Sermons

Honoring God With Our Bodies

BY THERESA MCCONNELL | FEBRUARY 8, 2009 (Epiphany)

I Corinthians 6:12-20: Glorify God in Body and Spirit
12 ‘All things are lawful for me’, but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful for me’, but I will not be dominated by anything. 13‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’,* and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. 14And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. 15Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, ‘The two shall be one flesh.’ 17But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. 19Or do you not know that your body is a temple* of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

Why do you think Paul is talking to the Corinthians about their sex life? It might be helpful to examine the text carefully, so open your Bible to the passage and we’ll explore it more closely.

…“the Corinthians apparently view the body as belonging to a separate, inferior level of existence from the true self (soul or spirit), while Paul thinks in terms of embodied selves in virtual corporate relations with others.” (Abingdon Commentary, esermons.com).

“His argument is this: when you engage in sexual intercourse with a prostitute you enter her power sphere; you fall under her authority. Your relationship with her then competes with your relationship to Christ. This is interesting because prostitutes were often linked to temples and were sometimes understood as a sacramental way of communing with the god.” (William Loader, I Corinthians 6 exegesis, wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/lectionaryindex.html)

By way of background, you need to know that the Greeks looked down upon the body. There was a proverbial saying among them that "the body is a tomb." Or, as Epictetus once wrote: "I am a poor soul, shackled to a corpse." The important thing was the "soul" or "spirit" of a person. Bodies were of lesser importance. That thinking led to a pair of attitudes. Some Greeks so despised the body” and the desires of the body that they tried to rise above all bodily appetites. Some, by abstinence. Others, by fasting. Still others, by celibacy. Sometimes by beating the body. And occasionally, in the case of women, by binding the body. (On Knowing Who You Are at 8:00 in the Morning , by William A. Ritter, esermons.com).

But this was rare, compared with the second (more prevalent) attitude: one which said: "If the body is of no importance, why not do anything you like to it (or with it)?" Meaning, if the body has a hunger, feed it. If the body has a need, meet it. And if the body has a desire, satisfy it. If a man has a stomach, he eats. Therefore, if a man has other parts…

To which Paul said: "Look, the body is not a tomb. The body is a temple. Treat it as such. What's more, body parts (Paul calls them "members") have an intrinsic relationship to Christ. Therefore, treat them as such."

This is a very "high" view of the body: the logical extension of which is to say that sexual intercourse makes two people one body ("becoming as one flesh") [Genesis 2:24] and therefore ought only happen between two people who desire such a union, are ready for such a union, and will do whatever it takes to sustain such a union. So to a Corinthian culture that was clearly telling Paul that "everybody's doing it, no law against it," Paul counters by saying:

All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.

Or, as William Barclay translates it: True, all things are allowed me, but not all things are good for me. (Ibid).

In some ways the Corinthian’s view of the body is not so different than many have today. What are current attitudes about sexual intercourse? “Everybody’s doing it, so shouldn’t I?” “Friends with benefits” – no strings attached sex. “The rules have changed” says a 60 year old man, who was questioning what’s appropriate…”how far to go when” (Ritter, ibid). So, questions about sexual behavior affect young and mature alike.

The Bible says that God created us male and female in God’s image – both in God’s image – and that it was good. Sexuality is for procreation and pleasure. It is a gift given to us from God.

Paul’s point to the Corinthians is to understand that having sex with someone is not only a physical act, but a spiritual, emotional event as well.

Let’s listen in on one pastor’s conversation with his parishioners and his daughter: “To be sure, the closer you get, the more wonderful it feels. But the closer you get, the more vulnerable you are.

We were talking about all of this one morning in my Tuesday Women's Study Group (great group, large group, no holds barred, let it all hang out, talk about anything group). When one of them said to me: "I've got a question for you. Better yet, I've got a question for you to ask your daughter. If it were possible to banish all concerns about pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases, is it possible for our children and grandchildren to have casual, consensual, consequence-free sex?"

So I asked Julie. To which her short answer was: "No, but I suppose it depends on how emotionally sterile their children and grandchildren are." By "emotionally sterile," I suppose she meant cut off from feelings “walled off against any possibility of woundedness” with little investment or commitment. Nothing to feel, meaning nothing to fear but also nothing to dream. Everything focused on the present. Nothing focused on the future. Total freedom from guilt. But also total freedom from hope. Absolutely no strings. But ultimately, no connections.

I suppose that's possible. But it doesn't sound very enjoyable. And certainly not very biblical.

Warming to my challenge, Julie admitted that girls talk about this a lot. And one common conversation concerns the fact that casual sex is seldom movie screen sex. There isn't any music. There aren't any candles. It's seldom beautiful, pleasurable or consequence-free. Worse yet, it doesn't always work. Therefore, you'd better not have sex until you're prepared for all of the things that do not work.

And one of the things that does not always work is how each of the participants views the encounter. Picture a girl who, for any number of reasons, stays the night in a guy's room (or in a guy's apartment). Maybe it's too late. Maybe she's too tired. Maybe they've both had too much to drink. So he says: "Why not crash here?" So she crashes there. Maybe there's a lot more. Maybe a little more. Maybe no more. Still, the decision to spend the night changes the dynamic.

Which is why, when morning comes, the girl is likely to say: "So what are we going to do today?" Only to hear the guy say: "Well, I am planning to run a few errands, work on my car, toss the football around with my friends, then maybe have a couple of beers and take in a movie." Leading her to realize that there is no "we" to "his" plans. Last night was “last night” - with no implied connection to any other night (or any other day, for that matter).

And, says Julie: "One of the sadder sights on any campus is watching some girl walk across the quadrangle at 8:00 in the morning, knowing that she's in the same outfit she was wearing when she left her room at 8:00 the night before." To which Julie added: "The most important thing a female needs to learn is who you are at 8:00 a.m., not necessarily at 12:00 a.m."

But I believe that guys get hurt, too. Maybe in different ways. Maybe in different degrees. But hurt. The injuries might be a long time in the healing.” (Ritter, ibid).

When we understand that we are a TEMPLE of the Holy Spirit, when we understand what we do in our most intimate moments has affects beyond ourselves, we need to reconsider whether we are going to honor God with our bodies and keep sex a sacred event as well.

Sexual union is a sacred, “becoming one,” on many levels within our lives. It’s not simply a casual encounter. Because of this Christian teaching holds that sex is to be shared in a faithful, committed, relationship of marriage. Even within the marriage relationship the man and the woman are “not their own” (according to Paul). There is a mutuality of consideration of the other’s sexual desire within this exclusive relationship. As most of us here today realize, sexual desire and expression change over time- sometimes because of illness or natural maturation, but it changes. But we are sexual beings and sometimes that is expressed through the tender touch. Isn’t there great comfort to be tenderly held, when your heart is breaking? Or how thoughtful the tender touch or the backrub that says, “I love you” and “you are special to me”.

The reason this “becoming one” is so important to Paul is because what we do with our bodies has a lot to say about our commitments. NT scholar Bill Loader reminds us:

The argument against sexual immorality, specifically, engaging in sexual intercourse with a prostitute is based on certain assumptions about relationships.

His argument is this: when you engage in sexual intercourse with a prostitute you enter her power sphere; you fall under her authority. Your relationship with her then competes with your relationship to Christ.

But then he argues that sexual intercourse, itself, creates much more than physical union. It creates a oneness with power dimensions comparable to the oneness in Spirit created when someone 'joins' Christ. Paul is not thinking of flesh or the body as in opposition to Spirit, but of both as having all the dimensions which make up life. (Loader, Ibid).

To honor God with our bodies means that we attend to how we care for our bodies – what we eat, what we drink, the exercise we have or don’t have, and how we care for our sexual desires. We need to understand that what we do with our bodies effects our relationship with God in Christ. Our bodies and spirits are not separate spheres. They are one.

The question for us is how do we commit our lives to Christ and honor God by use of our bodies. How do we honor one another with our Christian counter-culture movement to love in ways that bring honor, dignity, and wholeness to most intimate relationships and the community in which we live? During the week, think about how you honor God with your body.

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