Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

A light at the end of the tunnel
in Norfolk VA

I could not talk to you as spiritual people,
but as fleshly people, as infants in Christ.

Saint Paul complained against his people in Corinth for their divisiveness. New to a religion which was long on enthusiasm and short on articulation, they divided into factions. Some claimed superiority according to which Christian apostle baptized them. Clearly they were thinking in this world’s ways and Saint Paul said, “You're acting like children!”

But like the new parent of young children, the Apostle had yet to define what he was trying to say. Paul’s genius lay in his ability to address a problem by articulating a deep theological issue. As he considered their foolishness he began to understand the matter of faith all the more clearly.

It’s not important who baptized you; nor, for that matter, which church you attend. What matters is that you put your faith in Jesus. We are saved by faith, not by apostles.

He will also speak of walking by the spirit rather than by the flesh. The words spirit and spiritual still lead us into long, difficult conversations. Recently, perhaps in self-defense against the hegemony of the Christian religion, many people describe themselves as spiritual rather than religious.

It’s perhaps odd they should extract Saint Paul’s hard-won phrase from his letters to create a new religious paradigm, but the Church has always struggled over what it means to be faithful. Martin Luther would speak of the invisible versus the visible church. His “invisible church” was those who have the true spirit of Jesus, though they can never prove it in any demonstrable way; while the “visible church” only has the appearance of religion. His wording may have been original but his teaching was not. It was only Saint Paul’s thinking revisited. It's easy to accuse someone of being unspiritual, it's not so easy to demonstrate your own spiritual integrity. 

Using the wording of its fourth step -- We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. -- Alcoholics Anonymous addresses the issue in its own blunt way: Do your own inventory! No one can judge anyone else. No one can examine another’s heart. That prerogative belongs to God alone. Whether another person is faithful or not is none of my business. My only concern is my search for integrity. I must ask God to search out the rank places in my soul, purge them of the stench of sin and fill them with the sweet Spirit of Jesus. When God has finished that terrifying, painful, healing, exhilarating process, I will be a spiritual person.