I Corinthians 10-15
If you are confused about the title, I just realized that I have messed up the counting! (Hey, I was a religion major--counting to 40 is tough. We usually only deal with numbers like 7 and 12!) So rather than go back and completely change all the titles, I just decided to make an adjustment today. That way we can continue in good order!
Which seems to be the theme in this section. I agree with Stacy's earlier comment that I am confused with the multiple voices in Corinthians. But it seems that there were multiple voices speaking in and for the church in Corinth. The result was total confusion, disarray and conflict. (Who ever heard of that happening in a church today?)
Paul's admonition to love each other seems rather safe and benign, until you start to take it seriously. It is much easier to fall into old patterns, to follow the script from the past rather than take the risky step of loving one another, of putting your own interests below those of the body of Christ.
And yet, Paul seems to fall exactly into the "old patterns" in his treatment of women. This is obviously a cultural pattern which too often has been elevated to the level of doctrine--without insisting that women cover their heads in church. We pick and choose, don't we? And that is all of us? It seems that to fall back on the law of love is just too tough.
Much of this I just want to discount as cultural baggage--but that in itself is a danger, isn't it? How do we decide what we will keep and what we will discard? That question has come up time and time again as I have listened to these scriptures. This is dangerous stuff! One person even told me that she wasn't sure that these tapes should be sent to places so that people could just hear them! I fully understand. Do I believe that my daughters are lower than men? Of course not! So how do we decide what is "scripture" and what is ancient custom?
Ahh, therein lies the rub! As I have often said, the question is what we include in our Bible. This section just highlighted that tension. What is in your Bible? How do you decide? I invite you to share your thoughts!
See, this conversation does get interesting--even when we don't agree!
2 comments:
I got some strange looks this morning walking from the hospital to the parking garage a few blocks away, because I was listening to this section on my iPod as I walked and could not keep from having some vocal reactions to Paul's words! Several times a "What?!" or an indignant "Huh!" would escape my lips before I could stop myself. Then as I finished listening to it in the car on the way home, I was actually yelling at Paul. "What about those of us who don't have husbands?! Whose 'glory' am I?! Who am I supposed to ask my questions that I can't bring up in church?!" And what burned me up more than anything was that Paul basically said, "Oh and by the way, you can't question any of this, because it's not coming from me -- it's coming from God." Sorry, Paul, but you're still human, and your human prejudices come through even in inspired writings! None of us gets it right all the time. I think Paul figured that out and developed a little more humility later on. (I am still working on humility, if you can't tell!)
But, again, like Lynne I have a love-hate relationship with Paul and I don't want to throw out this whole section. In "my" Bible, I would certainly keep 1 Corinthians 13, such a beautiful description of love. I read it at the first wedding I did recently, and if I ever have one, this is another passage that I would want read at my wedding. Of course, I would also want to make sure that the man I was marrying didn't take Paul's words on women to heart!
We do pick and choose, all of us. You're right that few churches today give much thought to women's heads being covered, and Paul devotes a lot of space to the issue of speaking in tongues, which doesn't get much attention either except from our Pentecostal brothers and sisters. So how do we pick and choose? I'd like to hope that I'm picking and choosing based on who I believe God to be. But then who am I to say that I know God better than Paul did? I have my own "issues," my own cultural baggage and prejudices that get thrown into the mix. It's impossible for me to read and interpret scripture apart from them, which means that I get it wrong just as much as or more than Paul does. I'm hoping there's a lot of grace for us in what we do with the Bible.
At my ordination, my dear friend Rev. Kelly Belcher presented me with a Bible, and as she did, she asked me some questions. They were so good, I had to go back to the video and remember them. She asked, "Will you use it to discern the truth without using it as a weapon to hurt others? Will you read it and allow its words to comfort you in suffering without using it as a way to insulate yourself from others? Will you hear in it Jesus's call to be not only Stacy Sergent but also like him, a servant of God and a word of God incarnate?" After I answered, "I will," she handed it to me saying, "This is the word of the Lord." And we both answered, "Thanks be to God."
There are times when it is hard to say that. Some Sunday mornings, when the scripture we read is particularly challenging or one of those passages I just plain don't like, it's hard to say, "Thanks be to God." Do I really mean it? What I think I can mean is that I'm thankful God trusts us enough to leave us with this messy, controversial, divisive document and believe we can still do something good with it. We absolutely have disappointed God on that at times, just as Paul must have, but I'm sure that comes as no surprise. God gave us all, not just the seminarians among us, minds and hearts to discern truth, and expects us to use them. What a scary, wonderful thing to be so trusted by the Creator of the universe.
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