‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…’
It’s one of the cleverest political speeches in the book – a masterpiece of the art of rhetoric. Caesar is dead and his friend Anthony is in a difficult position. Anthony shakes hands with the conspirators; and he is allowed to speak to the crowd about Caesar’s good deeds but only after Brutus has explained why Caesar had to be killed. Brutus speaks in prose; Anthony in blank verse. Brutus speaks abruptly, in short balanced sentences. He speaks coolly and logically. He speaks as a man of recognised honour who expects to be believed because he is honourable. He then leaves the stage to Anthony. But Anthony, unlike Brutus, understands crowds and he understands the Roman crowd. By a subtle combination of irony, pathos and understated bribery he turns the crowd against Brutus and his fellow conspirators. He takes up Brutus’ reference to his honour, and repeats the phrase ‘Brutus is an honourable man’, four times; four times he describes the conspirators as ‘honourable men’ – and by the end of his speech the crowd is convinced that Brutus and his friends are all traitors. Anthony’s rhetoric has emptied them of all honour.
Honour, was of course, a much more important concept in Classical society than it is now. Then a man’s sense of his own honour and the public recognition of that honour was the foundation of his life. The desire to obtain honour motivated many of the social interactions of the Roman world. That world was also intensely competitive. Individuals and groups constantly strove with one another to promote their individual or group honour at the expense of some other person or group.
All of which may explained that side of St Paul which we can find so distasteful – his need to promote himself and to boast. In the divided churches he sought to guide, Paul was constantly having to defend his reputation. Paul’s group within those church’s was often being done down by groups who played up the honour and authority of another apostle. Paul was mocked for his appearance, his speech, his behaviour, his failures, and for all the terrible things that happened to him which might seem to show that God wasn’t on Paul’s side. And yet defending himself ‘as an honourable man’ makes him seem somewhat less than humble. Humility, however, was scarcely valued in a world in which love of one’s own honour was so important. It was one of the great divides between classical and Christian culture; but it took time for some Christians like those attacking Paul in Corinth to appreciate the significance of humility.
So Paul has to work with the conventions of the ancient honours system and somehow subvert it at the same time. He talks of a person who had visions fourteen years ago. We assume it is Paul referring indirectly to himself; this person was caught up into paradise – he has a lot to boast about – but by talking in this indirect way Paul implies that such things are irrelevant to his real mission. Then by a rhetorical sleight of hand Paul shows that all his experiences of hardship, even the thorn in the flesh – the unnamed physical handicap he suffers from – all these things come from God to keep him from being too elated – to keep him in his proper place. And what is that proper place? It is with Christ crucified. And a crucified Messiah spelled the end of the ancient honours system. God says to his church, as he says to Paul, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.’ What that might mean for us we will come back to before we end, but first for the dishonoured Messiah in his own home town.
Jesus goes back to the place where he is best known, where his family lives, where his father was a carpenter or possibly a stone mason – the word used could mean either. And Jesus is found not to fit any longer into the social expectations of his own group. He no longer behaves in a way people from his home town are expected to behave. So he becomes a prophet without honour. Ironically he is dishonoured because of his unexpected wisdom and power to heal. But the list of dishonourable behaviour could have included the fact that he is not married, does not have a home of his own, or any possessions, except the clothes he stands up in. It is a style of life his twelve followers are instructed to follow even if they are married. It is another act of subversion which excludes Jesus and the twelve from the Jewish honours system. And it is an act which also demonstrates that God’s power is made perfect in weakness. Jesus and his disciples are dependent in their mission on other people’s generosity and hospitality. If their message is not welcome they will go cold and hungry.
So perhaps we can begin to see the implications of what Paul means when he says God’s power is made perfect in weakness. One consequence might be that a priest can still be Christ’s instrument where he or she is most vulnerable and unable to rely on what they think are their strengths. Another consequence might be that a good Sunday school teacher doesn’t have to know all the answers. Or again it might mean failing to live up to the expectations of our social peers – saying that we have to go to church for a special service like an ordination or first mass when invited to a social engagement. Or it might mean accepting that business is something we can do something about – rather than believing that it is imposed on us by the way we have to live now. The hardest thing for a Christian in our present society is working out where to fit in so that we can be heard and where not to fit in so that we can challenge.
Nevertheless appearing to be weak or vulnerable or different is something we may have to accept if God’s grace is to have a place in our lives. Brutus is a tragic failure because he cannot see beyond his own honour; Paul is a tragic hero because he sees beyond all that happens to him to the God on a cross, who loves him