Mark 3:6-12 / Cor. II 8:7-15
These texts are bound together in the lectionary because they both focus on the significant amount of charisma that comes from the proper application of proper grace in proper context.
Proper grace
Christ is clearly one who is acknowledged by foreign and local spirits to be the Son of God. He looks like God. He acts like God. Overall, he loves like God. People around Christ are seeing their lives change just by following his words, his movements and his faith.
St. Paul does not see this absent from the Corinthian community. He sees them manifest all of the gifts that a pursuit of God accomplishes. The difference between the two stories follows.
Proper application
St. Paul recognizes that planning and drive were active in Corinth a yer ago, but now it is time to finish what was started. The subtext here is that if God has given you proper grace, it is for you to apply it – and to do so means sharing that grace in a God-like way with those who need it. The question remains: when do I do this?
Proper Context
St. Paul establishes the context for grace as being one where elements are out of whack. Some people have too much and others too little. It is not a context that can be derived from the self – it is possible for charitable works to be accomplished in a selfish way. Robert Fripp has a Guitar Craft aphorism that speaks to this: “Helpful people are a nusiance.”
Rather, the whole prospect of applying love through grace to the entire world is established on a foundation of balance – of bringing to order the things that were intended by God originally to sustain themselves – had corrupt forces not intervened.
That being said, we don’t go to the extremes to love in order to destroy our own person. Christ could have let himself be crushed by the throngs of people wanting to be healed. He did heal them, and he did it in a boat! He shifted the context from imbalance to balance – he preserved his own person and that of everyone else in the process.
That’s the kind of activity that St. Paul would like to see manifest itself in the Corinthian church – balancing pros and cons with fellow communities – doing something with what God has given them. In other words, activiating the grace of God by spreading the love to where it needs to go.
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© 2006 Jacob Gorny