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January 13, 2024: A New Way of Living and Being
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“Brothers and sisters: The body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power.”
These above words of St. Paul we hear proclaimed from the second reading on this 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time. They should not be difficult words to understand. They may be difficult words to apply for some folks who struggle with sins of the flesh. But they should not be words, taught by Paul, through Jesus Christ, Paul’s personal Teacher and Tutor, difficult to understand. St. Paul teaches the people of Corinth something new about the body. Something Gentile pagans in the 1st century had no clue about. Before Paul introduced these “foreigners” to Israel’s Messiah, they knew absolutely nothing about the holiness and holy acts of the human body. They did whatever they pleased with their bodies. And with their human brokenness as their guide in their choices, they made what we know today as gravely sinful choices.
The only group at the time of Jesus who knew the sacredness of the body, and understood the good choices to be made with our bodies, choices that honor God rather than insult Him, were the Israelites. The Chosen People taught by God (through Moses) were given what we know as The Law. Laws (mainly the Ten Commandments, but not limited to them) that were directed at opening the eyes of Israel’s people as to choices they made with their bodies that were offensive to the Lord, and to turn to bodily holiness. The Law was meant for the Israelites to recognize their sin. In other words, The Law exposed their sin, their shortcomings, their physical lawlessness that went against the purpose of why God created our physical bodies from the dust of the earth. Be it adultery, sodomy, self-abuse, or numerous other sins of the flesh (using our hands to steal another person’s money, or using the same hand to injure another person’s body in anger), God taught them through Moses a new way, a holy way, a truthful way of living in the body that reflected the presence and love of God working in their lives. And not just today and tomorrow, but lifelong holiness that said to the other nations, “This is the way of the one true God. This is what it means to know and reflect your Creator and Maker, to reflect your true dignity, and allow your lives to shine forth in holiness for others to see and potentially embrace.”
When we consider how the Israelites were the only nation in existence who were taught by the all-holy God, understanding what it truly means to be holy in their bodily choices, we can begin to imagine how difficult it was for St. Paul in his missionary work with Gentiles when teaching them that “the body is not for immorality,” but for morality. With the Corinthians, as well as all Gentiles whom Paul preached to in the name of Jesus Christ, he was teaching them something new. The thought and practice of any group of Gentiles making what we know today to be holy choices in their bodies was not a consideration on their part. They knew little or nothing about living authentic holiness. They were driven by their sinful fleshly desires, and if it felt good, they did it. Sound familiar in 2024? Is the present western culture retreating 2000 years here?
Before Paul showed up with the message of salvation, accompanied by a new way of being in the world, the Corinthians lived by instinct, like an animal does. Put a plate of food down in front of a dog that weighs 100 pounds, and the dog does not consider if they are hungry enough to want to eat at that time. Rather, they go for the food and woof it down before the plate is taken away. They act on instinct. They are not blessed with the gift of reason to say to themselves, “I’ll wait until I’m hungry again. Then I’ll dig in and take slow bites that are healthier for my body.” It was the same for the Corinthians and their sexual appetites. They committed adultery without any shame or knowledge of a better way in a patriarchal society. They made the choice of sodomy, choosing unnatural sexual practices (men with men, men with boys, and women with women), choices that were made because, well, they felt like it. It felt good. Instinct. There existed at the time, before Paul entered the scene, no awareness of holiness. Or what may be proper and healthy. Or what was respectful and dignified. Why? Because they did not know the one true God of Israel. They knew nothing about him. They knew about some Jews living in Corinth, a weird group of people they understood to practice different physical and sexual choices grounded in their belief system of worshipping only one God. But the Corinthians could have cared less about any Jewish claims to know the one true God who was personal with his people, who called them to holiness, unlike the Corinthians many pagan gods who were never awake because they do not truly exist. When Paul showed up, a new way of sexual choices was born for them.
St. Paul taught the Corinthians and other Gentile communities what the difference is between living a wholesome, healthy, holy, Christian life, and living one of degradation and unnaturalness that in essence sinfully abuses their bodies and that of others. If a Corinthian committed adultery, it was no big deal to the one who committed the act. They understood nothing of the unholiness or wrongness of the act they chose. If an Israelite committed adultery, they fully understood they were committing an act that gravely offended God, and how it went directly against one of the commandments of the Law God handed down to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The great King of Israel, King David, came to know this in a hard way. Through God’s revelation to his people Israel, King David came to understand two things; first, that God sees everything. And second, that his choice with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, was deeply offensive to the God of Israel. The difference is that David, because he took responsibility for his adulterous choice to be offensive to the Lord, eventually pled for forgiveness. Any Corinthian under the same circumstances would have no clue about the need to seek Divine mercy. They would walk around like an immoral zombie not knowing they were living in a state of degradation as a person.
Paul changed this way of thinking and living in his founding of the Christian community in Corinth. The problem with the Corinthians, of course, and with a few other churches Paul founded in Christ, is how they tended back to their former pagan ways some time after the Apostle made his “Christ-mark” on the hearts and minds of these new believers living in that ancient city. As we tend to do at times, some Corinthians forgot, not who they were previously, but who they became. Sadly, some went back to their pagan ways of living, believing that what they did in the body had no connection to living an authentic faith in Christ. St. Paul, through his many revelations of Christ Jesus, corrected the believers who returned to their “physical haywireness” with regard to bodily choices, reminding them how bodily holiness is forever and intimately connected to Christian discipleship.
With all the recent “stuff” going on in the Church regarding blessings, and who should or should not receive them, there’s the fact that we need St. Paul’s reminder that “the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord.” Why? Because “God raised the Lord” in the same body that was born of the Virgin, “and he will also raise us by his power.” The sins committed in the church at Corinth after they were introduced to God’s new way of how to be holy and faithful are some of the same bodily sins committed today. They are not sins of omission in any way. They are sins of the body, the same body that is so sacred that God will raise it from death, giving to us a new, glorified body absent our present possibility of death. What seems to be missing is the awareness that the choices we make in our bodies matter to God. We are not animals who live by instinct. We have reason, and our reason tells us clearly and with holy thought that sins of the flesh are offensive to God, whoever is committing the sin. Jesus has given us a new way of being. A way of holiness that may fall short at times, but a direction not meant to ever turn backwards to a time when we did not know the living, true God.
It appears to me this is where we stand today on the matter. That both within God’s Church (like the believing Corinthians) and secular society (like the pagan Romans), irrational excuses abound for unholy acts. Animal-like excuses. Have we lost the insight within the walls of our Church and the outer walls of our society that what St. Paul knew to be a sinful act, an unnatural act, an act offensive to God’s majesty, so much so that God condemns it, is now somehow to be seen as gaining a portion of righteousness? May it not be so! What was dangerously sinful to God, and what Paul taught the Corinthians as a grave danger to their salvation as disciples of Christ Jesus, does not evolve into an act that today pleases God to even the smallest portion. As mentioned in a past article, a mule cannot become a horse, and a horse cannot become a zebra. GOD’S TRUTH NEVER CHANGES. And this is one essential reason for Paul writing what he does to the Corinthians in the opening verses of this week’s second reading. That “the body is not for immorality.” In essence, Paul tells them, “Don’t go backwards to those pagan acts when you did not know God. You have a new way of living and being. It is the holy way of Christ Jesus, whose teachings are eternal.” And God’s teachings on the holiness and sacredness of the human body are not to be altered in any way by anyone at any time, but to be faithfully preserved and passed on to the next generation so they will not live in confusion, but in the truth and knowledge of Christ.