What do you mean, “we”?

If we’re not a “we”, then we’re a “you”.

The National Museum of the Romanian Peasant in Bucharest is a collection of houses, churches, doors, fences, wagons, animal sheds, and waterwheels—in their original settings—along with textiles, ceramics, artwork, and artifacts of Romania peasant life. You can’t get through it a day. You’ll want to come back.

---

2 Cor 4.8-12

We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.

One year I sent a Christmas greeting with a photo of all our workers at our Christmas dinner celebration. I made the remark, “we are nothing without good people”. A person reading that probably would have assumed I was saying we had good people. I wasn’t. We had recently lost two good people, one to maternity leave and one to surgery for breast cancer, and their loss hurt us. In the same month they both left, the hospital had a salmonella outbreak and the loss of these two people (our weekday supervisor and our weekend supervisor) left us with replacements who were unable to handle the situation. The replacement weekday supervisor made statements to the hospital staff that harmed our reputation badly and made them think we were unable to work under this quarantine. I replaced her, but the damage was already done.

When we got to our Christmas dinner, just three weeks later, my mind was swirling with all the turmoil and wondering how we could recover. It was completely true that “we are nothing without good people”, but the fact was, “good people” were exactly what we needed more of. But what was most on my mind was our reputation, because we also are nothing without a good reputation. Both take years to cultivate and both are easily lost in just one day.

When Paul says “we are afflicted, persecuted, struck down; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,” our minds travel into a fantasy world we have created for ourselves, and we agree, for no reason other than the fact that we are also Christian, that yes, “we are afflicted, persecuted, struck down; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus”, because at some time we made a remark about our faith at work and someone made a bad face, or we are having problems at home, or Christianity is losing ground and we feel attacked, or any number of self-assuring thoughts that give us reason to agree that yes, we are afflicted and understand what Paul is talking about.

But then we get to the last sentence: “So death is at work in us, but life in you.” Now it is clear that Paul was not talking about us, but of him and his fellow workers, in contrast to those that he considered “the work”. Our minds skip over that sentence, because we consider ourselves the workers and not “the work”. For no reason we align ourselves with Paul, not with the people he was talking to. And about.

So easily we promote ourselves to apostles! Without any affliction we make ourselves afflicted. Even though we have never been wounded we claim the purple heart for ourselves. Even though we have everything in common with those Paul was speaking to, we put ourselves on the other side of the argument.

There is a clear difference in Paul’s letters between who was speaking and who was being spoken to. We can see it if we read without imposing ourselves into the text. Unless we have good reason to include ourselves as one of the “we”, we must leave ourselves as one of the “you”.

Throughout Paul’s letters to the Corinthians he uses “we” to distinguish himself from “you”. If there’s any example on how to live rightly, it’s “we”. If there’s any problem, it’s “you”.

We are God’s servants, you are God’s field.

We are fools, you are wise.

We are weak, you are strong.

I try to please everyone in everything I do.

We are afflicted.

We do not lose heart.

When Paul says “we are the aroma of Christ” he is saying to the Corinthians, “you aren’t”. Paul says “we” are not peddlers of God’s word because that’s who they preferred: peddlers. “We” are ambassadors for Christ—“you” aren’t. He says in fact, “we entreat you to be reconciled to God.” Because they weren't.

Look at the strong contrast in Paul’s writings. There is a constant distinction between the “we” and the “you”. Paul nowhere says that all the things that are true of him are automatically true of everyone else. He wrote letters to people specifically to tell them they were off the path. Yet we include ourselves in the “we” without considering whether Paul would.

When Paul says in 2 Cor 3.18 that “all of us” are being transformed, do we put ourselves in that group without reading further to see what that transformation involves? Paul says in chapter 4 that “we” are afflicted, crushed, persecuted, struck down. Is that you? If it’s not, then is chapter 3 “you” as well? Where’s the evidence you are being transformed into the image of Christ? Or do you think it’s possible to be transformed like Paul without acting like Paul?

In 2 Cor 4.16 Paul says “we” do not lose heart. We want that to be true of us, but does anything in his description fit us? When Paul says “we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen”, how can we say that of ourselves when we look at lot at the seen more than the unseen? Paul gave up everything and suffered beatings and hunger. He has the right to say that he looks at what is eternal rather than what is temporary. What proof can we give that the temporal is of no importance?

We cannot include yourself in the “we” just because we’re not the original targets of his letters. If we’re not a “we”, then we’re a “you”.