Having Nothing, Yet Possessing Everything
2 Corinthians 6:2-10
The scripture passage we will hear in worship has got me thinking about opposites and contrasts this week. The apostle Paul loves using contrasts as a rhetorical device. In 2 Cor 6 he writes,
"In every way we have commended ourselves as servants of God: ...among slander AND renown; as deceitful AND YET genuine; as unkown, AND YET well known; as dying, and look! We are alive!" (capitalization mine)
Reality seems to be full of opposites and contrasts these days. We live in the most wealthy and prosperous nation on the planet, and yet U.S. rates of poverty are substantially higher and more extreme than those found in other nations that have similar economies, even if they are smaller. We have some of the highest supplies of COVID-19 vaccines but some of the lowest vaccination rates. We boast being a nation of freedom and liberty but have the highest incarceration rate in the world. Do these opposites confront us with harsh truths? Do they lead to confusion? Do we just have an impossible hypocrisy problem?
Paul's contrasts and opposites in his letter to the church in Corinth seem to paint a hopeful picture:
"We are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything." (2 Cor 6:9-10)
Being a Christian, especially in the first century while under the boot heel of Roman occupation was hard. A sect of jewish Jesus followers meeting in the houses of their wealthier adherents had to struggle to gain legitimacy. In the early Christian church the wealthy and the poor rubbed shoulders, and many of the wealthy stakeholders of the early Christian church were women!
This church, in particular, was dealing with their own infighting:
"What I mean is that each of you says, "I Belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apollos," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." (1 Cor 1:12)
Which I must say for that last claim: well played. It reminds me of this cartoon:
Are these opposites and contrasts when held together to celebrate the uniqueness of being a disciple of Christ something we should celebrate or avoid? Should being Christian make sense?
I think Paul is showing us that it doesn't. There are a lot of cultural expectations that surround us which don't fit in with what it means to follow Christ. Being Christian means going against the grain OFTEN.
We don't celebrate the strength that comes form domination, we celebrate the strength that comes from being able to acknowledge our weakness. We don't celebrate the love that comes from possession, we embrace the love that gives everything away with abandon. We don't worship a God who blesses us based on a series of moral transactions, we worship a God who blesses us without condition!
The sermon for this week quotes the last contrast of Paul's in our passage for this week: "Having Nothing, Yet Possessing Everything." I think there is another tension we constantly need to explore as Christians in the United States: that there is great wealth among those we assume are poor, great hospitality that can be offered by those who don't own homes, and great strength from those we dismiss as weak.
Join us on Sunday to dig deeper with me!
