Being understood

The challenge of being understood has produced frustration for many of us. The texts today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary point to situations where the Paul and Matthew write to provide some clarification to their audiences. This portion of the second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians is identified by Friar Jude Winkler as having a defensiveness related to Chapters 10-13 as the “letter of reconciliation” to make peace for attacking the Gnosticheretics who were finding an audience among the Corinthian Christians for a philosophy of superhuman spectacular spiritual gifts to separate believers from the evils of the world. The litany of human experience of service and suffering is to try to make the point that through living in the messy world and being subject to the reality of life, we find our opportunity to praise God like the psalmist for the steadfast Love with which He carries us in struggle. Paul often uses dualistic arguments, rooted in his culture as a Jewish Pharisee, to frame his presentation. The tendency of people to seek a simple answer to questions, particularly in the areas of law and justice, made the prescription of appropriate compensation and retribution for anti social behaviour important to limit over reaction in revenge. The ‘eye for an eye’ of the Gospel of Matthew probably is a cliché to refer to a legal prescription rather than an actual description of rough justice. The text today has inspired other cliché approaches identified collectively sometimes as the Third Way. The sense that neither violent response to violence nor passive submission to evil are acceptable is another dualistic framework from which we need to discern the direction offered us by the Spirit of God  which uses kindness, gentleness, service and suffering as the preparation to address injustice. From the example set by the life of Paul we can depend on the Spirit to guide a real fight for Life for all which is based on giving all to those in need.