Main news for 13 July 2024

Continuing the discussion of mutual help and donations, Paul turns to the spiritual experience reflected in the tradition of the Lord's poor, for whom poverty was not so much a material condition as a spiritual one. It was in their circles that the saying found in the book of Psalms arose: "the one who has spent everything by giving to the poor, his righteousness will remain forever" (v. 9). Apparently, the saying meant not simply almsgiving, but help for communities of the poor and donations for communal needs. And Paul, it seems, sees precisely such donations, whose practice may perhaps have roots in deep antiquity, as a model of mutual help for Christians. The members of the communities of the Lord's poor donated not only out of a sense of purely human justice. In the fact of donation, in a person's readiness to part with what belongs to him for the sake of his neighbors, they saw a sign of that complete entrusting of oneself to the will of God without which full spiritual life is impossible.

What matters to Paul above all, it seems, is this spiritual readiness of the Corinthian Christians to give. He does not want them to perceive the donation as a simple religious duty that must be fulfilled insofar as one is a member of one church or another. In that case it would already be a kind of compulsion, to which a person, of course, agrees because he considers such agreement his duty, but such a donation would be deprived of spiritual meaning (vv. 1-5). The apostle especially emphasizes that from a spiritual point of view, from the point of view of those relationships that unite a person with God and with his neighbors, only truly voluntary donations have meaning: those a person makes with joy and complete willingness (vv. 6-8).

Of course, a donation made from a sense of religious duty is not useless either. But for it to become truly useful spiritually, it must become part of the Kingdom, and that is possible only if the donation is accompanied by the proper attitude toward the one for whom it is intended. Meanwhile, the relationships of the inhabitants of the Kingdom cannot be based only on duty; their true foundation can only be love, trust, and gratitude. In the Kingdom no one owes anyone anything, but each person, out of love, is ready to share everything he has with his neighbor and to thank his neighbor for the readiness to share with him. It is no accident that Paul pays special attention to the gratitude that connects those receiving donations both with God and with those who give (vv. 12-15). He understands that precisely in it are embodied the relationships that unite the inhabitants of the Kingdom with one another. They are united not by mutual obligations, but by mutual love.

We always think that before we can give, we must first receive something. The apostle Paul reverses this logic: it is given only to the one who gives. In this he follows Christ perfectly: in the Gospel of John, Jesus says very similar things. Do you want eternal life? Give up the life you have. Do you want the Father's reward? Begin by serving.

Paul uses arguments traditional for Judaism, rooted in the equally traditional understanding of poverty, first of all as a spiritual condition and not as a material position. At first glance it may appear that this is an exchange of material values for certain spiritual ones, even for salvation.

At times the Savior Himself said something that at first glance sounded similar, when, for example, He told the rich young man who came to Him to give away his earthly wealth and receive another, heavenly wealth in return. But in reality this is not so simple. This is not a simple exchange of one wealth for another; it is rather a refusal to recognize as one's own what belongs to oneself. And this is not only about the relative nature of property rights as such, which cannot be discussed in relation to the Kingdom. It is about a person's attitude toward what he considers his own.

What do we put into the idea of 'one's own'? Do we call that something belonging to us by right, deserved, earned, lawfully acquired? Or are we speaking of something given to us for use, perhaps even lifelong use, but only for use? Regarding property we all understand perfectly well, if we take the trouble to think even a little, that it is given to us for use, if only because when we leave this world we will not take it with us. As for such things as knowledge, talents, or abilities, the situation with them is often less evident, at least at first glance, because much or all of what is listed appears to belong to us inseparably; with knowledge, for example, many are convinced that they achieved everything themselves.

But a person who has become poor in the spiritual sense understands that this too does not belong to him. At least until he has become his true self, and one can become the true self only in the presence of God, which certainly does not depend on the person at all. Truly a person possesses only himself, while the rest is given to him only for a time, and it cannot in any way replace the main thing, what God alone can give.

In such a situation, owning or possessing anything is no more than an illusion. When a person parts with this illusion, he stops looking at his riches, whatever they consist of, as his own. They are given to a person for use, and they can easily be handed on to others if that will be better for all. Shared. Donated. In a word, parted with in one way or another: given away completely, if material goods are in view, or made the possession of others to the same degree as one possesses it oneself, if knowledge, talents, or abilities are in view.

Every church community, insofar as it lives as people are meant to live in the Church with a capital C, must be just as ready to share everything it has with those in need. Not because it 'must' or is 'required,' but because the breath of God, the breath of the Kingdom, will otherwise not be able to breathe freely in that community. Just as it cannot breathe freely in the heart of a person who is not ready to share. This is what Paul reminds the recipients of his letter.