Tenth Sunday after Pentecost. Holy Apostles and Deacons Prochor, Nicanor, Timon and Parmenas (1st-2nd c.)
1 Corinthians 4:9-16. Matthew 17:14-23.
Read 1 Corinthians 4:9-16
Almost every North American family with children has experienced school science projects. They can be fraught with scrambles to acquire materials and meet deadlines made urgent by student procrastination. Then they are subject to the very public scrutiny of the judges. The quality can vary widely, the best exhibiting a good basic understanding of the scientific method, others not so much.
If God were to produce an exhibit, though, who could judge it to be anything but definitive? Today’s epistle reading declares that “God has exhibited.” God’s exhibit is The Apostles. The format of the exhibit is a comparison with self-satisfied Christians.
The Apostles are presented as men doomed to die in the Colosseum: foolish, weak, disreputable, hungry, thirsty, ill-clad, homeless manual laborers. This is how, with the eyes of this world, they appear as they give of themselves “for Christ’s sake”.
The self-satisfied Corinthian Christians view themselves as wise, strong, and deserving of honor. Because of this they are prone to being influenced by self-serving preachers rather than those who preach the apostolic gospel of “Christ crucified…the foolishness of God wiser than men, and the weakness of God stronger than men.” (1 Corinthians 1: 23,25)
If it was a school project, the exhibit could be titled “How to Tell You Are Not Imitating Christ”. From the scriptural record of Acts and the Epistles, the Apostles were wise, well-spoken men of strong faith and character who carried themselves honorably. These things are not being criticized. What is found wanting is the inability of the Corinthian Christians to discern that the Apostles were imitating Christ in their humility. The source of this lack of discernment was their own attraction to false understandings of wisdom, strength, and honor – they judged by appearances and by association. God’s exhibit is instructive for us all.