1 Corinthians 1:20-29 (NRSV Updated Edition)*
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of the proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews ask for signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to abolish things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
Luke 10:1-11; 16-20 (NRSV Anglicised)
After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’”
[...]
“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”
The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
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"So yet again: when it said before he sent them to every place where he himself intended to go [10:1], perhaps this is more of the sense that they are if you like, the sacramental presence of himself. And in as far as the people, the local people receive them they are receiving him, and in as far as they are receiving him they are receiving God, because God has made himself known in this weak presence who will later reveal himself to be the crucified One.
"So after they've had this trip to the local places, the seventy returned with joy saying, “Lord, in your name” - in other words, you being there in person - “even the demons submit to us.” In other words, by entering these places with a weak presence, actually, they've been able to undo some of the terrible fake forms of power that had possessed and bound people, some of the terrible forms of vibration. It only needed people to be able to be present and weak without fearing being run out for demons and all the structures of possession which depend on throwing out in order to make good. They submitted to them. The power of God comes in weakness.
"And then Jesus says this wonderful line: “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.” This is a key verse in Luke which appears again in the Book of the Apocalypse in a slightly different form, the notion that Jesus is present as weak in the world as one about to occupy the place of shame of death, of violence, the one who's about to be thrown out. His strong occupation of that is the same thing as the de-transcendentalizing of evil. Evil ceases to be a celestial form, it now becomes an anthropological form, wriggling about on the earth whose structure and whose working is known. It can be defeated by people who are happy to remain weak because they know they are held by God, who are not tempted to react with violence and anger and strength, thinking that that makes them better warriors against this thing.
"So evil has lost its transcendence. “See, I've given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy.” And this may refer to actual snakes and scorpions which do exist in that part of the world. It may also refer to the constellations which had names of snakes and scorpions and which were thought to be signs of the heavenly powers, of these semi-demonic powers that control things but in a closing-down way. So again Jesus is saying it's the actual whole power of transcendence, even the heavens, are of being undone because I can see that the power I have given you works.
"Jesus rejoices, they rejoice. Then he says, “Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this that the spirits submit to you” - in other words, it's not merely your achievements that are the key thing - “but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” And this is this wonderful sense proper to the Hebrew world that who you really are is being given to you from on high. It's being, as it were, unfurled in your life. And if you are able to occupy this space of weakness, of precariousness, it's because you're being held in place by heaven, your name has been written there, it is inscribed.
"This is part of the new reality that is coming in. You are going to be a sign of that new reality coming in. So the name being inscribed in heaven is not a reference to someone with a pen, it's a reference to the reality of your being, as it were, already held elsewhere and starting to unfold in this world as you make a witness to what it's really like."
- James Alison, from video "Homily for 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3acWt-Maa4)
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"I think that “but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven” and “consider your call” [1 Corinthians 1:26] mean the same thing: they are getting us to turn our imaginations towards the one who calls or who writes our names rather than to what we achieve. [...] What indeed does it say that I was called? Not about me, but about the one calling? What does it say of his spaciousness, his power, his gentleness, the security which he offers, that it becomes possible not to have to construct a story which makes clear sense, not because of a paucity of meaning, but because of an excess."
- James Alison, Undergoing God, pp 97-98
* Note that the 1 Corinthians passage is not part of the lectionary for this week, but I have included it because it is referenced in the quote above from Undergoing God, and also because of the link to Alison's mention of "weakness" in the homily.
[Source of quote from "Undergoing God" and for analysis and discussion on all the lectionary texts for this Sunday: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/proper_9c/]
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