Supernatural Discernment
“Supernatural Discernment”
Psalm 112:1-9(10) 1 Corinthians 2:1-12(13-16) Matthew 5:13-20
Fifth Sunday after Epiphany, Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
February 9, 2020
First Presbyterian Church of Sandpoint, Idaho
Andrew Kennaly, Pastor
Our tour bus stopped and parked. Me and 40 people from Texas got off the bus and followed our grumpy tour guide onto the sidewalk leading over the bridge. Our group of Americans kind of stood out on this study tour of Turkey and Greece. After flying from Istanbul to Athens, our Greek tour guide and disgruntled bus driver drove us toward the Peloponnese, which is a large peninsula in southwestern Greece. Some consider this area an island because in 1893 the Corinth Canal was opened after 11 years of digging this massive trench as it connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. Standing on the bridge you can see both bodies of water, the canal is only four miles long and it’s completely flat and straight. For the fourteen hundred years leading up to the canal, Corinth was a very important city, five times the size of Athens at its peak. It was a provincial capital, and while the Old City was destroyed by the Romans, the new city was about 100 years old by the time Paul arrived on the scene in the year 51 CE.
As a very wealthy, populated, new metropolis, Corinth had it’s share of social ills and could be kind of a rough place. Notice Paul says, “I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.” It was almost a death sentence if you were a slave, forced to pull small boats overland so they wouldn’t need to risk going around the long way in the open, treacherous seas. For a price, your cargo and the boat itself would be hefted overland, and in the meantime the crew would enjoy some time in the city, checking out the local attractions, and spending even more money. Two prominent, ancient trade routes converged in Corinth, so it was very metropolitan, quite advanced, exceedingly wealthy, and strategically located. Corinth had global influence, so it’s no wonder Paul took the brave step and visited.
Eugene Peterson gives us a glimpse of this visit and ongoing relationship of Paul and the Corinthians in The Message, a New Testament translation that includes an introduction to 1 Corinthians that says, in part,
“When people become Christians, they don’t at the same moment become nice. This always comes as something of a surprise. Conversion to Christ and [Christ’s] ways doesn’t automatically furnish a person with impeccable manners and suitable morals. The people of Corinth had a reputation in the ancient world […]. Paul spent a year and a half with them as their pastor, going over the Message of the ‘good news’ in detail how to live out this new life of salvation and holiness as a community of believers. Then he went on his way […]. Sometime later Paul received a report […] that […] things had more or less fallen apart. […] Factions developed, morals were in disrepair, worship had degenerated into a selfish grabbing for the supernatural. […] Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians is a classic of pastoral response: affectionate, firm, clear, and unswerving in the conviction that God among them, revealed in Jesus and present in [the] Holy Spirit, continued to be the central issue in their lives, regardless of how much of a mess they had made of things. Paul doesn’t disown them […], doesn’t throw them out because of their bad behavior, and doesn’t fly into a tirade over their irresponsible ways. He takes it all more or less in stride, but also takes them by the hand and goes over all the old ground again, directing them in how to work all the glorious details of God’s saving love into their love for one another.” (The Message, by Eugene Peterson, NavPress, 2004, Introduction 1 Corinthians, pg 1324 small leather bound edition).
“When people become Christians, they don’t at the same moment become nice….directing them in how to work all the glorious details of God’s saving love into their love for one another.” There’s a similar dynamic involved in mystical faith when practices and spiritual disciplines such as Centering Prayer, actually do what’s known as, “the cleansing of the conscience.” (this link is to a Richard Rohr YouTube video describing contemplation and some of the dynamics that happen).
The fact that the people of Corinth were having malicious thoughts leading to relational issues is actually an indicator that spiritual work is well under way, like Jesus getting baptized, followed immediately by the Spirit driving him into the wilderness, where he faces wild beasts, and angels ministered to him.
This text is not the legalistic Paul, not the moralistic Paul, not Paul the Zealot, but the Mystical Paul. His Contemplative stance comes through as he reviews the basics of how to live in ways so unlike their world, saying things like, “among the mature we do speak wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. […] God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within?” (within!)
This is an inner experience, a spiritual transformation inside the human heart and soul, where God’s Spirit teaches us, not with human wisdom, but from God. He says, “Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” That’s mystical faith, beyond understanding, silently praying and communing with God in ways the mind dismisses because the mind cannot understand it.
Paul is encouraging the Corinthians in their discomfort and early stage contemplation, saying
“Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. […] But we have the mind of Christ.”
Jesus says the same thing in Matthew, reminding his followers of their True Self in God, saying,
“You are the salt of the earth. […] You are the light of the world.”
Then he addresses the struggle in truly living that out, getting past the blocks we put up that contaminate the saltiness or try and snuff the light by covering it up. He also talks about the Pharisees and scribes, who faithfully live in ways that try and earn righteousness, but the kingdom of heaven is not based on merit, as Jesus graciously fulfills the law and the prophets.
We have inherited in Western society, a culture and a Church that has been shaped by dualism, but the dialectic, by constant judging, which puts us in a continual self-referential pattern where we base our decisions on our own thoughts. Religious traditions have created forms or formulas, society has laws and rules, and these serve some purpose, but fall really short of transforming the world at a heart level, a soul level. We need laws and rules, they help prevent chaos. But something deeper is needed to deal with the ever-present anxiety inherent to life, the pervading fear that lingers under the surface.
Living in the Spirit of God involves more of a both/and approach, a Yes/and attitude toward reality. The Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives helps us through supernatural discernment that embraces mystery, uncertainties, paradox, struggles, and guides us as we, like Jesus in the desert, face our wild beast even as God’s angels minister to us. The spiritual journey is not for the faint of heart, and like Paul heading to Corinth, it shakes us to the core. But this is only because our core is changing as it finds it’s grounding in Christ.
Those from Corinth writing to Paul, and the persecuted community Matthew is encouraging are good company for us as we honestly recognize that calling on the Lord does bring an answer, but not without struggle. The thinking mind does not give up power voluntarily. But neither does breathing, and we were gifted with the Presence of God within each breath from the very beginning of our life, long before cognitive ability and conceptual thinking took hold. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. Our spirit, uniting with God’s Spirit, help us live into the reality of Grace, that we are light, we are the salt of the earth, and we are held in God’s eternal love which casts out fear and humbles us in Christ. May we have supernatural discernment to receive this revelation, to allow this transformation, and respond to the invitation to steady our hearts in Christ.
And may God’s humble love be glorified, NOW, even as forever. Amen.