Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back.
Jesus of Nazareth
The quotation at the start of today’s Reflections is Luke 6:30, a passage that some scholars think is an alternative version of the Sermon on the Mount recorded by Matthew. I think it probably records a different occasion because Jesus, like all teachers, said the same things in slightly different ways many times. The passage quoted, however, goes a step further than the similar saying that we reflected on last weekend. Not only are we to give or lend to anyone who asks but we’re not even to try to get back the goods that are taken from us. Or are we?
If someone steals our wallet or purse, hacks into our bank account, or steals our identity to get credit in our name, should we be content with our loss and make no effort to recover our possessions? Again, like the passage we looked at last weekend, I don’t think Paul is talking about illegality or criminality.
A passage I have always found challenging is where the writer of Hebrews encourages his readers by reminding them of the persecution they had suffered in the past: ‘[You] joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one’. Please note the word 'joyfully'! This, in turn, reminds me of what James wrote: ‘Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (See Hebrews 10:34 & James 1:2-4.)
This joy is a consequence of being Kingdom shrewd! But there's another, potentially even more challenging, situation where it is shrewd for Christians to endure being unfairly deprived or cheated.
This joy is a consequence of being Kingdom shrewd! But there's another, potentially even more challenging, situation where it is shrewd for Christians to endure being unfairly deprived or cheated.
Jesus not only wanted his followers to love God with their entire being, their neighbours as themselves and their enemies as their neighbours, he said that it would be by his followers’ love for one another that people would be able to distinguish them from the rest of society. ‘A new commandment I give to you’ he said, ’that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another…’ (see John 13:34-35). Jesus implication was clear. Claims of allegiance and devotion, and even right theology, are inadequate to distinguish true Christians from the rest of society. Only Christians' love for each other can do that!
In Corinth, the lack of love among the Christians was very public. Paul criticised the way they met together to remember Jesus in what we now call the Lord’s Supper (or Holy Communion, Eucharist or Mass). It seems that those who arrived first ate and drank all they wanted, leaving nothing for those who arrived later. This reflected the social divide: the richer Christians arriving first but those who had to work longer hours, like servants and slaves, arriving later. As a result, ‘one goes hungry, another gets drunk’! Paul put it bluntly that such behaviour despised the church and humiliated those who had nothing! (See 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.)
Paul also criticised the way the Christian businessmen took each other to court (1 Corinthians 6:1-11). This was not to resolve genuine disputes in areas of legitimate differences of opinion but to expose publically one another’s cheating! The advice he gave was probably hard to swallow. ‘Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?’ (See 1 Corinthians 6:1-11)
Why not be defrauded? To pursue a court case meant that all of society knew how dishonest the Christians were. It must have completely undermined their witness! In recommending that someone within the church should be able to resolve the dispute, Paul was not concerned only that they should keep their dishonesty out of the public gaze but he wanted them to deal radically with the dishonesty.
In the previous passage, Paul had explained that the Christians were not to associate with people who called themselves Christian (and may have genuinely been Christian, as to their theology and belief) but who didn’t live the sort of life that Jesus described. He put it like this in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13.
‘I wrote to you in my [previous] letter not to associate with sexually immoral people – not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler – not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you."’
The original Greek word translated ‘greed’ in the above quotation means covetous: a person who loves to accumulate possessions. It means this also in the passage where Paul went on to explain that Christians who behaved like that risked their treasure in heaven, their inheritance in the Kingdom of God.
‘Do you not know’, Paul wrote, ’that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.’
Rather than try to recover their loss in the courts, it was better for the Christians to suffer loss and to disassociate themselves from the Christians who behaved so very badly that it brought the entire church into disrepute and undermined its witness.
While we might maintain our self-control when our goods are taken unfairly, would it stimulate our joy? Would we be truly thankful for how the experience aids our spiritual development? Would we be more concerned for the Church's witness than our own possessions? Would we be clearly focused on our treasure in heaven? I realise this attitude is easier taught than practised but it's all part of being Kingdom shrewd!
While we might maintain our self-control when our goods are taken unfairly, would it stimulate our joy? Would we be truly thankful for how the experience aids our spiritual development? Would we be more concerned for the Church's witness than our own possessions? Would we be clearly focused on our treasure in heaven? I realise this attitude is easier taught than practised but it's all part of being Kingdom shrewd!
© All Souls Clubhouse Community Centre & Church and Philip Evans 2014.
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