end” (verse 27), or more literally, when “their wisdom had been swallowed up.” The word “wisdom” anticipates verse 43, and the effect is to suggest that true wisdom involves dependence upon God, even and perhaps especially in the worst of circumstances, trusting that God’s hesed will be sufficient.

Then and now

It is unlikely that contemporary folk will be able to identify directly with any of the four scenarios, but as Mays suggests, we can hear these illustrative cases as “open paradigms.”⁴ In other words, we stand to learn from Psalm 107, as well as from the preponderance of laments in the Psalter, that we finite and fallible human beings are essentially needy. As Isaac Bashevis Singer once put it, “I only pray when I’m in trouble, but I’m in trouble all the time.”⁵ If we realize this, the faithful response is to live in dependence upon God and with gratitude for God’s unfailing love.

But of course, we are immersed in a culture that encourages us to think and act as if we are (or should be) totally self-sufficient, in which case there is no need to ask God (nor anyone else) for help, and no need to thank anyone other than ourselves. Into a context like this, Psalm 107 injects a challenging word—that is, in the final analysis, self-sufficiency is a terrible illusion. Our lives depend on God, a God who hears our cries and responds out of an abundance of hesed.

We Christians see that love fully embodied in Jesus, whose stilling of a storm (see Mark 4:35–41, the Gospel lesson for the day) invites the same response invited by Psalm 107: the renunciation of self-sufficiency in order to live in dependence upon God and with gratitude for God’s goodness and unfailing love.

Notes

1. Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (New York: W. W. Norton, 2007), 383.
2. Ibid., 386.
3. James L. Mays, Psalms, Interpretation (Louisville: John Knox, 1994), 347.
4. Ibid., 346.
5. Quoted in Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms as Tools for Prayer (San Francisc: Harper & Row, 1989), 36.

This passage comes right after Paul’s majestic statements about the ministry and message of God’s reconciliation of the entire world through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:14–21).¹

We often interpret Paul’s grand statements about reconciliation in abstract theological terms.

We tend to forget that Paul wrote these passages in response to some very specific—and painful—difficulties he was having with the Corinthian congregation. Rumors were being spread about his apostolic ministry, and his relationship with some in the congregation was strained (2 Corinthians 1–7). In addition, he needed to raise money for the Jerusalem church (2 Corinthians 8–9) and prepare for yet another visit when he would have to deal with sin among the Corinthians and their seemingly slavish submission to those he called “super-apostles” (2 Corinthians 10–13).

In light of these issues, we can read 2 Corinthians 6:1–13 as fleshing out—in surprising detail—how we might live out and embody God’s ministry and message of reconciliation. But if this “service” (diakonia) and this “word” (logos) are not abstractions, then how do we live in the reconciliation they promise?

1. God’s word of reconciliation

As God’s coworker, Paul “urges” the Corinthians not to take God’s grace in vain (2 Corinthians 6:1). Quoting one of the so-called servant songs in Isaiah, he declares that God has listened at “the acceptable time” and helped on “the day of salvation” (Isaiah 49:8). No longer the “prey of the tyrant,” Israel will be restored; God promises to make her “a light to the nations” (Isaiah 49). If Isaiah’s call of “comfort” (parakaleo, the same word translated as “urge”) provides a backdrop for interpreting the “word” of reconciliation, then we could say that this “word” has to do with God’s restoring and rescuing a people oppressed by circumstances, even as they might be partly responsible for those circumstances.

2. Embodying God’s service of reconciliation

How do we engage in the “service” of this word of God’s reconciling work? Paul paints a complex multidimensional picture of what happens to us when this word gets embodied in our lives. After asserting the need to do away with all obstacles that would cause others to reject what we have to say, he depicts what could be described as the “habitus”—the lifestyle, values, and disposition—of reconciliation in our experiences of everyday life.²

a. Hardships

How might we perceive or experience this service of reconciliation? Drawing on stylized depictions in ancient literature of the kind of suffering that sages and prophets undergo, he describes three aspects of apostolic suffering.

First, there is what we undergo physically with “great endurance”: afflictions, hardships, and calamities. Then, there is what we experience because of what others do to us: beatings, imprisonments, and riots. Last, there are the ways we are personally affected by our vocation as God’s servants: labors, sleepless nights, and hunger.

Although we may have a hard time as modern people identifying with the extremity of these descriptions of apostolic suffering, they do point to the fact that our participation in the service and word of reconciliation can never be divorced from the very real vicissitudes of human life; indeed, it may bring even more hardship into our lives.

b. The fruit of the Spirit

How might we conceive or interpret these experiences? Because they are “suffered” or experienced in Christ through the Spirit, they embody how—to quote a phrase he will use later—“power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Once again, Paul follows a threefold pattern. Starting with what is most apparent, he describes how the Spirit creates within us purity, knowledge, patience, and kindness. (Paul has similar lists elsewhere; see, for example, Galatians 5:22–23.) Then, he places at the center of the list the One who works in and through our suffering: the Holy Spirit. Finally, with three short phrases he depicts what the Spirit enacts in us through our public vocation as God’s servants: genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God.

c. Paradoxical living

How do we live out this experience of the agency of the Spirit amid what we suffer or experience in everyday life? Paul’s answer is clustered in three types of paradoxes.

First, he deals with how we might appear to others. We may be honored or shamed, with either good or bad reputations. Yet throughout it all, we remain true, even when treated as impostors. We can be confident that we will be seen for who we are, even though we may often feel others do not fully recognize our value.

Second, he deals with what actually takes place in these experiences. When we seek God’s reconciliation with one another in our often messy and complicated relationships, we participate in Christ’s sufferings (pathemata) for the world (2 Corinthians 1:5). In the process, we will indeed have to die—not only our final death but also the daily dying that fleshes out our baptism into Christ—yet in Christ we live. We may even be disciplined (paideuomenoi) through what is taking place in our lives, yet in Christ we are not destroyed.

Last, Paul lists public activities that embody the work of reconciliation—activities that explicitly address three of his issues with the Corinthians. As members of Christ’s body, we undergo the “pain” (lupoumenoi) of speaking truth to one another about difficulties in our relationships, even as we “rejoice” together when we forgive and are reconciled with one another (see 2 Corinthians 1–7)).

In spite of our apparent “poverty,” we can make others “rich” following the example of our Lord (Philippians 2:5–11). The service and word of reconciliation cannot be divorced from seeking a “fair balance”—material and spiritual—among the wealthy and poor among us (2 Corinthians 8–9).

Finally, in spite of “having nothing”—since in Christ we are no longer defined by the wealth, wisdom, and power of this age—we are those who “possess everything”—as he says in an earlier letter: “All things are yours …” (1 Corinthians 3:21).

Notes

1. Commentary first published on this website June 21, 2015.
2. See Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, trans. Richard Nice (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1992).