Let go

 

Jesus’ greatest interpreter was a Pharisee known as Paul, from Tarsus in what is now Turkey, who had trained under Gamaliel, who was the head of the rabbinical school of thought named for his grandfather Hillel. In correspondence with the church in Corinth, Paul wrote:

‘...For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the presence of God...So let no one boast in humans. For all things are yours, whether [three master-teachers known to the church in Corinth, whose teachings – way of life – they argued about] or the world or life or death or the present or [that which will happen to you in] the future – all these things are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’

(1 Corinthians 3.18-23)

I am struck by how Paul reframes the things we – according to the wisdom of the world – try to control, as things that belong to us – that are intrinsically proper to our being – over which we have neither control nor the need to control them. Instead, Paul invites us to receive them as gifts, and to enter deeper into the mystery of these gifts.

I am struck by the inclusion of death in that list. As something to embrace, not fear. We are mortal (or, as Paul lists more fully, we are human creatures on the earth, who experience birth and death and the passage of time). And Jesus chose to embrace death, walking into this mysterious unknown adventure before us, transforming it – as so with life, with the world, with the present and the future – into its fullest, most complete, perfect expression. Not the end, but a new season. (To put it another way, death is not the consequence of sin, death as separation from God is the consequence of sin.)

The invitation is to let go and enjoy the incomparable gift we have been given. To go deeper into what it means to be human, in the imagination of the One who gave us life.