Tenth Sunday after Pentecost; Post-feast of the Transfiguration; Holy Apostle Matthias
1 Corinthians 4:9-16; Acts 1:12-17, 21-26; Matthew 17:14-23; Luke 9:1-6
Polyeleos Feast. Dormition Fast.
Read 1 Corinthians 4:9-16
When a Roman army returned to the city from winning a great victory it was customary for the soldiers to file in procession under magnificent arches which had been previously built for this exact purpose. They believed that they needed to be purified from all the terrible things they needed to do in order to conquer. Passing under these arches were part of that process. It would be a day of celebration, a public display of power and glory. They would parade the riches they had taken through the streets, and at the back of the procession, they would lead an exhausted group of prisoners they had captured who would be publicly killed for the entertainment of the people or else sold into slavery.
This is the image St. Paul is using to communicate his difficult message to the Christians of Corinth. Deeply divided through factions stemming from personality cults, the Corinthian Christians had fallen into the temptation of seeking after philosophers who felt they were fulfilled and completed already. St. Paul reminds them that to truly follow Christ is to follow a crucified Messiah. The place of the Apostles is at the back of the procession of this world: misunderstood, mocked and rejected. St. Paul’s sarcasm is meant to shake his hearers out of their complacency and realign their allegiances and attitudes.
Despite his sarcasm, St. Paul’s admonition of the Corinthians is not a condemnation, but a wake-up call to repentance motivated by his fatherly love, and he speaks to us today as much as to the Corinthians. If the path that we take in following Christ does not lead to the cross, we are on the wrong path. The wisdom of this age and the comfort and safety of this world will not save us. There is only Resurrection following Golgotha. This Sunday ask yourself “Is my life easier for following Christ, or more difficult?” Let us accept St. Paul’s invitation to imitate him in all his sufferings knowing that we are suffering with and for the Crucified Lover of this world!