MOVING FROM “YOU” TO “WE”

In Lent, we think of the suffering of Jesus and how he gave himself in life and death for us.  As a member of the Body of Christ, it is also a good season to think about whether or not I am giving of my life in the name of Jesus.
            Here is a text that is easy for Christians to misread.  (Note the movement in the pronouns in the following text.  I will comment on them below.)

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.  For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. ¹² So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. (2 Cor 4:7-12 NIV)

The earliest Christians of Corinth were struggling with many issues.  That should not surprise us.  The Body of Christ was emerging from a cultural context of polytheism, paganism, fertility religions, a hierarchy of social-status structures, rampant sexual immorality in a city frequented by sailors and soldiers, as well as a diversity of cultural symbols of a major port-trade city.  Paul was calling these new Christians to live radically different lives than what they had lived before and from the what the culture around them practiced.  They had issues over pride, status, lawsuits, immorality, what to eat, how to dress, how to conduct an orderly worship service. etc.  It is significant to look at how Paul addressed each of those issues.  However, I just want to note the big picture.  Following the example of Jesus, Paul and his team were spending their lives on the Corinthians – a theme of our text – so that the Corinthians would become holy, so that the holiness of Christ would be found in the Body of Christ as it emerged out of its fallen and conflicted culture.

Today, I do not see much of a Church that has remained distinct from its culture as a light in darkness.  We have a Church that re-coalesced into its lost culture.  To be sure, there are prominent, “hot-button” politicized issues, but I am thinking of a Church that obeys Jesus’ charge to practice righteousness and not of efforts to protect “Christian identity.” [Note: As of 2024, about 63% of Americans claim to be “Christians.”  It appears that the decline of Christianity has stopped and there has been a slight increase, but it may be due to political ethno-traditionalism and populism.*]

Clearly there is a need for self-reflection.  That brings me back to the text above and how it is easily misread.  I try to teach my Bible students is that Christians, me included, when reading the NT letters wrongly tend to identify ourselves with the “we” references.  Most of the time we should be identifying with the “you” references.  (An example is Eph 1:3-14 from which people draw all sorts of bad theology from references to “we” having been chosen and predestined without noticing that the “we” applies to Jews and the “you” to the Gentile audience.)  So, too, when I read our text, it is easy to identify with these “we” statements, as if they rightly described me.  They do not.  Paul, however, is describing how he and his ministry team were pouring out their lives like Jesus for the emerging Church in Corinth, the “you” of verse 12.

Application:
The point is that I need to be a Christian who has moved on from being the object of such ministry, the “you” of verse 12.  I need to become like the “we” references in our text, the people who were being poured out so that the life of Jesus might be at work in the people around us.  That is a good Lenten reflection for me.  It brings me back to Jesus, who gave Himself totally for me and asked me to serve others in the same way.

When my wife and I reach our 1^st and 2^nd grade SS class, we tell a Bible story, and then we raise some “wonder” questions with the kids.  Here are the wonder questions that I am asking myself:

      ·       I wonder where I see myself in the Bible text today?  Am I the “you” or the “we”?
·       I wonder whom I know who has poured out her or his life so that others might have life in Jesus?
·       I wonder if I died today what legacy might have been left through me?
·       I wonder how Jesus’ life can emerge more from me in service to others?

Lord, guide me through your Spirit to answer these questions honestly.  Help me to move from the “you” to the “we.”  Thank you that you gave everything for me.  Amen.
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*See, for example, “Is Christianity in America Back?” (Newsweek, 2/28/25).