Although the lectionary excerpts certain verses from today’s reading in order to make it a little more understandable, even the verses that are retained are still some of the most difficult for our modern mind to understand. At the same time, it can also be asserted that this passage is one of the most important in the entire letter, making its understanding crucial if we are to derive some benefit from the letter.
St. Paul actually said much the same thing much more clearly in the First Letter to the Corinthians where he wrote: “For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead came also through a human being. For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life.”
Not only does Paul’s grammatical construction make this a difficult passage, but an idea that is a signal part of the Middle Eastern culture also does not figure into our thinking; namely, the concept of solidarity in community. Simply put, Middle Easterners cannot think of themselves as individuals. They always thought of themselves as part of a clan, a family, or a nation apart from which they had no real identity. An episode from the Book of Joshua might illustrate this for us.
At the siege of Jericho, one man, Achan by name, kept to himself certain spoils or prizes of the victory in direct defiance of the commandment of God that stated that everything should be destroyed. The successful campaign against Jericho was followed by a similar siege of Ai, a city which should have fallen to the children of Israel without any trouble. However, that assault of the Israelite army failed miserably. Why? Because Achan had sinned, and as a result, the whole nation was branded as sinner and punished by God. Achan’s sin was not one man’s sin but the nation’s sin. The nation was not viewed as a collection of individuals; it was considered one corporate mass. What the individual did, the nation did. When Achan’s sin was discovered and admitted, it was not he alone who was executed but his whole family.
I know that in our mindset, this seems completely wrong. Why should the innocent suffer with the guilty? I don’t wish to debate, however, whether their mindset or ours is more sensible. I simply offer this example as a way to understand St. Paul’s thinking. Because Adam sinned, all humans sinned. Because another human, Jesus Christ, defeated death by obedience, all have been saved if they unite themselves with Christ. However, it is at this point in the argument that St. Paul’s logic begins to falter just a bit; for while our unity with Adam is purely physical, our unity with Jesus is completely voluntary.
Nevertheless, St. Paul’s human argument, human and limited by human weakness, does also speak of a number of great truths. Two of those truths are as follows. First of all, it tells us why God became human. Another human had to counter the act of the first human. Also, it explains how, while death or separation from God came through the sin of Adam, life and access to God also comes through the obedience of Jesus. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are now privileged to draw near to the table of the Lord and establish our union with Jesus in this sacrament.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator