Homily 24 — First Corinthians 10, verses 13 to 24

“No trial has overtaken you except such as a human being can bear. But God is faithful, who will not let you be tried beyond what you are able to bear, but with the trial will also make the way of escape, so that you may be able to endure it.” [a]

He had frightened them badly by telling them the ancient examples, and had thrown them into anguish by saying, “Let anyone who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall.” Yet they had borne many trials and had been trained in them many times; for “I was with you,” he says, “in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling” (First Corinthians 2, verse 3). So, to keep them from saying, “Why frighten and alarm us? We are no strangers to these troubles. We have been driven out and persecuted, and we have endured many dangers, one after another,” he checks their pride again and says, “No trial has overtaken you except such as a human being can bear” — that is, small, brief, and moderate. He uses the expression “such as a human being can bear” of what is small, as when he says, “I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh” (Romans 6, verse 19). What he means is: “So do not think great things of yourselves, as though you had come through the storm. You have never yet seen a danger that threatened death, or a trial that meant to kill you.” He said the same to the Hebrews too: “You have not yet resisted to the point of blood in your struggle against sin” (Hebrews 12, verse 4).

Then, because he had frightened them, see how he lifts them up again, while at the same time urging them to think modestly of themselves, in the words, “God is faithful, who will not let you be tried beyond what you are able.” So there are trials we are not able to bear. And which are these? All of them, so to speak. For the ability lies in the help of God’s grace, a power we draw down by our own will. That is why he added, “but with the trial will also make the way of escape, so that you may be able to endure it” — so that you may know and see that not only the trials that go beyond our strength, but not even these that are “such as a human being can bear,” can easily be borne without help from God.

For this is what he is saying: “Not even those moderate trials, as I was remarking, can we bear by our own strength. Even in them we need his help in our fight, so that we may pass through them, and bear them until we have passed through. For he gives endurance and brings a quick release, and in this way too the trial becomes bearable.” He hints at this when he says, “will also make the way of escape, so that you may be able to bear it”; and he refers everything to God.

Verse 14: “Therefore, my brothers and sisters, flee from idolatry.” [c]

Again he wins them over by calling them family, and urges them to be rid of this sin with all speed. He did not simply say “leave it,” but “flee.” And he calls the thing “idolatry.” He no longer tells them to give it up only because of the harm it does their neighbor; he shows that the thing in itself is enough to bring great destruction.

Verse 15: “I speak as to wise men; judge for yourselves what I say.”

He had cried out loudly and made the charge heavier by calling it idolatry. So that he would not seem to be provoking them, or make his words distasteful, in what follows he leaves the decision to them and seats them as judges on the bench, with words of praise. “For I speak as to wise men,” he says. This is the mark of someone very sure of his case: to make the accused himself the judge of the charges. In this way too he lifts the hearer higher, since he speaks not as one giving orders or laying down the law, but as one taking counsel with them, and even pleading his case before them. With the Jews, who were more foolish and childish in their thinking, God did not speak this way. He did not tell them the reasons for his commands in every case; he simply gave the commands. But here, because we have been given great freedom, we are even admitted as counselors. And Paul speaks as with friends and says: “I need no other judges. You yourselves pass this sentence on me; I take you as my arbitrators.”

Verse 16: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ?” [d]

What are you saying, blessed Paul? You want to move your hearer to reverence; you are speaking of the awe-inspiring mysteries; and do you give the name “cup of blessing” to that fearful and most awe-inspiring cup? He answers: “Yes, and the title I have given it is no small one. When I say ‘blessing,’ I mean thanksgiving; and when I say thanksgiving, I unfold the whole treasure of God’s goodness and call to mind those great gifts.” For we too, as we recount over the cup the mercies of God that are beyond words, and all that we have been given a share in, draw near to him in this way and receive communion. We give him thanks that he has set the whole human race free from error; that when they were far off, he brought them near; that when they had no hope and were without God in the world, he made them his own brothers and fellow heirs. It is giving thanks for these and all such things that we come to him. And so Paul says: “How, then, are your actions not inconsistent, you Corinthians? You bless God for setting you free from idols, and yet you run back to their tables.”

“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a communion of the blood of Christ?” He said it very persuasively, and in a way that inspires awe. What he means is this: “What is in the cup is what flowed from his side, and it is of that we partake.” But he called it a cup of blessing because, as we hold it in our hands, we praise him in our hymn, marveling and astonished at his gift beyond words. We bless him, among other things, for pouring out this very drink so that we would not remain in error — and not only for pouring it out, but also for sharing it with us all. It is as if Christ were saying: “So if you want blood, do not redden the altar of idols with the slaughter of animals without reason, but my altar with my blood.” Tell me, what could be more awe-inspiring than this? What could be more tenderly kind?

Lovers do this too. When they see those they love wanting what belongs to strangers and despising their own, they give what is theirs, and so persuade them to turn away from the gifts of those others. But lovers show this generosity with goods and money and clothes; with blood, no one ever did so. Christ, though, showed his care and his burning love for us even in this. Under the old covenant, because the people were in an imperfect state, he himself consented to receive the blood they used to offer to idols, so that he might separate them from those idols; and this too was a proof of his affection beyond words. But here he moved the service to something far more awe-inspiring and glorious. He changed the sacrifice itself, and in place of the slaughter of creatures without reason, he commanded that he himself be offered.

“The bread which we break, is it not a communion of the body of Christ?” Why did he not say “a partaking”? Because he meant to express something more, and to show how close the union is. We share not only by partaking and taking a portion, but also by being made one. For as that body is united to Christ, so we too are united to him by this bread. [f]

But why does he also add, “which we break”? At the thanksgiving one may see this done; but on the cross it was not so, but just the opposite. “Not a bone of him,” says Scripture, “shall be broken.” But what he did not suffer on the cross, he suffers at the offering for your sake: he lets himself be broken, so that he may fill everyone.

Next: he had said, “a communion of the body,” and what shares is one thing, and what it shares in is another. So he took away even this difference, small as it seems. Having said, “a communion of the body,” he looked for a way to express something closer still. That is why he added, Verse 17: “For we, who are many, are one bread, one body.” As if to say: “Why do I speak of communion? We are that very body.”

For what is the bread? The body of Christ. And what do those who partake of it become? The body of Christ: not many bodies, but one body. Bread is made of many grains and yet becomes one, so that the grains nowhere appear. They are there, but their difference is not seen because they have been joined together. In the same way we are joined both to one another and to Christ. There is not one body to feed you and another to feed your neighbor; it is the very same for all. That is why he adds, “For we all partake of the one bread.”

Now if we are all fed from the same thing and all become the same thing, why do we not also show the same love, and become one in this respect too? This was the old way as well, in the time of our forefathers: “for the multitude of those who believed,” says the text, “were of one heart and soul” (Acts 4, verse 32). It is not so now, but entirely the reverse. There are many quarrels of every kind among everyone, and we behave toward one another’s members worse than wild animals. Christ made you, who were so far off, one with himself; but you do not think it worth the trouble to be joined as you should even to your brother. You separate yourself, after being given such great love and life by the Lord.

For he did not simply give his own body. The first nature of the flesh, which was formed out of earth, had first been deadened by sin and left without life. So he brought in, one might say, another kind of dough and yeast: his own flesh, the same by nature, but free from sin and full of life. And he gave it to all to partake of, so that, fed by this and laying aside the old dead material, we might be blended together into what is living and eternal, by means of this table.

Verse 18: “Look at Israel according to the flesh: do not those who eat the sacrifices have communion with the altar?” [g]

Again he leads them to this point from the old covenant. Because they fell far short of the greatness of what had been said, he persuades them both from former things and from the things they were used to. And he does well to say “according to the flesh,” as though they themselves were according to the Spirit. What he says amounts to this: “Even from the dullest people you can learn that those who eat the sacrifices have communion with the altar.” Do you see how he hints that those who seemed to be mature do not have mature knowledge, if they do not even know this: that for many people the result of these sacrifices is often a kind of communion and friendship with demons, as the practice draws them on little by little? For if among people the fellowship of salt and table becomes the occasion and sign of friendship, it is possible that this may happen with demons too.

But consider, please, how of the Jews he did not say, “they are partners with God,” but, “they have communion with the altar”; for what was placed on it was burned up. With the body of Christ it is not so. How, then? It is “a communion of the Lord’s body.” For we have communion not with the altar, but with Christ himself.

But having said that they have “communion with the altar,” he was afraid he might seem to speak as though the idols had some power and could do some harm. So see how he overturns them again, saying, Verse 19: “What am I saying, then? That an idol is anything? Or that what is sacrificed to idols is anything?”

As if he had said: “I say these things and try to draw you away from the idols, not because they can do any harm or have any power, for an idol is nothing. I want you to despise them.” Someone says: “But if you want us to despise them, why do you take such pains to draw us away from them?” Because they are not offered to your Lord.

Verse 20: “For what the Gentiles sacrifice,” he says, “they sacrifice to demons, and not to God.”

So do not run to what is opposed to him. Suppose you were a king’s son, with the right to eat at your father’s table, and you left it and chose to share the table of condemned men and prisoners in the dungeon. Your father would not allow it; he would pull you away with great force — not because that table could harm you, but because it disgraces your noble birth and the royal table. For these too are servants who have offended: dishonored, condemned, prisoners held for unbearable punishment, answerable for ten thousand crimes. How, then, are you not ashamed to imitate the gluttonous, low crowd, running over when these condemned persons set out a table, and sharing their food? This is why I try to draw you away. For the intention of those who sacrifice, and the identity of those who receive the sacrifice, make what is set before you unclean.

“And I do not want you to have communion with demons.”

Do you see the kindness of a caring father? Do you see how much force the very word has to express his feeling? He says: “For it is my wish that you have nothing in common with them.”

Next, he had put the saying forward as advice, with “I do not want” and “judge for yourselves.” So that none of the duller ones would take it lightly, as though they were free to choose, he states it outright in what follows and lays down the law, saying, Verse 21: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons.” [h]

He is content with the bare terms themselves, to keep them away. Then, appealing also to their sense of shame, he says, Verse 22: “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?” That is: “Are we testing him, to see whether he is able to punish us? Are we provoking him by going over to his adversaries and taking our stand with his enemies?” He said this to remind them of an ancient story and of their fathers’ sin. That is why he uses this expression, which Moses also used long ago against the Jews, when he accused them of idolatry, speaking in the person of God: “They moved me to jealousy with what is not God; they provoked me to anger with their idols” (Deuteronomy 32, verse 21).

“Are we stronger than he?” Do you see how terribly, how fearfully he rebukes them? He shakes them to their very sinews, and by reducing their position to an absurdity he cuts them to the quick and brings down their pride. Someone will say: “Well, then, why did he not put these things first, since they would do the most to draw them away?” Because it is his custom to prove his point by many particulars, to put the strongest last, and to win by proving more than was needed. That is why he began with the lesser points and so made his way to the one that is the sum of all evils. In this way that last point was also more easily accepted, since their minds had been smoothed down by what was said before.

Verses 23 and 24: “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial. All things are lawful for me, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own, but each one his neighbor’s good.”

Do you see his exact wisdom? They were likely to say: “I am mature and my own master, and it does me no harm to partake of what is set before me.” He answers: “Very well, you are mature and your own master. But do not look to that; look to whether the result brings harm, and even ruin.” He mentioned both, when he said, “Not all things are beneficial; not all things build up.” The first he uses with reference to oneself, the second with reference to one’s brother. The words “are not beneficial” are a veiled hint at the ruin of the man he is speaking to; the words “do not build up,” at the stumbling block to the brother. That is why he adds, “Let no one seek his own.”

He insists on this everywhere, through the whole letter, and in the letter to the Romans as well, when he says, “For even Christ did not please himself” (Romans 15, verse 3); and again, “Just as I please everyone in everything, not seeking my own advantage” (First Corinthians 10, verse 33). And so again in this place. Yet here he does not work it out fully. In what had gone before he had established it at length, and shown that he nowhere “seeks his own,” but “to the Jews became as a Jew, and to those without the law as one without the law,” and did not use his own “freedom” and “right” at random, but for the good of all, serving all. So here he broke off, content with a few words, and by these few he led them to remember everything that had been said.

Knowing these things, then, beloved, let us too look to the good of our brothers and sisters and keep unity with them. This is where that fearful and awe-inspiring sacrifice leads us. It warns us above all to come to it with one mind and burning love, and so, having become eagles, to fly up to heaven itself — no, even beyond heaven. “For wherever the carcass is,” he says, “there the eagles will be too” (Matthew 24, verse 28). He calls his body a carcass because of his death; for if he had not fallen, we would not have risen again. But he calls us eagles, to show that whoever comes near this body must be on high and have nothing in common with the earth. He must not drag himself downward and crawl along, but must always soar toward heaven, look on the Sun of Righteousness, and keep the eye of his mind sharp-sighted. For this table belongs to eagles, not jackdaws. Those who share in it worthily now will then meet him as he comes down from heaven; just as those who do so unworthily will suffer the most extreme torments. [i]

No one would receive a king carelessly. Why do I say a king? Even if it were only a royal robe, no one would touch it carelessly with unclean hands, even if he were in a deserted place, alone, with no one near. And yet the robe is nothing but some threads spun by worms; and if you admire the dye, that too is the blood of a dead fish. Still, no one would choose to handle it with polluted hands. Now if even a man’s garment is something no one would dare touch carelessly, what shall we say of the body of him who is God over all — spotless, pure, joined to the divine nature, the body through which we exist and live, through which the gates of hell were broken down and the sanctuaries of heaven opened? How can we receive this with such insolence?

Please, let us not, let us not kill ourselves by our irreverence. Let us come to it with all awe and purity. And when you see it set before you, say to yourself: “Because of this body I am no longer earth and ashes, no longer a prisoner, but free. Because of this I hope for heaven, and to receive the good things there: undying life, the lot of the angels, fellowship with Christ. This body, nailed and scourged, was more than death could stand against. This is the body the very sun saw sacrificed, and turned its rays aside. For this the veil was torn in that moment, the rocks were split, and the whole earth was shaken. This is that very body, bloodstained and pierced, from which gushed the saving springs, one of blood and the other of water, for the whole world.”

Would you learn its power from another source too? Ask the woman who suffered from bleeding, who took hold not of the body itself, but of the garment it wore — and not of the whole garment, but only of its hem. Ask the sea, which carried it on its back. Ask even the devil himself, and say, “Where did you get that incurable wound? Why do you no longer have any power? How were you taken captive? By whom were you seized as you fled?” And he will give no other answer than this: “The body that was crucified.” By this his goads were broken to pieces; by this his head was crushed; by this the rulers and authorities were put on display. “For,” he says, “having stripped the rulers and authorities off from himself, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2, verse 15).

Ask death too, and say, “How is it that your sting has been taken away, your victory abolished, your sinews cut out? How have you become the laughingstock of girls and children, you who were once a terror even to kings and to all the righteous?” And death will credit it to this body. For when this body was crucified, then the dead were raised up, then that prison was burst open and the gates of bronze were broken, the dead were set free, and the gatekeepers of hell all cowered in fear. And yet if he had been one of the many, death would instead have become stronger. But it was not so, for he was not one of the many. That is why death was undone.

People who eat food they cannot keep down vomit up, because of it, what was already in them as well; and so it happened to death. It received that body, which it could not digest, and so it had to cast out what it held within. Yes, it was in labor pains while it held him, and was in anguish until it vomited him up. That is why the apostle says, “Having loosed the pains of death” (Acts 2, verse 24). No woman in childbirth was ever so full of anguish as death was torn and racked apart while it held the body of the Lord. What happened to the Babylonian dragon, which took the food and burst open in the middle, happened to death as well. For Christ did not come out again through death’s mouth. He burst open and ripped apart the dragon’s belly in the very middle, and so from his secret chambers (Psalm 19, verse 5) he came out in glory and flung his rays abroad, not to this heaven only, but to the very highest throne. For he carried it up even there.

This body he has given us both to hold and to eat, which is what intense love does. For those we kiss passionately we often even bite with our teeth. That is why Job too, pointing to his servants’ love for him, said that out of their great affection for him they often said, “Oh, that we might be filled with his flesh!” (Job 31, verse 31). So Christ has given us to be filled with his flesh, drawing us on to greater love.

Let us come to him, then, with fervor and burning love, so that we do not have to suffer punishment. For the greater the benefits given to us, the more severely we are punished when we show ourselves unworthy of the generosity. This body, even lying in a manger, the Magi revered. Yes, godless men and barbarians left their country and their home and set out on a long journey, and when they came, they worshiped him with fear and great trembling. Let us, then, who are citizens of heaven, at least imitate those barbarians. They saw him only in a manger and in a hut, with nothing in sight like what you see now, and yet they came with great awe. But you see him not in the manger but on the altar; not a woman holding him in her arms, but the priest standing by, and the Spirit hovering with great generosity over the gifts set before us. You do not merely see this body itself, as they did; you also know its power, and the whole plan of salvation, and you are ignorant of none of the holy things it accomplishes, since you have been carefully initiated into all of them. So let us rouse ourselves and shudder, and show a reverence far beyond that of those barbarians, so that we do not heap fire on our own heads by coming at random and carelessly. [p]

But I say these things not to keep us from coming, but to keep us from coming without thought. For as coming at random is dangerous, so not sharing in those suppers of the mysteries is famine and death. For this table is the sinews of our soul, the bond of our mind, the foundation of our confidence, our hope, our salvation, our light, our life. If we depart to the world beyond with this sacrifice, we will step onto that sacred threshold with great confidence, fenced in on every side as if with golden armor.

And why do I speak of the world to come? Here and now this mystery makes earth a heaven for you. Just open the gates of heaven once and look in — or rather, not of heaven, but of the heaven of heavens — and then you will see what I have been speaking of. For what is most precious of all there, this I will show you lying on the earth. In royal palaces, what is most glorious of all is not the walls or the golden roofs, but the person of the king seated on the throne; so too in heaven it is the body of the King. But this you are now permitted to see on earth. It is not angels, or archangels, or heavens and heavens of heavens that I show you, but the very Lord and Owner of them all. Do you see how what is more precious than all things is seen by you on earth — and not only seen, but touched; and not only touched, but eaten; and after receiving it, you go home?

So make your soul clean, and prepare your mind to receive these mysteries. If you were entrusted with carrying a king’s child, with the robes, the purple, and the diadem, you would throw aside everything on the earth. But now it is no child of a man, however royal, but the only Son of God himself whom you receive. Tell me, do you not shudder with awe, cast away all your love for all the things of this world, and have no finery but that with which to adorn yourself? Or do you still look to the earth, and love money, and pant after gold? Then what pardon can you have? What excuse? Do you not know that all this worldly luxury is loathsome to your Lord? Was it not for this that at his birth he was laid in a manger and took for himself a mother of humble station? Was it not for this that he said to the man who was looking for gain, “But the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8, verse 20)?

And what did the disciples do? Did they not keep the same law? They were taken to the houses of the poor and lodged there, one with a tanner, another with a tentmaker, and with the seller of purple. For they did not ask about the splendor of the house, but about the virtues of people’s souls.

Let us imitate them too, then. Let us hurry past the beauty of columns and marbles, and seek the dwellings that are above. Let us trample underfoot all the pride here below, with all the love of money, and take on a lofty mind. For if we are self-controlled, not even this whole world is worthy of us, much less colonnades and arcades. So, I beg you, let us adorn our souls; let us furnish this house, which we will also have with us when we depart, so that we may attain the eternal blessings, through the grace and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, to the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory, power and honor, now and always, and forever and ever. Amen.