Christianity is a religion of paradoxes. It also has many “doctrines” that dare to wade into the complex and messy parts of life. One of those doctrines is original sin. I don’t want to get stuck in bog of logic around it, but simply, it grapples with the issues of whether people are by nature good or are they by nature bad. If good, then what went wrong? If bad, then what about a newborn infant incapable of consciously choosing bad? Along with all of it is God’s grace and what is required for salvation.
There have been many contradictory thoughts. Since the days of St. Augustine in the 3rd and 4th centuries, original sin and sexuality have been linked. That is generally agreed to have been a mistake, but the linking persists. The end result is that sexuality can become seen as the root of all evil. The Christian understanding of relationships, marriage, gender and more all go back to mistakes made predominately by St. Augustine.
The point today is not to dive into Augustine’s doctrine of original sin. I just start with that to remind us that when we read things like 1 Corinthians 6 we have to be careful that we do not inadvertently interpret it through Augustine’s mistakes of original sin.
When 1 Corinthians is allowed to speak on its own Paul’s more positive understanding of it all can be seen.
First though, let’s make sure we are defining terms the same way Paul did. I have to make the disclaimer that Paul is not 100% consistent in this – he even breaks the pattern in the verses we have today. Overall though, Paul uses the terms: flesh, Spirit, and body in very specific ways.
When we hear flesh we think about the material substance of our bodies. When we hear Spirit we think about some immortal soul. Many people then think that when Paul is talking about flesh and Spirit he is talking about a body/soul differentiation.
Not so! Augustine may have made a mess of original sin, but he definitely got Paul right here. And so did many Roman Catholic scholars, Luther and many reformers.
When Paul says flesh he does not mean the atoms of your body. When Paul says flesh he means that part of you that is turned away from God – that part of you that is bad, or evil. When Paul says spirit he is not talking about some immortal soul. He is talking about that part of you that is turned towards God. “Flesh” can be both material things and attitudes. “Spirit” can similarly be both material things and attitudes. Keep Paul’s flesh/spirit use in mind as I read to you from his letter to the Galatians, 5:17
“Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want… Now the works of the flesh are obvious: [and notice these are both actions and attitudes] fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.”
Hmmm, what does all that say about how we run political campaigns?
Paul goes on, and again note that these are not soul things but both actions of the body and attitudes, “By contrast the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.”
Now flesh/Spirit does not come up in our passage for today, but Paul’s third word does – body. For Paul “body” is not a synonym for flesh. Body is the whole of your beingness. It is the atoms that make up your skin and bones, and it is your thoughts, and it is your actions, and it is your attitudes. For Paul your body is the fullness of everything about you. Keep that in mind whenever you read Paul’s thoughts about the resurrection of the body. He does not have in mind resuscitating a corpse.
Going to our passage from 1 Corinthians 6 lets start part way through with verse 19, “Or do you not know that your body [the wholeness of your beingness] is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God…” Your body – your “youness” is a gift and creation of God and should be treated as such.
All too often people let the opinions of others tear them down. You’ve heard me say it many times before. God does not make mistakes and God does not make junk. You are God’s good creation. Period. End of story. No debate. Don’t ever let anyone treat you as anything less than beautiful.
Similarly, you need to recognize that others are also temples of God. That is really hard to do.
Last week in the day after election day I was talking to a colleague who said that she knows she has to see the face of Christ in those whose political views she finds offensive and wrong, but she just doesn’t want to. She said she’ll get there eventually but right now she’s too full of anger and rage.
It is hard – really hard – but if we ever want to be a strong nation that is united – if we ever want to even think we can claim to be God’s people – we must, must, see others as God’s temple too.
That does not mean we all have to get along. That does not mean we have to like each other. Nowhere in the Bible does it say you have to be nice to people. However, I think we can certainly agree that Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, are all essential to be a strong nation. Also note, that when Paul lists the gifts of the Spirit – remember we talked about them a couple weeks ago – and Paul says that the gifts of the Spirit vary from person to person, he does not say that of the fruit of the Spirit. It even comes across in his grammar. Gifts is plural. Fruit is singular. The fruit of the Spirit is expected of all.
If we take body to mean the wholeness of who we are, and that it is the temple of God, then we are in a place to understand Paul’s words about destructive sexual behavior.
Notice, Paul does not say that sexual expression is a work of the flesh. He does not categorize sex as flesh or Spirit. He expresses it in the form of body – an expression of the wholeness of being. Keeping that in mind hear his words again, “The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. Do you not know your bodies are members of Christ?”
Fornication can be a nebulous term, so he gets more specific, “Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said…” and here Paul does use the word flesh but it is a quote from Genesis 2:24. “’The two shall be one flesh.’ But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit…”
Paul’s words are stern, but he is rooting them in the very beingness of ourselves. He calls for proper appreciation of our bodies and their powers. And he wants that to be understood in terms of God’s creative and saving work. Some people picture Paul as a curmudgeon, an overly righteous taskmaster, but that is a mistake. Paul wants people to be able to celebrate who they are as God has made them to be. Paul’s writings create wholeness and confidence.
May you always rejoice in God’s work in your body – the wholeness of your being. Enjoy it. Honor it. May you see that value in yourself and in others. That can be very hard, but it is a wholly worthwhile pursuit.
No comments:
Post a Comment