Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on January 15th 2012
A printable PDF file can be found here
What do you think? How am I looking this morning? Pumped up? Ready to go? How would you like a body like mine? (Please don’t answer that question, I may be offended!).
Have you ever considered how much time and energy is spent in this nation in trying to get our bodies into whatever others tell us is the shape they should be in? We’re too fat, we’re too thin, we have bulges in the wrong places, we’re not eating this or doing this, we need to wear this in order to emphasize this, wear that to cover up the other… and all for what, for whom, for why?
The Western World is obsessed with the shape and size of bodies. The quest for beauty, the idea that somehow the only way to be anybody in life is to look like somebody else is a slippery, wasteful path to pursue.
The older you get the harder it becomes and maybe we reach a point where we don’t exercise to keep in shape but to stay alive! Years of neglect and abuse eventually take their toll. Some get up in the morning and are just thankful that the joints still move (though nowhere near as easily as they once did). I’m told that some check the obituary column just to be sure they are not in it. The aging process plays cruel tricks.
I’m starting a series this week that looks at chapters six through nine of 1 Corinthians which I’m calling, “Living a holy life in an unholy world”. This morning our reading focused on the human body. In particular how we should as Christians regard our bodies and the sort of things we should or shouldn’t do with our bodies.
The people to whom this letter was first addressed were the church at Corinth. Corinth was a cosmopolitan seaport with not the best reputation. It wasn’t that there were not good people in the place, but rather that there was such an attitude of uncritical tolerance that it became a place where ‘anything goes’. Some commentators describe Corinth as “Sin City”.
The church there was strongly influenced by the climate of ‘freedom without responsibility’ that many of its citizens embraced. To their credit they had actually used such a situation to their benefit. They experimented with spiritual gifts and made much of ‘experience’ being a validation of truth. No congregation that Paul founded had such a charismatic emphasis as the Corinthians. Speaking in tongues and words of divine prophecy, utterances and experiences attributed to the work of the Holy Spirit appear to have been an important part of their worship experiences.
A significant number of these believers were Gentiles with wealth and property to their name. Enough for them to accommodate meetings in their homes and organize banquets around the Lord’s Supper. Indeed later in the letter Paul takes them to task for using such times as opportunities not for service but for self-promotion, the rich exploiting the poor and the whole thing becoming something it was never intended to be.
Corinth’s libertarian attitude led to the development of a dangerous teaching. Putting it simply they came to believe that what you did with your body was unimportant, that it was only the state of your soul and the experience you had of the Holy Spirit that counted for anything.
Things had deteriorated to such a point that in the church people were entering into all kinds of relationships that did anything but glorify God and made the congregation as a whole look bad. Back in chapter five Paul has heard about all this and he chastises them, “It is common knowledge that there is immorality among you, immorality of such kinds as even the godless don’t approve of” (paraphrase of 1 Cor.5:1).
Paul speaks of the body using the Greek word “Soma”. He sees our bodies as one of the great gifts that God has given to us. So we are to care for them and be careful how we use them. He notes how our bodies are driven by appetites, and singles out two particular passions. Firstly, our appetite for food. Secondly, our appetite for physically connecting with others. In both cases he warns that the unrestrained expression of desire could result in tragedy, both personally and for the church.
It seems in Corinth they had a few catchy little expressions they used to justify their actions. It may be they even heard these things from Paul when he had been amongst them. We know that Paul was keen to preach a gospel of ‘Freedom in Christ’. No longer did people have to live under the law, but they were saved by grace through faith.
So in verse 12 we find Paul quoting to them one of these maxims. “All things are lawful for me”. You see the logic the Corinthians had applied? ‘All things are lawful for me’. ‘Jesus has set me free from law, so I can live however I please. What I do with my body doesn’t count. I live by the Spirit not by the flesh.’ ‘All things are lawful for me.’
Paul is keen to retain the truth he has preached to them. ‘Yes’, he tells them, ‘You are right, all things are lawful for you. You are set free in Christ!” But, he then goes onto say… not everything you do benefits you and anything that you are doing that has become a bad habit you can’t get out of has robbed you of your freedom in Christ.
He then deals with another Corinthian catchphrase; “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”. They were using this maxim to justify a lot more than an occasional binge on chocolate. It was descriptive of the attitude they had towards all their bodily appetites. If your body felt like eating, then go ahead eat as you like. If your body feels like drinking, go ahead, drink whatever. If your body feels like it needs the companionship of another, then go ahead, indulge that need.
Corinth was a port, with a reputation for being a place to indulge the self. Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, if you could you name it then you could probably find it. So if somebody felt the need for some physical companionship then it was no big deal, you just went out and indulged yourself.
We know from elsewhere in Paul’s letters that he had taught them about unclean and clean foods and how it was not what they ate that made them unclean, because it was after all only food, and that they could, within reason, eat whatever their stomachs approved of… but this “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”, was twisting that idea as to accommodate just about anything a person did.
“Hold on a minute” he seems to say, “All this body and eating and relating and all the rest of it, you know and I know that ultimately the body decays, we die and that’s it.” In Verse 13 he tells them “God will destroy both the one and the other”. “But there is a bigger picture. You are Christian people, redeemed by the work of Jesus Christ.”
Paul’s argument is something along these lines: - You recall what happened to Jesus. He died but God raised Him from the dead, and something new came about. That power, that Holy Spirit, resurrection power is at work in your lives now that you have accepted the message of Jesus Christ by putting your faith in Him.
So how you treat your body, what you put into it, where you take it, is for you a really important issue. It didn’t used to matter when you just lived to die, but now you are seeking to live in a way that glorifies God and lasts for ever so you have to look at your body in a new way.
Now, you are a part of a community, a church, a body of people known as the body of Christ. What people see you do affects of how they look at God. Christ’s love now lives in you. Your body is a little church all on it’s own, a temple of the Holy Spirit. That’s why you can’t just go on living by satisfying whatever appetite may arise in your body.
Whether it’s food, or physical companionship, or even what you wear and how you behave, a whole host of things. Once these weren’t important, but now they are. They are important because God desires His temple to be a beautiful place. A place through which others can find His love. You are called to be that beautiful place.
He warns them to be particularly careful when it comes to physical relationships. Whilst your body, with its needs and appetites and changing seasons is important… remember that you are more than just a body. You are not your own. Jesus claims you as His.
This claim Jesus places on your life places you in a position of tremendous security. This claim Jesus makes over you is above and beyond the claim any other person or thing or appetite or desire makes over you. This claim Jesus makes over you puts you at the center of God’s attention, the apple of His eye, and the object of God’s affection.
That’s a strong place to be coming from. God simply says, "Be the Man, Be the Woman, Be the Person I made you to be". The words of Psalm 139.
O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You discern my thoughts from far away. You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, You know it completely. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me! (Psalm 139:1-6)
How do we live a holy life in an unholy world? One way is by remembering that each one of us, in God’s eyes, is already body beautiful. Beautiful enough to send Jesus to be our Savior. Beautiful enough to be called a temple of the Holy Spirit. They do say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well... behold… God made you. Jesus saved you. The Holy Spirit lives through you. Leave this place in the confidence of the security that comes from knowing yourself a child of God.
Rev Adrian Pratt
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