Changing Structures
“The present form of this world is passing away.” Paul wrote these words almost 2,000 years ago, so was he wrong? I guess it depends on how you look at it.
Paul wrote that the world’s σχημα, a Greek word that can also mean “outward structure,” would soon change drastically. Paul had good reason for believing Jesus would be back soon. It’s reported in Matthew that Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (16:28) Mark and Luke recall similar statements. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians were written before the gospels, but nonetheless it seems that many of the earliest Christians believed Jesus would return in their lifetimes.
So when Paul’s friends from the church in Corinth wrote him with questions, that idea was probably at the forefront of his mind. As scholar Paul Sampley writes, “Paul is uniformly and steadfastly convinced that God is on the brink of finishing up the creation’s restoration, which was begun in Christ’s death and resurrection.” (Sampley, 748) So the end of the story has been written and Paul and his fellow Jesus-followers were living in the space in between.
The questions from the Corinthians centered on how best to live, and Paul addresses a handful in today’s passage. If you are married, act as if you have no spouse. Whether you are in mourning or full of joy, act like someone who is not. If you are shopping, keep in mind earthly possessions are fleeting. To paraphrase, have no more dealings with the world than are necessary for today. Paul is trying to steer Jesus-followers from “any inclination to live in accordance with the standards of the world.” (Sampley, 763) As Sampley writes, you should “live in these structures and in these relationships . . . as if the world, its structures, and these relationships did not provide life with its value and meaning because one knows that the defining relationship, and therefore value, comes from one’s relation to God, in Christ.” (Sampley, 763–764)
Paul had a radical transformation following his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. He had been following what we might now call a promising career path. He was a Pharisee, and perhaps had a bright future in that role. Rather than pursuing it, though, he embraced the gospel of Jesus and its countercultural message.
He was an educated person, and influenced by the Stoic philosophy “in which there is a fundamental effort to distinguish what really matters — that is, what really counts — from what does not matter, or from what matters less or not at all.” (Sampley, 749) So from today’s passage you can take that he believes emotions, shopping, marriage, and pretty much any other dealings with the world deserve minimal attention.
That seems like a tough sell. Are we to disregard our emotions, buy our groceries one day at a time, ignore our spouses, drop our insurance coverage, and stop paying bills? Is that what Paul means?
I don’t think so, at least not entirely. Paul might have believed Jesus would be back during his lifetime, but I don’t think he meant folks were to ignore all of their worldly obligations. I think what he’s trying to do is shift their priorities in light of a larger reality revealed by the gospel, pointing to the day when God’s kin-dom would be fully realized.
This is an example of apocalyptic writing. As Christopher Rowland puts it, “apocalypse as ‘unveiling’ or ‘unmasking’ challenges the status quo, and the horizon of hope instills a sense of dissatisfaction, and the recognition of the extent of complacency. The questioning of habits, values, and social structures, together with the ‘unmasking’ of hidden powers and ideologies, is typical of what apocalypse offers.” (Rowland, 302)
For good reason, the first generations of Jesus-followers were not satisfied with many of the habits, values, and social structures that surrounded them. Nor should we be. Even though there’s a lot of disagreement among different parties in our country, everyone probably agrees that there’s room for improvement. We just might not always agree on which improvements should take priority (or perhaps what improvement even looks like).
There are many issues over which people disagree, but nonetheless I hear common themes in a lot of what they say. People don’t like the divisiveness in our society. They don’t like the corruption in our politics. They don’t like that many live in need. They don’t like spending so much time on their phones, endlessly scrolling through social media feeds. They don’t like the endless commercialism to which we’re exposed.
It’s hard to push back against that, though, isn’t it? This is largely due to the fact that there’s profit to be made in divisiveness, corruption, social media, and marketing. Cable news sells more advertising when they feed the conflicts that separate us. Politicians solidify their power when they exchange legislation for gifts. Social media is able to push more ads when they fine-tune their algorithms to keep us scrolling. And marketers succeed every time they convince us that we not only want but need and deserve whatever it is they’re selling.
Consider also that the professions associated with the above efforts (and their forerunners) have had 2,000 years to develop their craft since the time of Paul!
It seems Paul and the Stoics who informed his philosophy were on to something. How do we separate what matters from what doesn’t? How do we best allocate our time and resources? To what extent should we engage with the world? Is it better to withdraw, take care of our own, and wait for the end to come?
Biblical scholar Christopher Rowland suggests that’s not the case when he writes that “the present order of the cosmos, in which the interests of the few humans are served at the expense of the many others and indeed of creation as a whole, is a sign of massive disorder. But this suspicion of the cosmos does not mean that the Judeo-Christian tradition . . . is world-denying. When New Testament writers . . . speak of ‘the form of this world passing away,’ they are not referring to the imminent winding up of the world and the irruption of a new world from above. Rather it is the desire and, where at all possible, the implementation of another way of being and behaving that demands an alteration in the approach to human relationships and to creation as a whole, so that they reflect the peace and justice of God, which will be manifested in the New Age. Early Christian religion involved the conviction that the world was the arena of God’s saving purposes, past, present, and future, but the form of the world in its entirety had been demonstrated as being disordered in the light of the messiah and his rejection.” (Rowland, 300–301)
Just as in our time, wealth and power in Paul’s time was concentrated in the hands of a few. That was and is the source of much of the suffering in the world. Addressing that issue does not require the end of the world, though — just some changes to the systems that feed injustice. Rowland goes on to write that Christians did not believe “that the end of the world was imminent. Rather its arrangements would be changed. Meanwhile in the midst of its present disorder it was important not to be conformed to the world as it was. Early Christian hopes for the future in Christianity’s first century and a half . . . was hope for the coming of God’s kingdom on earth, this world, this present existence, not some otherworldly realm after the destruction of this world.” (Rowland, 305)
So Jesus-followers were to stay free — to the best of their abilities — from those worldly systems that did harm, while elevating their relationships with others. Paul promoted peace in his writings, and his words to the Corinthians would have encouraged them to be at peace with one another, and within themselves. Indeed, in the line that follows today’s passage, Paul writes “I want you to be free from anxieties.” (7:32)
It’s unlikely that those in Corinth would have had much ability to change the systems of injustice within their society, but that didn’t mean adopting a worldly way of life. Even if the kin-dom of God wasn’t yet fully realized, there were opportunities to share a taste of it along the way.
It seems Paul was sometimes writing with the weight of the world on his shoulders; thus his line about being free from anxiety might have been a reminder to himself that Jesus encouraged the same. Paul was aware of the brokenness of the world around him, so he might have been tempted to “fix” things all at once. (Paul strikes me as an overachiever.) Perhaps he questioned whether he was making a difference through his many trips, letters, and speeches. How much influence could they possibly have? Centuries later, we have the answer, and we’re still being inspired by his message.
Pushing the world beyond its current σχημα often isn’t easy. The powers and principalities of the world are entrenched, and they don’t like being disrupted. But disruption happens.
I was reminded of that while watching the movie Rustin last week. It tells the story of Bayard Rustin, the chief organizer of the March on Washington in 1963. Rustin, Martin Luther King, and other march leaders faced obstacles not only from the the president, the FBI, and other authorities, but internally as well; the movie does not try to hide the fact that there was conflict among the different organizations involved. In addition, the leaders and organizers faced threats to their safety, and the exhaustion that often comes from working for justice.
Nonetheless, thousands of people played different roles to make the march work, many while holding at bay the day-to-day demands of the world. On the day of the event, 250,000 people showed up. The voices of the people were heard and a glimpse of the kin-dom was seen, not only by those who witnessed it in 1963, but by future generations as well.
I’ve heard some people speak of the protests and marches of the 1960s with nostalgia, as if such efforts can’t be repeated. I reject such thinking. We have better transportation and communication tools now than we did in past decades. We each have networks that transcend state and even national borders. We also have more information and visibility into systemic abuses.
Do we face obstacles in our pursuit of justice? Of course. The powerful prefer we keep our eyes on our screens rather than on them, and they like to sow conflict between common people to distract us from the harms they inflict. So we must elevate our eyes away from our phones and escape those who would draw us into less significant squabbles in order to pursue the kin-dom.
What might this look like? Let me provide an example. Martin Luther King founded the Poor People’s Campaign five years after the March on Washington. The Poor People’s Campaign seeks to counter the forces that maintain poverty by lifting up and amplifying the voices of those affected by systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, and ecological devastation. On March 2, they will be marching and demonstrating in Washington, DC, and in dozens of capitals across the country, including Harrisburg. The goal will be to bring to the forefront some ways in which the lives of the poor can be improved through systemic and legislative change.
There are some who might suggest it’s a waste of time to get involved in such an activity. We’re sold the idea that poverty is an insurmountable problem, too complex to address in a meaningful way. What’s not often mentioned is that poverty has decreased over time. For instance, in our country it’s half of what it was fifty years ago. (Congressional Research Service) There are things we can do to reduce it.
One is to support the Poor People’s Campaign. You can do that by attending the event, by promoting it on social media, by sharing it with friends, or by volunteering to help. Whether you only have a few minutes to participate, are willing to attend the march, or can devote a few extra hours to help with preparations, you can make a difference.
This isn’t the only opportunity to help further the kin-dom in the coming months; I share it as an example. You may already be involved in similar efforts to promote justice and love our neighbors. What’s notable about any such involvement is that it anticipates a different way of life. (Rowland, 301) It rejects the structures of the world in favor of a new σχημα. It reveals more of the coming kin-dom, building toward its full realization.
Siblings in Christ, if you look around and see the brokenness of the world, if you are broken yourself, know that a better world is coming. Its present form is passing away. That doesn’t mean the things we love about our world are coming to an end, however; rather, those forces that promote injustice and suffering will be banished, and we will finally witness the world as it was meant to be.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Works Referenced
Congressional Research Service. “Poverty in the United States in 2020.” Accessed January 18, 2024. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47030
Rowland, Christopher. “Ecology and Eschatology in the Second Temple Period.” In The Oxford Handbook of The Bible and Ecology, edited by Hilary Marlow and Mark Harris. New York City: Oxford University Press, 2022.
Sampley, J. Paul. “1 Corinthians.” In New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015.
