Paul and Economics

A Handbook

Thomas R. Blanton, Raymond Pickett, Thomas R. Blanton, Raymond Pickett, Thomas R. Blanton IV

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781506406039
• eBook ISBN:
  9781506406046
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The social context of Paul’s mission and congregations has been the study of intense investigation for decades, but only in recent years have questions of economic realities and the relationship between rich and poor come to the forefront. In Paul and Economics, leading scholars address a variety of topics in contemporary discussion, including an overview of the Roman economy; the economic profile of Paul and of his communities, and stratification within them; architectural considerations regarding where they met; food and drink; idol meat and the Lord’s Supper; material conditions of urban poverty; patronage; slavery; travel; gender and status; the collection for Jerusalem; and the role of Marxist theory and the question of political economy in Paul scholarship.

9

Socioeconomic Stratification and the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:17–34)

Neil Elliott

Paul’s admonition of the Corinthian faithful regarding their practice of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:17–34) has long attracted attention from those interested in the historical origins of the Eucharist.^[1] In recent decades, it has become a focus for theologians discussing the theory and practice of the Eucharist in global contexts of socioeconomic disparity and oppression. In this same period, some New Testament scholars have applied social-scientific models to the passage, seeking evidence regarding the socioeconomic status of members of Paul’s assemblies (ἐκκλησίαι) and explaining the conflict around the Corinthian supper in terms of socioeconomic stratification within the assembly.

The question of socioeconomic status in the Pauline churches receives direct attention in other essays in this volume.^[2] My interest here is with the conclusions interpreters have drawn from Paul’s admonition in 1 Corinthians 11. Those conclusions do not float in their own abstract world, however, and so it is important to describe the wider social and ecclesial context in which they appear.

The Eucharist as a Site of Contestation

The last half of the twentieth century saw dramatic historical developments worldwide. The aftermath of the Second World War, including the plight of millions of displaced and refugee persons and the devastation of European Jews by the Nazis, brought increased attention to human rights, a concern expressed in the formation of the United Nations and the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The dawn of the nuclear age with the US atomic bombing of Japanese cities and the ensuing arms race with the Soviet Union evoked international concern to slow and reverse the threat of nuclear annihilation. The international rhetoric of democracy and human rights, along with the debilitation of various European powers, fueled decolonization movements that swept through Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The economic and military ascendancy of the United States cast a shadow over all these developments, even as spiraling prosperity for a global minority sharpened the perception of growing economic and political inequality nationally and internationally. For all these reasons, social and political questions of justice and equality were becoming the coin of worldwide interaction.

These dramatic changes were reflected in theological developments, from the foundation of the World Council of Churches to the Second Vatican Council and beyond. In particular, changes in the theological understanding of the Eucharist included the recovery of its original eschatological horizon^[3] and of the rich symbolic and narrative repertoire of relevant biblical materials,^[4] a shift in emphasis from “ontological” questions (e.g., regarding Christ’s “real presence” in the Eucharist) and the individual efficacy of the sacrament to its social context and corporate efficacy,^[5] and a reorientation of the Eucharist’s significance toward questions of human need, especially global hunger.^[6] Orthodox theologians emphasized the Eucharist’s central and formative role in constituting the church in its authentic missional stance “for the life of the world.”^[7] Theologians of liberation elucidated its proper role in forming communities dedicated to the project of human emancipation.^[8] Early in this period, political theologian Johann B. Metz called the Eucharist a “subversive remembrance.”^[9] More recently, Andrea Bieler and Luise Schottroff argued that its practice presents an “alternative economy” to the omnivorous neoliberal construction of the human as homo oeconomicus, conformed to market demands as consumer or producer in the ubiquitous flow of capital.^[10]

This increased emphasis on the social dimension of the Eucharist has been intertwined with the theme of judgment upon social inequality. The World Council of Churches ecumenical statement on Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry (1982) boldly declared:

The eucharistic celebration . . . is a constant challenge in the search for appropriate relationships in social, economic, and political life. . . . As participants in the eucharist, therefore, we prove inconsistent if we are not actively participating in this ongoing restoration of the world’s situation and the human condition. The eucharist shows us that our behavior is inconsistent in the face of the reconciling presence of God in human history: we are placed under continual judgment by the persistence of unjust relationships of all kinds in our society, the manifold divisions on account of human pride, material interest and power politics, and, above all, the obstinacy of unjustifiable confessional oppositions within the body of Christ.^[11]

Liberation theologians as well understand the Eucharist as a social imperative. So Victor Codina:

In the eucharist we not only commune with Jesus, but with his Kingdom project; we not only edify the church but anticipate the banquet of the Kingdom. Thus the eucharist is inseparable from the fellowship of love and service. . . . For this very reason a eucharist without real sharing, as occurred in Corinth, “is not the Lord’s supper” (1 Cor. 11:20–21). The patristic tradition corroborates this dimension of the eucharist, which is not only ecclesial but social: the offerings of the faithful for the poor; the presence of the slaves and the exhortation for their manumission; the preaching of the Fathers on justice and the defense of the poor; the liturgical excommunication of public sinners, who must be reconciled with the church in order to be readmitted to eucharistic communion.^[12]

Or, as J. M. Castillo has put it succinctly, “Where there is no justice, there is no Eucharist.”^[13]

When theologians and church leaders have drawn such connections between the Eucharist, social justice, and judgment, they have relied on the single biblical text where these themes are combined: the apostle Paul’s discussion of the “Lord’s supper” in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34. There Paul rebukes the Corinthian assembly because, in his words,

when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. . . . When you come together it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? (1 Cor 11:17, 20–22 NRSV)

Paul goes on to invoke the tradition of Jesus’s words at the supper “on the night when he was betrayed,” then warns, “whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:27 NRSV). He concludes,

So, then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. If you are hungry, eat at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation. About the other things I will give instructions when I come. (1 Cor 11:33–34 NRSV)

The theme of judgment on social injustice has been developed in an especially acute way by William T. Cavanaugh in his argument for a robust practice of excommunication of the architects of social evil. While the apostle’s words appear to refer to social inequality involving “those who have nothing” (NRSV), Cavanaugh has a different subject particularly in view: the practice of torture carried out by military officers and state security officials in Augusto Pinochet’s regime—men who continued not only to attend Mass but quite possibly to receive Communion in the company of their victims and their families.^[14] Cavanaugh grounds his argument in part in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34.

Paul would exclude from the Eucharist those who fail to “discern the body,” meaning not only Christ’s sacramental body but especially his ecclesial body (1 Cor. 11:29). The specific sin Paul addresses in this passage is the “humiliation” of the poor by the rich, who eat their fill when the community gathers while others go hungry (11:21–2). According to Paul this is not simply sin against individuals but “contempt for the church of God” (11:22). The rich bring divisions into the church, and thus threaten the visibility of the body of Christ. Exclusion of the offenders from the Eucharist is meant to restore the church as a sign of reconciliation by leading the offenders to change their conduct (11:31–2). If they do not repent, exclusion from the Eucharist also safeguards the witness of the church by anticipating the Lord’s final judgment, when His own will be separated out from the world (11:32).^[15]

While Cavanaugh’s argument focused on a specific and extreme case, one might reasonably extend the argument to other crimes and other regimes. For example, we might propose that those who committed torture at US military facilities at Abu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table Of Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction
• The Roman Economy in the Early Empire: An Overview
• Urban Poverty in the Roman Empire: Material Conditions
• Economic Profiling of Early Christian Communities
• Paul’s Shift in Economic “Location” in the Locations of the Roman Imperial Economy
• Architecture: Where Did Pauline Communities Meet?
• Paul and Slavery: Economic Perspectives
• Economic Location of Benefactors in Pauline Communities
• Food and Drink in the Greco-Roman World and in the Pauline Communities
• Socioeconomic Stratification and the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:17–34)
• The Economic Functions of Gift Exchange in Pauline Assemblies
• Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem and the Financial Practices in Greek Cities
• Economic Aspects of Intercity Travel among the Pauline Assemblies
• Marxism and Capitalism in Pauline Studies
• A New Horizon for Paul and the Philosophers: Shifting from Comparative “Political Theology” to “Economic Theology”
• Index