A beautiful tapestry

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Yesterday, I purchased an icon entitled Mary, the Storyteller, at the workshop of a Greek Orthodox priest and iconographer. The image depicts Mary tenderly sharing stories with her young son, our Lord Jesus. The theology that can be deduced is that Jesus, a masterful storyteller learned his craft of weaving parables, at least in part, from sitting and listening to his mother and our mother Mary.

Today, in Corinth, we witnessed Paul’s letter to the Corinthians come alive as he, too, masterfully wove the fabric of the lives of the local Corinthians into the story of the Risen Christ. This tapestry begins long before Paul with the pre-historic threads of Eden as well as Noah's rainbow of color and continues to gather threads of various colors in ancient Canaan, Egypt, Jerusalem, Babylon and the various lands of the Diaspora. The whitest and brightest colors are sewn in by our Lord himself in Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee and Jerusalem. Paul begins his craft in Damascus and continues to enter threads and brilliant colors from throughout the Greco-Roman world.

Specifically in Corinth, Paul weaves in the cult of the sanctuary of Asklepois, in which people offered terra cotta body parts as offerings in hopes of healing particular ailments represented by those parts. Likely, this was the inspiration for his “one body, many parts” in 1 Corinthians 12:12. Next, he weaves in the flora of the perishable crowns for which athletes competed in the local Isthmian Games and compares it to the imperishable crown of Christ (1 Cor 9:24-25).

As you can see from the threads used by Paul, he has masterfully woven thread from the daily life of the Corinthians into the story of the Risen Christ. Thus, we, too are called to weave threads of our daily lives—our ailments, our competitions, our work, our family histories, all that we are—into the ever increasing and everlasting tapestry of the Greatest Story Ever Told. Go forth and continue to sew your threads into this beautiful tapestry…

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Photos

Erastus stone (Corinth)
This stone confirms the existence of Erastus, whom Luke refers to in Acts.

Synagogue Stone (Corinth)
Confirms existence of Jewish population in Corinth

Terra cotta body parts (Corinth)
Just a sampling of thousands found in the sanctuary of Asklepios.

Standing in judgement of Paul. (Corinth)
From here, the proconsul Gallio stood in judgement as Paul waited below for his opinion. (Acts 18:12)

Literally, walking in the footsteps of Paul.
Marble road from the time of Paul in Corinth.