Psalm 139:1-4 Lord, you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways. Indeed, there is not a word on my lips, but you, O Lord, know it altogether. You press upon me behind and before and lay your hand upon me.
Introduction
Last week we were brought into the presence of a very big event initiated by a divine word, “Let there be light!” At this command, the universe was thrust in to the divine light of order and basked in the magnificence of divine approval, “It is good.” The divine word pulled the lightness from the darkness, and set the earth into its fluctuation between day and night, forever dancing and never crossing, one bowing to the other as it cedes the stage to the other.
This week our attention turns to something much smaller, but no less magnificent: our own bodies. We, inside and out, are cosmic miracles, bipedal universes, worlds thrust and caught between illumination and obscurity. We are beautiful creatures composed of paradox, reflecting the paradoxical nature of our Creator: we are soft and firm, we are rational and irrational, we are strict and lenient, we are happy and sad, we are exciting and boring, we know who we are and we have yet to be introduced to ourselves, we are marvels and unexceptional. We crave inclusion and seclusion, we want love but not that much, we want approval but, again, not that much. We are complex and simple. You’re amazing. Whether you feel it or not, you’re amazing, fearfully and wonderfully made, valued at a great price. You are worthy in your skin to be loved as you are, just as you are.
You are so amazing but yet caution must be employed with ourselves, with our bodies, with our minds. While we are amazing, (I’ll never back down from that sentiment), we are very vulnerable creatures. We are prone to being misled, lied to, fooled, lured, and carried away by fear, threat, and intimidation, pulled into a sea of the billows and waves of charlatans and con-artists selling cures, and liquid mythologies only to take proceeds from eager believers while leaving nothing but saccharine syrup. Most of all, we can be swept away by our own notions of our freedom and liberation, becoming drunk on autonomy run amok.
This is why Paul says,
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
“All things are permitted to me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are permitted to me,” but I, I will not be ruled by them. “Food [is] for digestion, and digestion [is] for food,” and God will abolish both one and the other. Now, the body is not for idolatry, but for the Lord and the Lord for the body. And God both raised the Lord and will raise us up according to the power of God. Have you not yet known that our bodies are members of Christ? (1 Cor 6:12-15a)[1]
While the historicity of Christianity has proven itself very capable at absolutely destroying the bodily alterity and autonomy, I must call attention to the fact that this isn’t Paul’s fault. Corinthians is one of my favorite collections of letters because of how well both the body and the self are held in high regard. Not only the body of the individual, but also the body corporate. Let’s look.
Paul begins by quoting some colloquialisms that came to him (most likely) from Corinth. Both, “All things are permitted to me,” and “Food [is] for digestion, and digestion [is] for food,” are considered to be quotations from other letters sent to Paul. So, Paul jumps in contending directly with what he’s heard and challenges it based on hindering and helpful terminology with a good dose of “freedom from” and “freedom for.” For Paul, the Christian has real and total liberty in Christ but that can only go so far. While many actions can be helpful, they are so only until they become hindering to both the one doing the action or the neighbor. In other words, both individuality and community matters, neither is to be victor over the other.[2]
Now, I know we’re raised to think that w’are the masters of not only our own domains but also of our destinies. But the reality is, we’re not. As mentioned last week, there is much we can plan and much that will happen this year that falls very wide of any plan we ever made ever. So, while I have a robust amount of freedom, I must always be aware that I’m not in this alone, and that my freedom can end up being someone else’s captivity. For Paul, Christians are expected to walk and talk differently, for they’ve been liberated from themselves to be captive to their neighbor, and all of it by faith in Christ working out in loving action. To say it doctrinally, we are to live resurrection lives now[3]and that means living into the divinely gifted glory of our beautiful bodies (in alignment, inner and outer) and in unity with other humans and especially with God through Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
This is why Paul spends time talking about uniting our bodies to “idolatry.” Should we, in our liberty, just unite our bodies to anything, even things of idolatry because we are justified by faith in Christ with God by the power of Holy Spirit? Paul says, μη γενοιτο! The reason? Because, essentially, you are not your own as you may (like to) think, you can’t just do what you want.[4] Then, after exhorting the Corinthians to FLEE IDOLATRY! (v. 18a), Paul says, “Have you not known that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, which you have from God? You are not your own, you were purchased with honor; now, glorify God in your body,” (vv. 19-20).
But what has this to do with hindering and helping, freedom from and freedom for? Well, it comes down to making absolutes and maxims about individual freedom and liberty that conflict with the liberty and freedom of the neighbor. According to Paul, that I’m a Christian united to Christ by faith, in union with God, filled with the divine Spirit and Love, means I must take into consideration (always) my community, my neighbor, the other hoomans living here with me (whether the ones produced by my own body, whom I know intimately, or the ones I’ve never encountered with my body and whose names I may never know). I am not an island, I am not my own, I am now, according to Paul, yoked to Christ and the Spirit burdened with the light yoke of just loving other people as they are, where they are; it is not for me to conform others to my ideological orientations or force neighbors to get in line with my program.[5] Rather, I’m to serve my neighbor by my faith in Christ working itself out in love to the wellbeing of my neighbor. I am to see my actions as not only helping or hindering me, but also whether or not they might be helping or hindering my neighbors both near and far. For their wellbeing is linked to my own, knowing that in doing this I, too, will benefit as my neighbor thrives in abundance that is also mine.
Conclusion
Beloved, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Your body is amazing. It is so amazing that our sacred text exhorts you to care for it, treat it well, to honor it, and use it to bring God glory because it’s the temple of the Holy Spirit. What you do to/with your body is important, it matters, our actions towards ourselves should emphasize that divine gift of love, life, and liberation gifted to us by God through Christ and the Spirit. And, this exhortation extends beyond only what you do with your body and moves toward the neighbor, taking their body into account, valuing it, considering it worthy, honoring it, making sure to hold it in regard because their body matters, too. Let us remember these ones are also the beloved of God, purchased with honor by Christ’s body, and temples of the Holy Spirit, loved by God, the same God who us first as we are, where we are.
In other words, “let us love because God in Christ loved us first,” (1 Jn 4:19).
[1] All translations mine unless otherwise noted
[2] Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 462. “The issue for Paul is what helps and what hinders in constituting credible corporate Christian identity as a community in corporate solidarity with Christ. Both a theology of identity and an ethic of social or interpersonal relations are aspects of the unity…at issue. If freedom or liberty is absolutized without qualification it brings bondage, or at least threatening constraints, to the competing freedoms of others. But part of the grammar of union with Christ is to share Christ’s concern for the well-being of the other, and to let go of his or her own freedoms in order to liberation the other. The ‘mind of Christ’ (2:16) has to be relearned and rediscovered at Corinth, not least as a basis for ethics and lifestyle.”
[3] Thiselton, Corinthians, 463. “The σῶμα is not to be equated with the κοιλία, but somatic life is absorbed and transformed in the resurrection of the σῶμα in such a way that continuity as well as change characterizes the relation between the present σῶμα, i.e., present life in its totality, and the resurrection σῶμα, i.e., the transformation of the whole human self as part of the raised corporeity in Christ.”
[4] Thiselton, Corinthians, 476. “The imagery of the purchased slave underpins the point that Christian believers belong to a new master, or owner, to whom they must give account for everything. That the main emphasis falls on this point is correct…”
[5] Thiselton, Corinthians, 478. “Redemption is from a state of jeopardy by a costly act to a new state.”
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