TEXT: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
You Are A Package Deal
Once
upon a time I was speaking with a group of high school students. The subject was sexual activity outside of
marriage, and we talked about the risk of disease and the possibility of
pregnancy; we talked of rights and wrongs and various implications. I remember that it got to be, in some ways,
an awkward evening because it took on a certain “Crossfire” flavor --
adversarial rather than dialogic. It
suddenly became their job to say that that kind of activity was all right, and mine
to argue that it wasn't. One, in
particular, argued the case: "it
doesn't make any difference," he said, "because it doesn't mean
anything. It's just a physical
act."
It
wasn’t finally much different from a phone call I had received another time,
from a married person involved in an extra-marital affair. Devastated at the prospect of losing his wife
who had unearthed the thing, he was, at the same time, a little miffed by her
response. "Why doesn't she
understand that I still love her; that this other doesn't mean anything? It was just physical."
A
group of high school kids; a married adult.
Both living in the vicinity of
It
made sense to them. Their's, like that
of most of the Biblical people's, was a culture in which most other religions
provided rituals and ceremonies without questioning or making any demand upon
the worshiper's life-style (Craddock, Proc. 2, p. 20)
Unfortunately,
the Corinthians hadn't listened closely enough to the faith of Moses and Jesus,
for whom the two - life-style and worship - were inseparable.
Without
even reading Paul's letter, you can probably guess where he comes down. What I appreciate about Paul, here, is not
simply his response, but also the way in which he responds. When I listen in on moral arguments between
people, someone will eventually drop the bomb:
"The Bible says it's wrong," and leave it at that; resolving
nothing, but killing the conversation.
If that was ever appropriate or sufficient, and I doubt it ever was, it
certainly isn't today.
For
one thing, I don't believe scripture asks for that kind of blind authority. It is not a capricious parent that responds
to questions with a flippant "Because I said so." In spite of the way it is so often used -
even today – it is not a book of rules, nor is it a mere leather bound list of
don'ts and things to give up. It is not
a piece of stone with which to be hit over the head, but rather bread with
which to be nourished. It is the story
of God and God's people - what the early Christians came to call "good
news," because of the goodness of the new life it pumped into their
beings. "Good news" is a label
that we continue to use, but have too often ceased to mean.
The
Bible does not preempt your mind, but
engages it, calling you, as you read it, to a different worldview - a different
way of organizing the pieces of life around you. At least I think that's what Paul
believed. And because of that, the
people reading his letter hear more than a reminder that "the Bible says
it's wrong." You hear a reason, and
in the reason an invitation to a different way of understanding life.
The
Corinthians - and us following them - got their notion of life from the Greeks
who believed that the real self is the spirit, imprisoned within a body. The body, in that understanding, was
irrelevant, at best, and an evil at worst.
If irrelevant, then it didn't make much difference what you did with
it. If evil, then deny it in every way
possible. Since the latter usually
involves pain, most people through the ages - the Corinthians, that group of
kids with whom I visited, and that husband - have chosen the former
option. "We are spiritual
people. What we do with the flesh that
packages it doesn't matter.
The
Hebrews, however, conceived of personhood in very different terms. Body and mind and spirit are none so
divisible; rather they are intimately and inseparably a part of each
other: in other words, we don't have a
body; we are a body. We don't have a
spirit, we are a spirit. The mind in the
same way. Our "self" is a
whole made up of all three. What touches
one, touches the other. We are a
unified, inseparable whole. Some have
understood that all along. Others of us
are only beginning to learn.
The
growing field of wholistic medicine knows this connection to be true; our new
consciousness about healthy foods, nicotine, caffeine, etc. is an expression of
the fact that we are beginning to recover a sense of the body's
interrelatedness. And it goes beyond
what we eat. Surely we know that to hit
a child does not simply hurt her body; it bruises her personhood as well. And finally, consider the effects of our way
of life.
In
their book simply titled Stress,
Walter McQuade and Ann Aikman introduced now over 20 years ago the research of
Dr. Ray Rosenman and Dr. Meyer Friedman, physicians specializing in coronary
problems and stress. In early inquiries,
advertising men and engineers were asked what factors seemed to have preceded
heart attacks among friends and colleagues.
Those surveyed were given ten choices, including all the standard risks
such as diet and cigarette consumption, plus anxiety, work, excessive
competition, and stress and making deadlines.
Fewer than 3 percent mentioned the normal risk items, and fewer than 4%
selected anxiety or work. More than 70%
picked excessive competition and the stress of making deadlines. (p. 25)
Later,
the two doctors studied accountants, measuring this time statistics rather than
opinion. All were asked to keep detailed
diaries of what they ate, and Friedman and Rosenman arranged to examine each
twice a month, measuring cholesterol levels during both slack periods and times
of heavy pressure. Two significant
cholesterol peaks occurred: first, when
the accountants were closing out the yearly books of their clients in January,
and again in March to mid-April when they were heavily involved in preparing
income tax returns. The levels fell off
during months of more placid work. (p.
25)
The
pressures and concerns that occupy our minds and spirits, are not simply
emotional, psychological realities, but physical ones as well.
And
I guess it strikes me as ironic that teenagers, like those with whom I visited,
of all people, don't understand that inter-relatedness right off. Their faces are the greatest proof of what
I'm talking about. When I was in school,
my complexion deteriorated in direct proportion to the importance of the exam,
or the attractiveness of the date I was to pick up that night. My body was directly affected by my mental
state. We are a whole. It all goes together - body, mind, and
spirit. There is no such thing as
"a purely physical act." What
you do with your body, you with your "self".
But,
finally, that's not even the bottom line of it.
Important as that concept may be to understanding our true selves and
the way we are put together, that's not the last thing that must be said. It wasn't for Paul. It's not just that to abuse your body - in
whatever way you may happen to choose, from recreational sex, to over-eating -
abuses your whole self; it also abuses the very spirit of God, whose temple you
are.
Fred
Craddock tells the story of walking into a country church in which he was to
preach, to find two of the deacons seated behind the communion table waiting,
with their feet propped up on the table.
"I don't know," he reflected, "it's hard to say just
what, but something about it seemed inappropriate - it's a church for goodness
sake; it's the communion table. It's just not the way we treat the
church."
In
Paul
would have us feel just as protective of our selves - for the same reasons;
would have us feel the same sense of propriety about ourselves. There are just some things you don't do to
yourself - just the same as you wouldn't prop your feet up on the communion
table. You are the
In
fact, Paul finishes, its finally more than even that. To mistreat yourself - be it morally,
physically, or mentally, is to vandalize someone else's property, because you
are not your own. You do not belong to
yourselves but to God; he bought you for a price. There is caution in that I think; perhaps
correction as well. But challenge I
think, too. And inspiration; just maybe
"good news." What that means
is that what you do is important, not trivial or irrelevant. Nothing about you is for throwing away - what
you think, what you feel, what you do - all of you. Because all of it is you. And because all of it is God's. Dare you waste it?