First Lutheran Church, Detroit Lakes, MN
01.14.2024 – Epiphany 2 – 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
“All things are lawful for me” (1 Corinthians 6:12) was the response Paul received from the Corinthians when he questioned church members who were engaging in regular sexual infidelity with prostitutes.
I’ll be preaching on this topic…aren’t you glad you came to church today!?
But, first, a brief background on Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. In the early 50sCE, only 20 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Apostle Paul had founded numerous congregations in the Greco-Roman world. One of those congregations was in the city of Corinth, Greece.[1]
Corinth was a “busy seaport” on the Mediterranean Sea and it “was famous for its prosperity [and] trade, [and] notorious for its legions of prostitutes.”[2] The harbor town ran the reputation for, let’s say…impious behavior. In laymen’s terms, Corinth was a party town, the Vegas of the Mediterranean.
This was the context of Paul’s young congregation, where it was common practice for “elite, married males” to regularly engage multiple women in “sexual relationships;”[3] and Paul called them out for their sexual recklessness.
And some of Paul’s members, when they received this critique, used clever excuses to justify their behavior. In fact, they even used Paul’s preaching to justify it. They used the promise that they’re forgiven of their sin, their freedom in Christ, as a green light to continue engaging in sexual promiscuity.
‘All things are lawful for us’(v. 12)—you said so yourself, Paul!
And they added other arguments; particularly, this one: food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food (v. 13). In other words, We have these bodies, we have urges; let us do our thing, Paul!
Also consider this: Paul had started a church in the middle of Greece, and Greek philosophy at that time, according to some scholars, “placed little or no value on [the body].”[4] For instance, the Greek Philosopher, Plato, argued that the body is ultimately a shell for the much more valuable soul.[5]
So, what we have here is Paul’s congregation a) using the Gospel: We’re forgiven and free, Paul, and b) likely subscribing to the philosophical argument that the body isn’t worth much anyway! –all to justify their sexual carelessness. Such was the congregational business Paul took up in his letter.
In summarizing this, it sure does make our Annual Meeting agenda seem pretty tame, doesn’t it!? Could you imagine?
Agenda:
- Property Report
- Fiscal Year Budget
- Sexual Irreverence – Yay or Nay?
The conversation between Paul and his Corinthian congregation deals explicitly with sexual ethics and behaviors, but it all really comes down to this main issue: the Christian regard for our own and our neighbor’s physical body. Through the lens of our faith, how ought we regard the human body?
These Corinthians thought that their freedom in Christ permitted them to do anything they wanted, and their Greek philosophy placed little value on the body. For Paul, this was a destructive concept and he had to address it.
So, he responded first to their argument that they are forgiven and freed in Christ to do whatever they wanted. Paul responded, the Gospel frees us, yes, but it doesn’t free us for anarchic and destructive behavior; all things are lawful, sure, but, as Paul says,not all things are beneficial (vv. 1, 12-13).
In short: Yes, we are forgiven and free, but we are not forgiven and freed to hurt others; we’re forgiven and freed to serve and protect others!
Then Paul gives, through the lens of faith, a way for Christians to think about the human body.
Before we get into that, I want to make note that low regard for the human body is not an issue from which we are so far removed here in 2024.
In fact, I think there are two general sins our dominant culture commits ‘against the body’: we either shame it, or we exploit it.
On shaming: we ridicule or gossip about others’ bodies, especially if they don’t uphold impossible cultural standards. And sometimes we ridicule or gossip about those who dress confidently or less conservatively, or vice versa!
Sometimes we ridicule or shame our own body. Many of us look in the mirror and we loath and despise it, as if it is some object we are permitted to berate, rather than this sacred, incredible, dynamic, miraculous creation of God. Think about the human body in general! –it speaks, it thinks, it heals itself, it’s resilient, adaptive, expresses love, creates art, absorbs knowledge, produces life, and provides for life! The human body, in all its forms, is an absolute marvel of the Universe!
Yet we are generally ashamed of the body and view it not with wonderment but with a sense of ridicule and shame.
And if we’re not ashamed of or condemning the body – we go another direction! –we exploit, use, and abuse the body from shameless marketing to sexual assault.
Objectification is in every magazine, movie, television show, and advertisement. The human body is regularly reduced to a marketing decoration at best and is treated as an object of violence at worst.
And here Paul is reminding us that these are “sins against the body” (6:18), and proclaims to his Corinthians that the human body is not an object made for our ridicule, and it is certainly not something to be exploited and trafficked. OUR BODIES ARE SACRED! The Word became flesh! God revealed God’s glory, grace, and truth by becoming a human body in Christ Jesus!
Our bodies are created in the image of God; we are a part of the creation that God calls, “very good” (Genesis 1:27, 31), and to the shaming, destructive, or abusive trends, Paul is pleading, “Do you not know that [the] body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit?” (1 Cor 6:19)!
And we see a remarkable example of this understanding in the Psalm today, of how to view our own and others’ bodies. The psalmist writes:
For it was [God] who formed my inward parts; [God who] knit me in my mother’s womb…I am fearfully and wonderfully made…My frame…intricately woven in the depths of the earth”
Psalm 139:13-15
And if the Apostle Paul or the Psalm 139 isn’t enough, perhaps a scientific perspective can help us realize that our physical being is an absolute wonder. From the philosopher Alan Watts to the physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, both remind us that our bodies are made of the same elements that the universe is made; our bodies are the universe come to life!
Our bodies are something to be celebrated, revered, and protected. Ours and our neighbors.
So, my friends, here’s the law: stop shaming, judging, and exploiting the body – your own and your neighbors.
And here’s the gospel: as a part of the created universe, according to God, the human body is “very good”; according to Paul, the body is a Temple that the Holy Spirit finds worthy to call her home; and according to Jesus, your body and your neighbor’s body are worthy of resurrection. Amen.
[1] Stephen L. Harris, The New Testament: A Student’s Introduction (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2006), 336.
[3] David E. Fredrickson, “1 Corinthians” in The Lutheran Study Bible (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2009), 1881.
[4] Walter Brueggemann, Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year B (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993), 111.
[5] Stanley J. Grenz, David Guretzky, and Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 91.
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