Reading Francis

Be like … Paul?

Even though Paul was my father’s name, my middle name, my confirmation name, and the author of half the New Testament books, he’s not one of my favorite saints. He was crazy smart and went non-stop, but it’s hard to read his letters without thinking he was also really high drama. I mean, Paul was a lot sometimes (much unlike my Dad, by the way). Maybe no more so than in 2 Corinthians.

My New Testament professor in undergrad, Charles Talbert, wrote a book on Paul’s two letters to the Corinthians, and it was interesting to learn that scholars believed that 2 Corinthians was actually a mashup of several letters because it was just so disjointed, and the changes in Paul’s mood and tone were so severe from one stretch to the next. It’s complicated by the fact that he used to quote his opponents and then refute them, which is sound rhetoric but doesn’t translate so well when the language you’re writing in doesn’t have quotation marks. (So some of the things that people pull out of context from Paul’s letters might be bad ideas he’s about to refute).

Anyway, Catholics who go to daily mass (or follow along with the cycle of readings for those) are getting a heavy dose of 2 Corinthians as we come back to ordinary time. And the one for Monday, 2 Corinthians 6:1-10, is kind of worth sitting with.

The first part is a passage we hear every Ash Wednesday: “Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” The Gospel was urgent business for Paul. And then he brags a little (which is nothing compared to what you’ll hear later in the week). There’s an interesting litany of sorts to the brag: 

“In everything we commend ourselves as ministers of God, through much endurance, in afflictions, hardships, constraints, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, vigils, fasts;

“By purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech, in the power of God;

“With weapons of righteousness at the right and at the left; through glory and dishonor, insult and praise.

“We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful; as unrecognized and yet acknowledged; as dying and behold we live; as chastised and yet not put to death; as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many; as having nothing and yet possessing all things.”

I split this list Paul rattles off into four, because they seem to be four very different sets of things.

The first one feels very, um, topical right now. While the first couple sounds pretty generic to the human experience – endurance and affliction and hardships, by the time you get to beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, vigils and fasts, it sounds like Paul is just reading this week’s headlines. 

The fourth set, on the other hand, sounds like something any unappreciated parent of a sulky teen could connect to. Being misunderstood, belittled and attacked while you’re out to do good is par for that course, at least occasionally.

The third set is just a few polar opposites – for better and for worse, if you will.

But it’s the second set that stands out to me. You can get caught up in a riot without being holy. You can be misunderstood and let it get to you. But what transcends the tropes for Paul are that second list that describes how he shows up in the good and the bad, the misunderstandings and the beatings: by purity; with knowledge and patience and kindness; with unfeigned love and truthful speech, a balance you almost have to have the Holy Spirit to fully pull off.

I don’t think you have to inherit Paul’s love of drama or go look for imprisonments; there’s always a chance that those things will find you anyway. But whether you’re enjoying glory or suffering dishonor, to live where you are with that mix of truth and love and kindness and patience is a pretty inspiring way that we can all hope to be like Paul.