NOTES for Co2 9:6-10

The Christian charity is well known in the world. However, not only Christian: such a practice is familiar to the Jews and to the Muslims also. But there is between the Christian charity and the charity of the Jews or the Muslims an essential difference: unlike the Jewish or Islamic charity, the Christian charity is a purely voluntary thing. Certainly not the slightest, it is understandable by the fact that Christianity, as it is sometimes called, is "a religion of love", and love supports no constraint, no "obligation". But the problem is not apparently all the same only in the relations of mutual love binding Christians between themselves. The problem probably is that Christianity is not at all a religion, but just a life in the Kingdom. Life, which is not regulated by any rules and rituals, but the commandments given by God. And the commandments in the long run should become not an external regulation, even if they are voluntarily accepted, but rather this spiritual rod, which will organize the whole life of man from the inside, and not from the outside. With such a life, of course one can’t speak about any compulsory charity, because to regulate the charity would mean, in fact, regulating the help to the neighbor, and life in the Kingdom not only doesn’t need such regulations: they are simply impossible inside it. It is not accidentally that the apostle quotes the psalm about "the giver with pleasure", who "God loves". Indeed, joy for the good, done for the neighbor, is only possible in the Kingdom and by the laws of the Kingdom, by the laws of the not transformed world the genuine joy is possible only when you are being helped. Of course, the helper, even in the not transformed world can receive from his help a famous moral satisfaction, but not for the good he did to the neighbor, but the secondary circumstances accompanying such an action (the feeling of gratitude deeply expressed by the person swamped with benefactions of the help, the approval of the society, even the pleasure caused by the feeling of the fulfillment of the religious duty). But if the helper of the next neighbor feels in addition to that a real joy, then he has been touched by the breath of the Kingdom. And Paul, understanding very well that, calls to the charity not as a tiring religious duty, but as the demonstration of the relations of the Kingdom. Relations, without which there is no Christianity.

Paul presents arguments traditional in Judaism, rooted in the equally traditional understanding of poverty—first and foremost as a spiritual condition rather than a material situation. At first glance, it may seem that he is speaking of exchanging material goods for certain spiritual ones, even for salvation. The Savior Himself sometimes said things that appeared similar at first glance, as when He proposed that the rich young man who came to Him should distribute his earthly wealth and receive another, heavenly treasure in return. But in reality it is not so simple. This is not a straightforward exchange of one kind of wealth for another; it is rather a refusal to acknowledge as one's own what belongs to one. Nor is the issue merely the relative nature of property rights as such—something that has no place when speaking of the Kingdom. It is about a person's attitude toward what they consider their own.

What do we put into the concept of “our own”? Do we use it for something that belongs to us by right, something deserved, earned, and lawfully acquired? Or are we speaking of something given to us for our use, perhaps even for life, but only for our use? With regard to property, we all understand perfectly well—if, of course, we take the trouble to think about it even briefly—that it has been given to us for our use, if only because we will not take it with us when we leave this world. With things such as knowledge, talents, or abilities, the situation is often less obvious, at least at first glance, because much or all of what has been listed seems to belong to us inseparably. With regard to 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 does not belong to them either—at least not until they have become their true self, and one can become one's true self only in God's presence, which certainly does not depend on the person at all. A person truly possesses only themselves; everything else is given to them only for a time and can never replace what matters most, 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, they cease to regard their riches—whatever those riches may consist of—as their own. They have been given to the person for use and can easily be passed on to others if that is better for everyone. Shared. Donated. In short, relinquished in one way or another: given away completely when material goods are concerned, or made the possession of others to the same degree as one's own when knowledge, talents, or abilities are concerned.

And every church community, insofar as it lives as people are meant to live in the Church with a capital C, must likewise be ready to share everything it has with those in need. Not because one “must” or because it is “required,” but because otherwise God's breath, the breath of the Kingdom, will 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 is reminding the recipients of his letter.

What is God's regard towards the human wealth? It would seem according to the Old Testament, that everything is clear: God blesses the wealth of people, desirable to Him. That is the rich are desirable to God. However Jesus, turns rather to the side of poor people (" a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven."), this is especially visible in several parables. But here Apostle Paul speaks again about wealth as being a gift of God. What’s it? Maybe it is necessary to understand these words in a figurative, spiritual sense? But no, Paul speaks exactly about material things, and we should not spiritualize this sentence at once.

Let's analyze. The prophets of the Old Testament already rebuked rich people in Israel for their unmercifulness. And Jesus opposes not against wealth itself, but against the way people behave towards it and how they use it. Apostle Paul continues on the same line: wealth, granted by God, always has a purpose - good works, and The Gospel invites us especially to such works.

The thought of a soul that must be hated may seem strange and even absurd. Why, indeed, should a person hate the most precious thing he possesses, the very thing that makes him himself? For the sake of precision, however, it must be noted that the subject here is not the soul in the sense in which we use the word today, but simply life. Yet even with this understanding the question remains: why should a person hate his own life, given to him by God?

The simplest answer might be to refer to the Fall, which distorted this very life and turned it into a pitiful likeness of what it was meant to be according to God's plan. Such an answer, however, would be more characteristic of a Pythagorean or a Platonist than of a believer in Yahweh. In the pagan world, the idea that earthly life was an improper state for a human being was fairly widespread, among philosophers, mystics, and ascetics, of course. They saw the life of fallen humanity in all its ugliness and could imagine no other way out than rejecting it, a rejection which they thought freed a person from the power of the evil in which the world lies and in which the life of everyone who inhabits it unfolds. The Bible, however, nowhere speaks of rejecting life as a way of escaping evil; the spiritualism of the Platonists or Pythagoreans is alien to it. And Jesus' words about hating one's own life can hardly be understood in a spiritualist sense, whether that spiritualism is of the Greek or the Indian kind.

One Indian parallel, however, might be relevant here: the parallel with Buddhism and with the concept of nirvana that is central to Buddhism. Contrary to the widespread view, this is not a departure into non-being, but rather an experience of being, a being that is revealed only when a person distances himself from illusory, imaginary, inauthentic being, which he usually regards as real life. The Buddha suddenly realized that authentic being and true life are not at all where most people see them. That is why he came to hate life in an almost Gospel sense, not with the hatred that desires the destruction of what is hated, but with hatred in the biblical sense of the word, when a person distances himself completely from what is hated and excludes it from his life. To exclude illusion for the sake of reality: such was the Buddha's experience.

Christ Himself is this reality. He bears the fullness of the Kingdom within Himself, and everyone who comes to Him faces a choice: whether to remain with his own life, which sooner or later will run dry, or to renounce his own separate existence, giving his life to Christ and allowing Him to dispose of it. This is somewhat reminiscent of Buddhism, with the difference, however, that Buddhism is apophatic, while Christianity is cataphatic. With Christ and in Christ, the authentic being and true life that the Buddha sensed at the moment of his enlightenment entered the world. And to find them requires the same renunciation of what is one's own, separate, finite, and therefore inauthentic. Without such a renunciation, reality cannot be attained, whether it is the enlightenment of the Buddhists or the fullness of Christ's Kingdom.

The Apostle Paul, like a loving father, is concerned for the Corinthian community that he founded. With touching paternal affection, he boasts to the Macedonians of their zeal in helping the Jerusalem church, yet at the same time he worries that this praise might prove empty. He earnestly asks the brothers who assist him to go to Corinth in advance and prepare everything, “so that your previously announced blessing may be ready as a blessing, not as an exaction”—this is how the Apostle explains the brothers’ early arrival in Corinth (5). To encourage the Corinthians, Paul writes how necessary this ministry is: it “not only supplies the needs of the saints [members of the Christian community in Jerusalem—I.Sh.], but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God” (12).

The Apostle Paul also wants the ministry in which they are actively participating to become God’s blessing for the givers themselves. The more generously you give, the richer you become. A free and unforced gift, according to the Apostle, is like a seed that will bear fruit in its time. And “whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously” (6). Through this simple paradox, Paul reminds the Corinthians of the mystery of the presence of God, who is powerful enough to enrich everyone with grace (8).

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.

The Lord mysteriously tells us, His disciples: "The light is with you for a little while longer." Yes, of course, this refers to His imminent death on the cross, for the Word, like a grain of God's sowing, must die in order to bear fruit. And He died - of this, unlike His resurrection, no one doubts - and the light He brought into the world went out forever for the world.

But not for those who believed Him! He promised that those who believe in Him would be sons of light, bearers of this light revealed to the apostles in the Resurrection. And this is both a promise and a task: not to remain in darkness despite His death, obvious to all; to "walk in the light," that is, to live in His presence, believing that He is alive. Then His death, through us - and this is astonishing - will bear much fruit for the world and open access for all to the Kingdom of Light...

Jesus’ words that the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified were spoken in response to the news brought by the disciples that the Greeks wished to see Him. The Evangelist mentions neither who these Greeks were nor whether the meeting took place; apparently, it did not. Most likely, this is one of the instances in which Christ does not give the answer expected of Him, but says what His listeners actually need to hear. It is possible that even at this moment the disciples do not fully understand that the Teacher must pass through suffering, and to them the Greeks’ interest is evidence of new opportunities for preaching. They think in quantitative terms, but Christ is preparing for the self-sacrifice that will change everything qualitatively. For the salvation of divided humanity, including the Greeks, He goes to His death, after which the disciples’ preaching will be able to succeed.

One might object to the words, “Now the ruler of this world will be cast out,” by saying that evil still reigns in the world today. But the forces of evil no longer possess the authority they had before Golgotha. The agony may be long and violent, but the enemy has already received the mortal blow.

There are turning points in human history that may remain outwardly unnoticed, yet still be the true cause of major historical events. When “some Greeks” ask the apostle Philip to arrange a meeting with Jesus, just such a turning point arrives, and the Lord says of it: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”

The fact is that the entire history of the Old Testament religion unfolded amid a glaring contradiction between the universal character of the divine revelation given in it and the narrowly national character of the religion itself. To be a participant in the Covenant with God and to be a Jew by blood were regarded as one and the same thing. The prophets repeatedly proclaimed that the day would come when the Lord would call all nations to Himself, but this time was associated with the future coming of the Messiah. And now that day had arrived.

It is in this universal context that Christ’s words, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to Myself,” should be understood. This is why the Greeks’ desire to meet Christ becomes such a turning point in history.

When the Greeks come to Jesus, they ask Philip for help. For some reason he goes to Andrew. It is hard to think the apostle was afraid to approach the Teacher himself. It is just as unlikely that Andrew was Christ's personal secretary, in charge of the Teacher's schedule. The matter is something quite different.

Something unusual is happening. For the first time, other peoples responding to Jesus' preaching are mentioned, even if they believe in the same God as the Jews. The community of Christ's disciples is encountering something new. And therefore Philip behaves very naturally: he does not hurry to act on his own. Jesus sent the apostles out to preach not one by one, but two by two (see Mark 6:7).

Who knows: perhaps Philip went to Andrew precisely because he was "paired" with him? Besides, Philip surely remembers how Christ said, "Where two or three are gathered in My name, there I am among them" (Matt 18:20).

The Lord lays the foundation of the Church in this way: not scattered believers, but disciples coming to Him together. When we do not understand what to do, when we want to know God's will, we should not rely exclusively on how we ourselves hear it. God has given us His Church to help us: He has given us elders, He has given us brothers and sisters with whom we can turn to Him together. And so His word is fulfilled: "If two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven" (Matt 18:19).

When it comes to the Savior's earthly ministry, we understand that something unique is at issue: indeed, He alone was destined to be born and to live His earthly life as the Messiah; this was given to no one else. And yet His life became a kind of spiritual model suitable for every one of His followers. Moreover, there is simply no other model that allows one to enter the Kingdom, and apparently there cannot be, at least in our world that has undergone the fall.

This model is very simple in theory and not so simple in practice: a person must agree to part with his own life in order then to receive it again, but now as another life, in a new quality suitable for the Kingdom. The one who loves his life ("soul") as it is, in its present condition, cannot count on the Kingdom. The demand appears excessively harsh, but as we can see, this harshness is caused precisely by the specific nature of the fallen world, of which the life of each of us is a part. Even Jesus Himself, over whom original sin has no power, was not, during His earthly ministry, completely free from this specific nature: He, being fully and to the end an inhabitant of our untransformed world and part of it, became subject, if not to sin, then to death - though, of course, not in the same way as we are: death was possible for Him, not inevitable as it is for us.

And the only thing that can help us is readiness to renounce our life in its present quality, what Jesus calls "hating one's own life." It is worth remembering that in biblical language love and hatred denote not the emotional states we often mean by them, but an attitude of acceptance or nonacceptance toward that to which our will is directed. Nonacceptance of life, including first of all one's own life, in its present quality and state, and readiness to part with it for the sake of another, new life, constitute the necessary preliminary condition for beginning the path into the Kingdom: the path during which our former life will be remelted into a new one, fit for eternity.