Binding and Loosing

Text: 2 Corinthians 8:7-15

Once upon a time there was a governor of Massachusetts who was enjoying a photo op at the Ashmont MBTA station. I’m not sure what the occasion was. Perhaps the opening of the renovated T station there.

There were two notable things about this event. The first was that the governor had no idea where he was. He did not know where Ashmont was (which is in Dorchester) because he had never been in that part of town before. And the second thing was that he had no idea how much it cost to ride the T.

The reason the governor did not know these things is that the governor had many other places he no doubt preferred and many fancier ways to get there. He did not have to go to Dorchester. None of his friends lived in Dorchester. People from Dorchester who wanted to talk to the governor had to go to the State House, where the powers that be worked. And the governor didn’t have to ride the T. In fact, that particular governor had never ridden the T, even before he was governor. There was a gap—and I do not mean in miles—between the governor who visited Ashmont on a photo op and the people who used Ashmont T to get around the city in which they lived.

The governor enjoyed being at the top of a kind of pyramid of privilege. At the top, the governor in his limousine. Then people who had cars, then people who rode the train, then the bus, then people who could not afford even the bus and had to walk, if they could. The pyramid corresponded, very imperfectly, with a parallel wealth pyramid. Imperfectly because many people preferred the T or walked out of convenience or pleasure. Nonetheless, the governor of the Commonwealth was ignorant about the lives of most of the people for whom he was making decisions.

That there are inequalities of wealth and privilege is nothing new. In the time in which Paul wrote his letters to the church in Corinth, the wealth pyramid was shaped less like a pyramid and more like a thumbtack with the dangerous end up. At the flat bottom was almost everyone. Most people by far had next to nothing. This is where Jesus lived, poorer even than a subsistence farmer, for he had no land, and he lived as a craftsperson, by his own hand. At the pointy top were the very few who had wealth and power.

Paul writes in today’s passage to the Corinthians encouraging them to support financially the emerging organization in Jerusalem of the followers of Jesus, who had sent out an appeal for help. This is not the first time Paul has had to remind the Corinthians to think of people who are less well off than they are. Reading between the lines, we can see that though they have eagerly given lip service to helping Jerusalem, they have not followed through. “now finish doing it,” he writes, “so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means.”

This is for sure a request for money. But for Paul money is a specific case of a general principle. He is writing about grace—a word that means gift, and thanks, and generosity—about God’s grace given to us, and about our grace in turn given to others. The word is mentioned five times in the first few verses of the chapter we just heard. Paul is writing about not only the necessity of generosity and but even more, about its power.

As always, Paul is concerned less about (or not at all) about the moral goodness of individuals and more about how their actions strengthen or weaken the unity of the community of the followers of Jesus, the body of Christ. Paul argues with intensity, but not because he likes the people in Jerusalem (in fact, he does not like them very much), but because they are part of that body. The actions of the church at Corinth threaten the whole community because the Corinthians have abundance while Jerusalem has little. There is a gap between part of the community—Corinth—and another part—Jerusalem.

“It is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need,” Paul writes. This should not strike us as weird. Paul could be writing about traditional American values. Generosity, interdependence, and neighborliness. This is not about liking someone or supporting their beliefs or admiring what they do. Calvin, Luther’s contemporary, summarized this passage: “no one starves, no one hordes one’s abundance at another’s expense.” Would you let a neighbor starve while you have a surplus?

For the sake of all, there needs to be a fair balance, as Paul says, between the wealthy and the needy. The word is sometimes translated “equality,” but that is not quite right. He is not trying to shuffle the pyramid here (impoverishing the Corinthians to enrich the Jerusalemites), but to help the Corinthians see things differently. The gift from Corinth will be measured against the need of the church in Jerusalem to determine whether it is sufficient for Jerusalem. But the gift will be measured against the abundance of the church in Corinth to determine whether it is gracious for the Corinthians and generous.

The Corinthians are blessed with many gifts. Yet all such gifts have the power to fragment communities or to bind them together. If we take any of God’s gifts as a way to differentiate some people from others, or to protect some against others, then the whole of us fragments and suffers. But if we see God’s gifts as grace which we might share, then we are tied together into one body. Who shall the Corinthians be, Paul asks them. Who shall we be?

In the verses just preceding these, Paul describes the Macedonians, who have already sent much to Jerusalem, even though they, the Macedonians, are dirt poor. Some think he does this to embarrass the wealthy Corinthian church. But Paul is not commanding them, he says. What makes the Macedonians special is that they were begging Paul to let them participate in the grace and the fellowship of helping the people of Jerusalem. “Begging us earnestly,” Paul says, “for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints.” They see this helping as the gift it is.

They realize that we are called to be generous not because we should, though it is true we should. And not because we are grateful for God’s gifts, though we are. But we are called to be generous because God is generous. God was generous in Jesus, Paul reminds us. We are made in the image of God. It is in that image that we itch to be generous. It is a gracious gift to humans that we are allowed to be generous to others.

Paul is a missionary. His job is to create and nourish and tend communities of people. His call to the Corinthians to help the saints of Jerusalem is urgent. Not because of the need of Jerusalem. But because of the need of the Corinthians to be generous, rather than privileged. And the need of the broken world to be stitched together by generosity. And the prospect that if we do not eagerly enact our longing to share God’s grace, our spirits will starve.