Super-Apostles

In the passage beginning in II Corinthians 5:10, Saint Paul lambastes "super-apostles."  Super-apostles are au courant, way cooler than Paul.  Apparently these competitors look down on manual labour, association with "friends in low places," and that unseemly focus on Jesus' crucifixion in a society which always equates that form of execution with treason and failure.  Paul is guilty of all that.  If Pauline ministry is to be judged by the standards of worldly success and status, then he has failed.  But here Paul goes on the defence and stands up strongly for his emphasis on the Cross of Christ.  Here he addresses a Corinthian community of converts who nonetheless find out that the process of reconciliation is ongoing.  What God in God's grace has already made them they must struggle to continue to be.  The grace, mercy and love of God seen in Christ's self-sacrifice is the motivator.

These parishioners are to serve the Righteousness of God, meaning that they -- like we -- are commissioned to be God's blessing where we are planted, to bless the world in God's Name.

The Greek word for righteousness is diakosune (Heb. tzedakah) carrying the connotation of right action and justice.  These words have nothing to do with punishment, everything to do with true reconciliation and restoration of relationships. It is akin to the Hebrew concept of tikkun olam, repairing the world -- or, in Christian language, building the Kingdom of God, creating a world in which God's will is done on earth as in heaven.  Implicit in this notion is that the peace and the reconcilation we seek require the justice we are called to bring forth.

Thus the Gospel has a serious political dimension, whether we like it or not.  To seek peace and justice and reconciliation is also to speak out against domination systems reliant on violence, on alienation of working people and on their exploitation.  Sadly, many of today's super-apostles -- presently called tele-evangelists and mega-preachers -- are on the wrong side of the divide.  They have been co-opted by the politico-economic culture, surrendered to corporatism, focussed on the criteria of growth, accumulation of wealth and bankrupt "prosperity theology" which Jesus hated, and puffed up by worldly fame, power and popularity feeding the cult of the personality.

May we remain faithful to the Gospel and its irreducible principles that charge us to work for justice, thus to promote peace and to bring about the change that God would see in our world.