Stumbling over words
Dear People of St. Boniface,
My sources tell me that a controversy has broken out about the practice in the USA of applauding at the end of the sermon – applauding a sermon?! – and that the Vatican has been asked to intervene. It is felt that some priests may play to the gallery in order to get a higher reading on the ‘clapometer’.
Surprisingly perhaps, that is the context for the reading today. Let me explain. When I first came to Corinth from Athens, I found that two Jewish Christians from Rome, Priscilla and Aquila, had already arrived, and I joined them in preaching the Gospel and forming the Corinthian church. Then all three of us left for Ephesus.
Later I got news of various problems in Corinth via one of the community there, called Chloe. Among other things, a convert from Alexandria named Apollos had arrived and was impressing people greatly by his polished speeches. “So much more refined than that rustic Paul!” some of them were saying.
I have absolutely nothing against Apollos as we were fellow missionaries, and far be it from me to suggest I was jealous, but I did raise this issue in the letter I then sent from Ephesus, the letter you know as “First Corinthians”. If people were attracted to Apollos because he seemed wiser, they needed to remember that we were not preaching our own wisdom, but the wisdom of God.
What is more, the wisdom of God is all topsy-turvy: weak is strong, mad is sane, death is life, and so on. Maybe I was a feeble speaker stumbling over my words, but perhaps the fact that I couldn’t always get my sentences out is evidence that God really did entrust his riches to – as I call ourselves elsewhere – “frail earthen vessels, jars of clay” [2 Cor 4:7].
My blessing, from Heaven, PAUL