The Universal Call to Integrity
Our Church celebrates the great Spirit-filled moments of Vatican Council II, whose 50th anniversary of opening we celebrate in October, 2012AD. Many, sadly maybe, not all, Catholics heard the “universal call to holiness” at the conclusion of the “Lumen Gentium, the Constitution on the Church.” Each person in Christ Jesus has his or her unique vocation which is the high road to holiness for oneself. Paraphrasing the call to ordinary parlance, we might say “Baptism calls each of us and all of us to lives of integrity (no exceptions!)”. The recovery of the biblical concept was an update on the universal insight in Jeremiah 1,
“ Before I formed you in the womb, before you were born, I knew you.” Not just Jeremiah, but all of us are called in Christ Jesus to be prophets to the nations.
St Paul had his hands full with the Jesus Movement at Corinth. There were possibly about 200 people (maybe 5 house churches of 40 people or less each) who met in Christ Jesus in the various house churches around the Greek metropolis. Small in number, they were varied in opinions and ideologies. Their viewpoints caused problems years after Paul founded the Church at Corinth.
St Paul’s methodology was to establish the small house churches of the Jesus Movement in major cities as an audio-visual way to win people over to faith in Christ. His focus seems to have been upon Gentile men and women who were fed up with au currant pagan religions and felt that the Jewish synagogues offered a different view of people (created in the image and likeness of God), a different view of one God Who cared about people, a different code of ethics that was clearly a cut above the mores of the ancient world. Still, they were reluctant to sign on officially as converts to Judaism because of the stringent expectations on Jews. They preferred to worship as “God-fearers”, Gentiles attracted to Judaism, but not members. St Paul felt that the Jesus Movement was a way for these folks to get on board. Not all Jews, not even all Jewish Christians, agreed.
However, these Jesus Movement house churches started to develop rifts among themselves. Rather than a united worldview, the Jesus Movement was causing scandal. Just like now??
Though St Paul had persecuted the Jesus Movement in his youth, his conversion to Christ Jesus brought home several realities that formed his consciousness permanently. 1) This Jesus Who was crucified and rejected by legitimate institutions, viz., the Roman Empire and Temple leadership of the time, was now vindicated by God as innocent. (Paul had been a Pharisee and Pharisees believed in an afterlife and resurrection.) Clearly, God had vindicated Jesus and His message of God’s New World Order (the Kingdom). 2) St Paul came to see that legitimate institutions might be legitimate, but that did not mean they were absolute. Christ Jesus and His worldview were the Absolutes that God had vindicated. State and institutional religion were relativized. St Paul wanted his Jesus Movement to share the vision of a new world view, a new explanation, a new understanding based on what God had done in Christ Jesus. All that Jesus had said and done for the Kingdom of God for which He was crucified and rose again was for real. 3) Jesus’ methodology to enoughism, viz., non-violent active engagement with obstacles to enoughism, which He wanted His Movement to follow (Thy Kingdom come!”) was peace through compassionate solidarity; the institution’s methodology was peace through victory (aka “might makes right?”) . Just like now???
What Paul stood for was the paradox of the cross. He had experienced rejection from most of his Jewish kinsfolk for whom a crucified Messiah was a scandal. He had experienced ridicule from most of the Gentile listeners. Still, as he wrote later on, “the Gospel will not be stopped.” The One Who was rejected by legitimate institutions was the One Whom God raised from the dead.
The paramount reality was the insight that Jesus is Lord. Sadly, the Jesus Movement in Corinth were missing the forest for the trees. They were focusing on one spin of the Gospel (Paul’s, Peter’s, Apollos’??) more than the reality-altering insight that Jesus is Lord, relativizing the World, the System, the conventional wisdom, the way that “they” (in the know!!!) thinks and acts. Christian Insight and its implications were the important things, not an ideology. Just like now??
Sadly, many members of the Jesus Movement today focus on liberal vs. conservative, Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, born again. Sad, when individual “Christians” snipe at one another, sadder still when Christian groups do the sniping! Remember the tragic, but comical scene of the monks fighting with each other near the manger in Bethlehem just before Christmas. (Thank God, Catholistics were not involved in that scandal.) Outsiders who relish Christian in-fighting now refer to Christianists, viz., our “Christian values”, as opposed to others’ Christian values. It becomes again “My (Christianist) way or the highway.” One cannot find a biblical reference for that one. Just like now??
We might reach the sad realization that our in-fighting among ourselves and our accommodation to the System cause scandal and missed chances. Let us get our acts together!! “For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” Just like now?? 031112AD jfq
