Jealously and Rivalry-Tricky Business

Wednesday of Week 22 in Ordinary Time

1 Corinthians 3:1-9

This letter, broadly speaking, addresses obvious problems that have arisen within the Corinthian community.  The word has gotten back to Paul.  He is in loving, parental correction mode. 

Paul is crafty.  In one sentence the good people of Corinth go from being Brothers and Sisters to infants…from love to correction…lightening fast!  It is so succinct and so right-on.  Paul is addressing those in the community that have decided, on their own, how spiritually elite they are.  They are the pneumatists and they are anything BUT ‘fleshy.’  Not to Paul.  His argument is a good one.  And a good one still.

If self-congratulation (something Paul engaged in from time to time) leads to jealousy and rivalry then it’s ‘fleshy’ (for Paul this means governed by that which is other-than God.)  These pneumatists are a source of disunity.  This disunity is a sign of God’s absence.  This isn’t a good proof for how spiritual they are.

So working backward I can lie down at the end of the day and examine.  

            Paul teaches me to look for jealously and rivalry.

            I can start with my own.

            And then I can examine the jealousy and rivalry around me.

            Is any of it related to my attitude or actions?

            How might I be careful not to inspire Pauline fleshiness?

            And finally, how might I, with Pauline craftiness,

            call it out without causing more jealousy and rivalry?

The Pauline Key:  Through it all the “I” is rooted in God…it is the love of God taking over my heart so that I might come in God’s name and not my own.

Therefore, neither the one who plants

Not the one who waters is anything

But only God

Who causes the growth    v7