Two days ago Paul conceded that idols are nothing and told the strong to give up their meat rather than wound the weak. Today he takes the same question by the other handle and reaches a much harder conclusion. Between the two he has run through Israel in the wilderness — "these things happened as examples for us" — and the mood has changed.
What happens
"My beloved, avoid idolatry… The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Messiah? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Messiah? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. Look at Israel according to the flesh; are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? So what am I saying? That meat sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but that what they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons… You cannot drink the cup of the master and also the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the master and of the table of demons. Or are we provoking the master to jealousanger? Are we stronger than he?"
What to notice
To potērion tēs eulogias — "the cup of blessing" — is not Paul's phrase. It is kos ha-berakhah, the technical name for the third cup of the Passover seder, over which the blessing after the meal is said. Paul reaches for the ordinary domestic vocabulary of a Jewish household and applies it to a Gentile church's supper, the way one uses a term everybody already knows. Then 1 Corinthians 10:17, the most compressed ecclesiology in the letter, running entirely on a physical fact: hoti heisartos, hensōma hoi polloi esmen — because the loaf is one, we the many are one body. The argument does not begin in theology; it begins with the observation that there is one loaf on the table and everyone is eating from it. And a genuine difficulty should be named rather than smoothed: on Thursday Paul wrote "there is no idol in the world"; today, that what pagans sacrifice "they sacrifice to demons." Both stand. The statue is nothing; the practice is not nothing. What he denies is that the wooden object has power; what he affirms is that a ritual meal makes you a partner in something, and you do not get to choose which something on the basis of your private opinion of it.
A thanksgiving from someone who nearly died — "the cords of death encompassed me" — who has come to the temple to pay what he promised while he was in trouble. It is one of the Hallel psalms sung at Passover, which means these are among the verses Jesus and the disciples would have sung after the supper.
The selected verses
Psalm 116:12–13."How shall I make a return to Yahweh for all the good he has done for me? The cup of rescue I will take up, and I will call upon the name of Yahweh." Psalm 116:17–18."To you will I offer sacrifice of thanksgiving, and I will call upon the name of Yahweh. My vows to Yahweh I will pay in the presence of all his people."
What to notice
Kos yeshu'ot essa — "the cup of rescues I will lift." The psalm asks what can possibly be given back to Theos for everything, and its answer is a piece of magnificent evasion: the way to repay him is to accept another gift.I will take up the cup. Nothing is returned; something further is received, publicly, with his name spoken over it. Set beside Paul, the two cups are one image — a vessel lifted, a name pronounced, in front of witnesses. His warning that you cannot lift two cups makes exact sense once the lifting is understood as an act of allegiance rather than a drink.
The last paragraph of the Sermon on the Plain. Luke ends where Matthew ends, with two builders — but the details are his own, and they are worth having.
What happens
"A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit… A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil; for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks. Why do you call me, 'Master, master,' but not do what I command?… That one is like a person building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when the flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been well built. But the one who listens and does not act is like a person who built a house on the ground without a foundation."
What to notice
Ek gar perisseumatos kardias lalei to stoma — "out of the surplus of the heart the mouth speaks." Perisseuma is the overflow, the excess, what is left once the container is full. The mouth does not report the contents of the heart. It spills them — which is why the saying is a diagnostic rather than an accusation: what comes out unbidden is what there was too much of. Then the builders, and Luke's version is not Matthew's. Matthew 7:24–27 contrasts rock with sand, and the difference is where you happen to build. Luke's difference is labour. His good builder eskapsen kai ebathynen — dug, and went deep — and "laid the foundation on rock." The other simply "built on the ground without a foundation." Nobody in Luke's version chose a bad site; one man did the invisible work and one did not. And Luke's disaster is a Palestinian one: plēmmyrēs genomenēs prosrēxen ho potamos, a flood came and the river burst against the house. That is a wadi — a dry channel that carries nothing for most of the year and becomes a wall of water in an hour. You would build in one only because it looked like flat, clear ground.
How They Fit Together
The part that does not show is the part that decides
A root you cannot see, and a foundation somebody dug at some cost
Today is about the part that does not show, and each reading finds a different way to say that it is the part that decides. Luke gives the principle three times. A tree is known by its fruit — which sounds like a rule for evaluating others and is actually a statement about causation: the fruit is evidence, the root is the reason. Then the same structure in the mouth: speech is the overflow of the heart, not its summary. Then in masonry: two houses that look identical on a clear day, distinguished by a hole one man dug and the other did not. In all three the difference is invisible until the day it is not. Nobody inspects roots; nobody sees a foundation once the house is up. The wadi is dry all summer.
Paul's argument runs the same logic from the opposite end. The Corinthians think a ritual meal is a matter of what you privately believe about the statue — and on Thursday he agreed the statue is nothing. Today he says that is the wrong level of the question. Because the loaf is one, we the many are one body.The unity is not produced by anyone's intention; it is produced by the fact that there is one loaf and everybody ate from it — and the same mechanism operates at the other table. You do not get to eat at a table and then decide what it meant.
Which makes Psalm 116 the sane centre of the day. How shall I make a return to Yahweh for all the good he has done for me? — the honest answer being that there is no return available. And what the psalmist does with that is neither despair nor a redoubled effort. He lifts a cup and says a name in front of everyone. A public gesture, performed with a vessel, that commits him — which is exactly what Paul says a cup does, and exactly the sort of thing the man in the Gospel was doing when he dug.
A Question to Sit With
Luke's two builders made the same decision about where to put the house. The only difference was that one of them spent days on work that would never be visible, in a hole, before anything looked like progress — and on every ordinary day of that summer the other man's house was further along. I know which builder I usually am, and it is not a matter of conviction; it is that the digging does not show. What in my life is currently standing on the flat, clear ground, and what would it cost me to stop and go down to rock?