Paul's strange instruction to live "as though not" — to weep as though not weeping, to possess as though not possessing — reads as absurd resignation unless we hear it as a precise instruction about inner posture. These reflections, drawing on the esoteric interpretive tradition Nicoll brought to the Gospels, treat both today's readings as descriptions of two fundamentally different orientations of consciousness — one identified with the passing forms of experience, the other free within them.
First reading
From the first letter of Paul to the Corinthians — 1 Corinthians 7:25-31
Now concerning virgins, I have no command from the Lord, but I offer my counsel as one who by the Lord's mercy has been found worthy of trust.
I hold, then, that in light of the present crisis it is well for a person to remain as they are.
Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek release. Are you free from a wife? Do not seek one.
Yet if you do marry, you have committed no sin; and if a virgin marries, she has committed no sin. Still, those who marry will face hardship in their daily lives, and I would shield you from that.
But hear me, brothers: the time grows short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none;
those who weep, as though they did not weep; those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; those who buy, as though they owned nothing;
and those who deal with this world, as though they were not engrossed in it. For the whole shape of this world is passing away.
Gospel
From the Gospel of Luke — Luke 6:20-26
He raised his eyes toward his disciples and spoke: "A blessing on you who are poor, for the kingdom of God belongs to you.
A blessing on you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. A blessing on you who weep now, for you will laugh.
A blessing on you when others despise you, when they shut you out and heap scorn upon you and reject your very name as something wicked — all on account of the Son of Man.
On that day, rejoice! Leap for sheer joy! For see, your reward in heaven is great; their ancestors treated the prophets just the same.
"But sorrow awaits you who are rich, for you have already claimed your comfort.
Sorrow awaits you who are full now, for you will go hungry. Sorrow awaits you who laugh now, for you will grieve and weep.
Sorrow awaits you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is exactly how their ancestors treated the false prophets."
— Interpretation —
Let us begin with the most extraordinary phrase in today’s readings from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 7:29–31). He says: “Let those who have wives live as though they had none; those who weep, as though they did not weep; those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; those who buy, as though they owned nothing; and those who deal with this world, as though they were not engrossed in it.”
This is not advice about indifference. It is not counsel toward coldness or detachment in the ordinary sense. It is something far more precise, and far more difficult. Paul is describing a specific inner act — the act of being in life without being swallowed by life. He is speaking about a man or woman who participates fully in existence but who does not derive their sense of “I” from what happens to them. The weeping still occurs. The rejoicing still occurs. The buying and selling still occur. But something has shifted in the interior. The center of gravity has moved.
This is what makes the passage so remarkable. Paul does not say: stop weeping. He does not say: stop rejoicing. He says: do these things as though not. There is a paradox in those two words — “as though” — that deserves long contemplation. They point to a man who has found something in himself that is not the weeping, not the rejoicing, not the possessing. He has found what we might call the witness — or better, the being behind the function. He is no longer identical with his reactions.
Now consider the reason Paul gives. “For the whole shape of this world is passing away.” Read literally, this sounds like apocalyptic urgency — the end is near, so why bother with earthly things? But esoterically it means something else entirely. It means that the form of this world — the configuration of appearances, the arrangement of external life that we take to be so solid, so permanent, so desperately important — is not ultimate reality. It is passing. It passes in every moment. And a man who builds his entire inner life upon what is passing will find himself perpetually dissolving along with it. He will have no ground.
This brings us directly to the Beatitudes as Luke records them (Luke 6:20–26), which are not the same as Matthew’s version. Luke’s Christ does not say “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” He says, flatly: “Blessed are you who are poor.” And then, with equal starkness: “Sorrow awaits you who are rich, for you have already claimed your comfort.”
If we take these words only on the external level, they become a social programme — an inversion of worldly fortune. The poor will be compensated later; the rich will be punished. But this reading, while it may carry a certain moral force, misses the interior dimension entirely, which is the dimension in which Christ always teaches.
To be “poor” in the sense Christ intends is to be empty of the false riches — empty of self-satisfaction, empty of the conviction that one already knows, already possesses, already is something. It is the poverty of a man who has seen through his own pretensions. And to be “rich” is to be full of oneself, full of one’s own opinions, one’s reputation, one’s comforts — so full that nothing new can enter. “You have already claimed your comfort.” That is, you have taken your payment in the currency of the passing world, and there is nothing left to receive.
Notice how Christ says: “Sorrow awaits you who laugh now, for you will grieve.” And: “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.” This is the same paradox Paul describes. The man who is identified with his present laughter — who is his laughter, who has no inner life apart from the surface enjoyment — that man is building on what passes. The man who weeps now, who suffers the pain of seeing his own mechanical nature, who feels the poverty of his inner state — that man is being prepared for something real.
“Sorrow awaits you when everyone speaks well of you.” Here is perhaps the most penetrating line of all. For what is it in us that craves universal approval? It is precisely the false personality, the constructed self, the self that exists only in the eyes of others. When that self is fed and flattered, it grows stronger — and the possibility of inner change grows weaker. The false prophets were loved because they told people what they already believed. They confirmed the sleeping man in his sleep.
Paul and Christ are speaking of the same movement: the turning away from identification with what passes, toward what does not pass. The kingdom of God belongs to the poor because only the poor have room for it.
Photo by Billy Huynh on Unsplash
Scripture: Unified English Version
