Because Rights Are Not Enough--September 15, 2022

Because Rights Are Not Enough--September 15, 2022

"This is my defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to our food and drink? Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? Who at any time pays the expenses for doing military service? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not get any of its milk?  Do I say this on human authority? Does not the law also say the same? For it is written in the law of Moses, ‘You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.’ Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Or does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was indeed written for our sake, for whoever ploughs should plough in hope and whoever threshes should thresh in hope of a share in the crop. If we have sown spiritual good among you, is it too much if we reap your material benefits? If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we still more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ." [1 Corinthians 9:3-12]

Sometimes the apostle Paul is crafty like a fox.  He starts leaving a set of tracks going in one direction, and you think you know where he is headed with his train of thought... only to have him take a sharp turn and head in the opposite direction to outflank you.  You think you've got him figured out and just about cornered, and it turns out he's lulled you into a false sense of security and lured you into his rhetorical trap.  Clever guy, that Paul.

It happens here, and once Paul gets going, he just keeps building up steam and momentum until the unexpected hairpin turn at the end.  It starts with Paul laying out a case for his "rights."  In particular, Paul is making the case that as an apostle--someone sent by the risen Jesus to bring the good news to the world--he has the "right" to be compensated for his time, energy, and effort. For that matter, he would have the right to be married, like other early Christians leaders were, too [yeah, that mention of "Cephas" there?  That's Simon Peter himself, whom the gospels also suggest was married.].  And to back up his case, Paul gives other ordinary examples--the empire pays soldiers for their time serving; farmers gets to eat from the produce of what they grow and drink the milk from the cows they raise.  Paul even goes back to the laws of the Torah that allowed an animal being used to tread out grain to eat freely from the grain while it is laboring.  They all have the right, so to speak, to be compensated for their labor.

And, absolutely, just right there, that's a fair point.  Yes, farmers, soldier, and even beasts of burden are all given compensation for their work from the "fruits" of their labor.  So, Paul implies, he also can claim to have the "right" to be compensated, by the congregations he is serving, for the work he does.  Again, that's airtight logic, and I can't imagine anybody in this day and age disputing the idea that people should be paid for their labor.  Got it, Paul-you've convinced us.  You have a right to be paid or compensated somehow for all you are doing for the fledgling church in Corinth, as well as in all the other places you have gone and spread the Good News.

But now, get ready for the rug to be pulled out from under us.  Because after going to great lengths to get us on his side about his "right" to be compensated for his work as an apostle, Paul zigs when we think he is going to zag and says, "nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the Gospel of Christ."  In other words, Paul just spent a paragraph demonstrating that he has a right to something, but then, just when he's convinced us that he does have that legitimate right, he stops and says, "But demanding my rights isn't enough to build a life on--I'd rather spend my energy and time on sharing the Good News of Jesus with people, even if it means waiving my rights."

And I can't help now but think back to earlier in this letter when Paul was addressing the question of having lawsuits between church members, and how Paul had undercut all of their legal wrangling and petty infighting about who is guiltier than whom by simply saying, "Okay, but why not just be wronged?  Why not take the hit and absorb the loss rather than hurt the other person?  Why not break the cycle of transactional thinking?"  In a way, this whole business about not demanding to exercise his "right" for compensation is Paul's way of practicing what he preaches.  Yes, he could insist to the folks at First Church of Corinth that he demands a certain base salary for his work, but he knows that could come across like he's a shady snake-oil salesman just looking to make a buck.  So instead, Paul has waived that right and spent part of his time working a day job [traditionally, folks have translated the word for Paul's trade as "tentmaking," but other scholars think "leatherworker" or "awning maker" are better translations.].  Paul was bi-vocational, as we would say today; he had a day job that paid the bills, and he also worked to plant churches and share the gospel with people.  What Paul is making clear here is that this was an intentional choice on his part--he knowingly, consciously, and willingly waived his "right" to be paid as an apostle for the sake of being a more faithful witness.  By not taking a paycheck for his church-related work, Paul was removing any possible accusation that he was just in it for the money, or that he was pulling a Professor Harold Hill grift like in The Music Man blowing into town to get a bunch of money from some unsuspecting rubes, and then bailing out on the next train to do it all over again.  Paul was more interested in being an authentic witness of Jesus than he was in demanding his rights, and he took that seriously enough to work another job.  That's compelling.

Now, I know it can seem a little odd for me--a paid church employee, who does not have another day job as a source of income--to be singing Paul's praises here for refusing to take a salary for being an apostle.  But I don't think the point here is that everyone has to do exactly the same as Paul in terms of getting paid or not in the church.  [Paul himself has just pointed out that plenty of other apostles were within their rights to have families or to be materially or financially supported by the church communities they served, and he doesn't seem to hold a grudge against them for doing so.]  What I do think is crucial is that Paul is living out the self-giving love of Jesus in ways that make sense for his situation, even when that means letting go of some of what he could be "entitled" to or have a "right" to.  He is using his faithful imagination to think out what form the way of Christ will take in his life, knowing that it will be different than it looks in Peter's life, or Barnabas' life, or for that matter, even in Jesus' life.  Jesus, for example, did get financial support from some of his well-to-do followers, including a number of notable and prominent women, as the gospel of Luke reports.  So Paul isn't even insisting on copying what Jesus did as a rigid rule--he is taking the way of life that Jesus has given us and expressing it in his own way for his own context.  And to be honest, that's really all any of us are called to do as followers of Jesus--to figure out in our situations what it could look like to love the way Jesus loves... including when that means waiving "rights" rather than demanding them.

Today, you and I will have a thousand different opportunities to practice that same kind of love, and yours will look different from mine.  Some people will be in a position to sacrifice their "right" for more money in order to do the work they are called in a setting that pays less than more affluent areas.  Others will be able to give time because their schedules are not jam packed with obligations and commitments.  The particulars will be different--but each of us is called to find ways, as Paul does, to put the way of Jesus into action in our lives, and quite often, that will mean a posture that seeks others' good first.

In a culture like ours that sometimes just shouts so loudly about "defending my rights" that we end up isolated and alone, it is a revolutionary thing to say, "Yes, I have right to this... but I'm more interested in embodying the gospel than demanding some abstract notion of 'rights.'"  But that's what Paul has modeled for us, and he was only just riffing on what he learned from Jesus first.

How will we carry on the same tradition today, and how might we inspire those who come after us?

Lord Jesus, you waived your 'rights' to so many things for the sake of redeeming us.  Captivate us by that love, and inspire us to give ourselves away freely as so many others have done who have gone before us, walking in your way.