Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

Right out of the gate of our Office Epistle Reading today, Paul says to us, “Therefore, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols.” And he then goes on to talk about the Eucharist.

The context of that “Therefore” is so important here. Paul has been talking about the disobedience of God’s people in the wilderness as it’s related to (which is to say, the result of) idolatry and rebellion against God. That "Therefore" is also part of a longer conversation on whether or not it’s licit to eat food offered to idols when that food goes on sale in the marketplace or if it happens to be served to you at a dinner party. Paul’s advice on that last point is: don’t worry about it…unless, in partaking of the food, you wound the conscience of a weaker believer, scandalize them, and risk them falling away from the faith—your freedom in Christ, he insists, doesn’t mean you get to ignore the needs, concerns, and weakness of others, but that you’re empowered to care for those needs, concerns and weaknesses.

In this way, the food offered to idols is contrasted with the food of the Eucharist. Our idols will always demand that we feed them—the patterns of sin and death that run us will never nourish us, but they’ll always manage to devour our substance, to eat us up, to waste us. Jesus, however, God Incarnate, always desires to feed us with his very own substance! He shares our human nature so that we can participate in his divine nature! He pours himself out for us so that we can be filled with the reality of his life and love! And not as part of a quid pro quo arrangement, not as a feature of some bargain: there’s nothing we have done are can do to earn this nourishment, nothing we can give God to earn or deserve grace. God does this for us,—nourishes us, fills us, allows us to participate in the very divine life—because God bafflingly loves us, loves us completely, loves us more than we can imagine, and gives us grace as a gift of this love. Our response to it is to receive it or reject it.

All that’s part of what Paul’s getting at here in I Corinthians, but there’s even more to it. Paul’s critique of idolatry participates in a tradition of prophetic critiques which can be summed up (inadequately, granted, given the beauty and richness of prophetic poetry, but not inaccurately for all that) by the observation that if the social fabric is falling apart; if there is oppression; if the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; if the least, the lost, the lonely are forgotten; if everything is me me me, mine mine mine; if injustice is prevalent and violence so common it’s ignored or cultivated for the sake of power, status, or entertainment; if all or even some of that is the case, chances are folks have started to worship some idol of some sort—folks have started to worship images of themselves, in other words—and have fallen away from God.

Paul is challenging us today, then, to turn away from our idols, to let grace clean out the temples of our hearts, so that we can be filled with the grace that God always desires to give us…so that we, in turn, can be empowered to love and care for others.

We call this day, this Thursday, we call it Maundy Thursday because Maundy is from mandatum, the Latin word for “command;” and we’ve been given a new commandment from Jesus: “Love one another as I have loved you” (John 13:34b). Not: “Love one another so that I will love you.” No! Rather, Jesus says, “I love you…let my love live in you, and love with my love.” As the hymn says, “Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est”: Where Love and Charity abide, God is there! What wondrous love is this indeed! A love beyond our knowing, beyond our comprehension, beyond, even, our ability to desire it fully!

Beloved Friend! I pray that today and throughout these holy days, we will come to allow God to desire God’s love fully in us!

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+

P.S.: Visit stphilipstucson.org to access the various online worship opportunities available today and in the days to come:
Maundy Thursday at 7pm Thursday, 9 April (tonight!)
Good Friday at 12pm Friday, 10 April
Easter Vigil at 7pm Saturday, 11 April
Easter Day at 10am Sunday, 12 April
Morning Prayer Weekdays at 8:30am