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Third Sunday after Epiphany

Psalm 62
Do not trust in extortion
or put vain hope in stolen goods;
though your riches increase,
do not set your heart on them.
One thing God has spoken,
two things I have heard:
“Power belongs to you, God,
and with you, Lord, is unfailing love.”

1 Corinthians 7
29 What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; 30 those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; 31 those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.


Scrabble is not my game.

There is something about the randomness of the little tiles, the time pressure, the constraints of that foolish board, the extent to which you depend on others to provide the venue for the perfect word, the best laid plans that go awry when someone takes that perfect venue for the perfect word—and the fact that when we play Carmen always wins.

Now, Trivial Pursuit, that’s a game! Basically, every other answer is Richard Nixon or The Beatles. Understand the era of the game-makers, and win the game—simple!

I’m not so selfishly wedded to my game not to see a good Scrabble word when it appears. So today’s ‘confound your opponents’ word is WEND, meaning “to turn, or to change.” Wend. Just now you’re thinking ‘wend, huh? I bet the past tense is went’ and at one time you would be right. Somehow (ironically?) the past tense changed from went to wended, yet another winning word for your next game.

But the irony here is double, since the word for change that my Anglo-Saxon forbears used (wend) was itself changed to the word change after the Normans appeared. If you spent any time in grade nine French wondering why French and English use the same word for change, then wonder no more. One of the characteristics of our language is a remarkable openness to change: wending (Scrabble alert!), to include words we borrow from others.

So 1066 and the Norman conquest was a time of profound wend. So profound that even the language changed, making room for borrow words that we still use. You might think this melee, and the linguistic melange that followed would cause malaise, but some find borrow-words exciting. I’ll stop there.

This meditation on change is meant to underline the inevitability of change, something that St. Paul is underlining in the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians. Change and the opportunity for change will inevitably occur, and how should the believer respond to such changes? Is there a unified approach to change, and what drives this approach? And what was going on in Corinth that required this much advice? So we begin.

The commentary that I dip into from time-to-time begins with this: “The seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians is hardly anyone’s favourite passage.” Well, if that doesn’t peak you interest, nothing will. Why the thumbs down? Part of the answer is that whenever Paul begins to talk about marriage, we get a little nervous, and then the preacher gets nervous, and the whole thing can go off the rails.

After a careful reading, however, I think we see Paul’s approach as rather balanced—almost modern—in the sense that whatever he suggests for one partner he also suggests for the other. Some examples:

He begins by saying don’t have sex. But if you have to have sex, only have it within marriage. And just as a wife should yield to her husband, a husband should yield to his wife. You can deny each other by mutual consent, but you should be careful, since temptation to strong. He goes on:

Widows and the unmarried should stay unmarried, unless you can’t.
If you’re married to a non-believer, stay married.
If your non-believing spouse leaves you, Que será, será (that’s the Doris Day translation)
Whatever your circumstance when you became a believer, it’s okay to remain that way. Don’t bother getting circumcised or uncircumcised, whatever that means. Slaves should seek their freedom, but it’s okay if you can’t.
Are you engaged? Go ahead and get married.
And then Paul shares the heart of his meditation, our passage for the day:

29 What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; 30 those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; 31 those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

Again, the commentary describes this a “detached involvement,” in-the-world-but-not-of-the-world, one foot in the present and one foot in the age to come. Waiting with care, but always waiting. “For this world in its present form is passing away” and we would do well to remain mindful of this every day.

So Paul is simply reinforcing what Jesus already said, but with a twist. The Gospel reading we didn’t hear for the third Sunday after the Epiphany is another calling-the-disciples-by-the-seaside passage, but this version has a great summary beginning: "The time is fulfilled,” Jesus said, “and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news."

The twist that Paul adds is the “not yet.” Really, it’s an old parent’s trick when kid keeps asking “but when?” “Now yet” means it’s going to happen, and it might happen any time, but it hasn’t happened yet. “What I mean,” Paul says, “is the time is short.” The very thing we pray for, “thy kingdom come” will come, but it lives in the realm of the not yet. Or to quote the old spiritual, “Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King.”

But not yet. And here is the key to Paul. He has introduced the Kingdom to Corinth, he has baptized and taught the people, he has created expectation, he has instituted the greatest change these people have ever known, and they say “now what?”

I want to pause for a moment for the sake of ‘now what?‘ It’s an element of our lives that we seldom confront, but it seems to appear at the most significant times. You cross the stage, diploma in hand, and you think “now what?” You leave the church, ‘spouse and spouse’ we now say, and look at each other and say “now what?” You get home with your baby burrito all snuggled and think “now what?” You watch the aforementioned fully grown baby burrito drive away into adulthood and say “now what?” Or you pause at the end of your life and ponder the mystery of eternity with God and think “now what?” What shape will the future take—but more importantly—what do I do now?

And the good people of Corinth were asking the same question. Everything changed: all the compassion and mercy and forgiveness and grace and comfort and healing and reconciliation and concord and communion meant that everything changed. The Kingdom arrived and the Kingdom was coming to transform the earth and the answer to the most pressing questions was “not yet.”

But how do you wait? Now what? And Paul tries to answer. He tries to give practical advice to very practical problems: marriage and remarriage, going to court, rules about food—essentially telling people to wait well. While you’re waiting, be good, and live like the Kingdom is nearly here.

This might be the moment to let the psalmist weight in, since waiting and living in the not yet is so much a part of these writings too. The psalmist’s soul finds rest in God alone (“my rock and my salvation”) but still lives in the world with the rest of us. And we know this because the topic shifts to worldly concerns:

Though your riches increase,
do not set your heart on them.
One thing God has spoken,
two things I have heard:
“Power belongs to you, God,
and with you, Lord, is unfailing love.”

Like the people of Corinth, the psalmist’s people were living their lives, enjoying some prosperity, and needing to be reminded that the future belongs to God. Don’t set your heart on the things of this world, but remember that the power to change everything belongs to God alone. We can’t know the time or the circumstance, but we know that God is unfailing love.

May the unfailing love of God surround you, as we wait for the “soon and very soon” of the Kingdom. Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 6:19 AM