Thursday, January 14, 2021

Being United, Being Unified: Speaking to the Soul January 14. 2021




1 Corinthians 6:12-20

The church at Corinth involved a group of people who straddled the world between the Greek philosophy and the developing ethos of Christian morality. The question in the reading we will hear this Sunday from 1st Corinthians is addressed to those people who lived 2000 years ago, and yet cuts straight to the heart of one of the greatest challenges that face Christians today: can something be legal, and still be morally wrong? That’s the problem laid before us in the first verse of our reading. Anyone who has considered the issue of adultery will appreciate that the question’s answer must be, “yes.” Just because something does not violate the law does not mean that it is beneficial, to paraphrase verse twelve. The thirteenth verse extends this question further: do we let legal things- for instance alcohol, food, the search for pleasure of various types—dominate our lives?

The struggle to be unified, to be willing to consider others’ needs alongside your own and uphold the virtue of the common good within the Corinthian church is a struggle that rends American society right now, as recent events have shown. Paul reminds the individuals who make up the church at Corinth that they are no longer simply individuals; they are a body, the Body of Christ. Some members of the Corinthian church used a legalistic argument to continue to visit cult prostitutes, arguing something like: if one no longer believes in the gods the prostitutes serve, one is not engaging in idol worship even in visiting a temple prostitute.

Think this doesn’t apply to us? Anyone who has struggled over what to do with a found wallet has dealt with much the same dilemma, or the Christian employers who rationalizes paying his employees as little as possible. It comes down to this: just because you CAN doesn’t mean you should. All children of alcoholics have to decide if they are going to be able to control what happens after they take that first drink, and all people who have found themselves imbibing too much have to evaluate to see if they should continue drinking.

For months, pleas have gone out to wear a mask during the COVID19 pandemic, but some spurn such appeals as limits on their personal freedom rather than seeing them as a simple way to express concern for those around them. Politicians accept gifts from lobbyists and then vote in favor of lobbyist concerns even if they are against constituents’ interests, and when challenged, point to the fact that such behavior is not against the law—even as it violates the spirit of actually being a “representative” for one’s constituents. As we have heard in the last week, calls for “unity” that lack both accountability repentance for previous divisiveness smacks of gaslighting, not of justice or reconciliation. Being one body means actually feeling others’ pain as our own, and prioritizing an outward- oriented concern for the common good, even if it costs us something to alleviate a wrong.

As Christians living in the 21st century, we face every day a hundred interior negotiations between what we say we commit to as disciples of Jesus Christ, and what we commit to as people living in a post-modern capitalist society, based as it is on a heartless calculus of a few “winners” and a large pool of “losers.” Paul is reminding us that being a Christian involves answering to a higher standard. What is allowed is not always for the good, and that certainly applies to matters of law and economics. Sometimes it feels like this needs to be engraved over every legislative chamber, courtroom, and voting booth in the land. The battle between what we are able to do and what we should do arises from the fact that law and morality have never fully overlapped.

Our reading from 1st Corinthians specifically deals with an embodied morality, particularly in matters of sexuality in a specific cultural context. We live in a society that at once worships and vilifies all matters pertaining to the body. Ultimately, however, the point Paul makes is not denigrating the world of the flesh. Instead, he is making the point that it is through the body that we are united with Christ- not just metaphorically. Being united with Christ also unifies us with each other, as members of the body of Christ. Further, Christ did not merely clothe himself in a human body, but he became God incarnate. He did not masquerade as a human body- Christ HAD a human body, and through that experience in that body Christ lived, loved, suffered, and died.

As Christians, we have to be aware that what we do with our bodies and our actions through those bodies matters, not just to ourselves, but to those who are joined with us in the body of Christ. What we do reflects upon all who share our affiliation as Christians. Does what we do increase love, or does it increase division? This is a vital question for us today.





This was first published at Episcopal Cafe's Speaking to the Soul on January 14, 2021.


This was written as President Donald J. Trump was impeached for the second time in his term in office for incitement of the rebellion of January 6, 2021.

No comments:

Post a Comment