This sermon was the second week of the series based on Paul's letters to the Corinthians. it was also Martin Luther King, Jr. week-end, which had me reflecting on his work and writings. I'm not sure my use of his Letter from Birmingham did justice to what King was saying. I was not very satisfied with this sermon.
“Lawful or Beneficial”, January 17, 2021; SAPC, Denton; Dr. Richard B. Culp; I Corinthians 6: 12-20
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,”[a] 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. 14 And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. 15 Do 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! 16 Do 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.” 17 But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple[b] of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.
Introduction: Another week in Corinth, reflecting on Paul’s writings as he tries to explain to the early Christian community their calling as disciples of Christ.
As a reminder from last week, in New Testament times Corinth had come to be known for its lavish lifestyles and conspicuous consumption. - famous for theaters, temples, casinos, and brothels, and sexual promiscuity.
We also remember that Paul’s letters contain Paul’s responses to issues he sees in Corinth. What we read this morning is not Paul’s systematic discourse on the doctrine of Christian freedom and the law, but Paul looking at specific issues or teachings in Corinth which needs more explanation and correction.
For example, if your Bible translation is like the NRSV, there are several phrases in this letter that has quotes - presumably, those are sayings that Paul has heard are being spoken in Corinth, sayings with which he has issues.
move 1: Paul is working out for the early church how freedom and the law fit together in a Christian context.
a. Some are saying “all things are lawful for me.”
1. In fact, they may be quoting Paul himself.
2. They have heard Paul say, or perhaps read his words, which declare that in Christ, God has freed humans from the demands of the law.
3. a bedrock theological concept for Paul and for us: in Christ, we are free - free from the law; free from sin; free from death; free from all that holds us back from living as disciples of Christ.
4. Paul would be the first to declare that Christians are free.
b. but, Paul ties our freedom in Christ to the belief that if a person loves God, the person loves what God loves.
1. Instead of announcing, “I am free to do this or that,” Paul demands we ask, “is doing this or that something that reflects God’s love and God’s desires.”
2. With tomorrow being Martin Luther King, Jr Day, I was reflecting on some of his writings this week. I was reminded of a discussion he had about the law in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, which as you may recall was written to the clergymen of Birmingham.
You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all.” (https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/sites/mlk/files/letterfrombirmingham_wwcw_0.pdf)
3. There is a higher calling than the law; there is a higher calling than freedom from the law.
c. Thus, paul provides this criteria for the Corinthians as they consider what it means to live into their Christian calling.
1. Is what they are doing beneficial to others and to the body of Christ?
2. It does not matter what the law says
3. In fact, later in this letter in the 10th chapter Paul writes, “All things are lawful,” but not all things are beneficial. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.
4. Paul goes on to write: 24 Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other.
5. Paul pushes the Corinthians that their freedom in Christ must be lived out in ways that are beneficial to others and for the good of the community. (https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/second-sunday-after-epiphany-2/commentary-on-1-corinthians-612-20-3; Valerie Nicolet-Anderson Maître de Conférence (Assistant Professor) Faculté Libre de Théologie Protestante Paris, France)
4. Paul challenges those who equate freedom to mean “I can do anything that I want and that pleases me,” to understand that their freedom in Christ ties them to living like Christ, which is about serving others and working for the welfare of others.
d. As we live out our Christian calling in our current context, it seems to me that Paul’s words offer a challenge to us.
1. from what we read and see, we are free to interpret facts and even laws in ways that serve our own purposes and act accordingly.
2. But how do we live out our calling as followers of Christ to act in ways that build up, that are beneficial to others?
Move 2: Paul uses sexual immorality to make his point.
a. Perhaps Paul chooses this example because of his own upbringing in the Jewish tradition and its emphasis on the Holiness code.
1. Think Leviticus and all its rules about food and sexuality.
2. Paul sees the freedom in Christ as a release from the Holiness code strangling the people with rules, but surely the point of being holy is a part of Paul’s expectations.
b. When Paul challenges the Corinthian Christians to forego prostitution, it is also a clear example for them of how to understand what it means to be free.
1. By the standards of Corinthian society, being a free man meant being able to visit brothels and engage in sexual immorality.
2. Paul, however, calls the Corinthians to give up this freedom in order to be slaves of Christ.
3. For Paul, the question is less about morality and more about identity.
4. “you are not your own,” Paul tells the Corinthians.
5. God frees them from the law, but in response, they become “slaves to Christ.”
6. The freedom bestowed upon them by Corinthian sexual morays is replaced with the calling to live in ways that are pleasing to God.
7. Ways that build up others.
8. Ways not lived out in brothels, but in serving others.
9. They are free, but in that freedom, they are called to identify themselves with the ways of Christ.
Move 3: Identity
a. We read a portion of Psalm 139 this morning.
1. A powerful passage of identity declaring both whose we are and who we are.
2. Psalm 139 lays forth the claim that all we are, literally, the unformed body in the womb waiting to take shape, is of God.
all we do cannot be hidden from God
In fact, God finds us wherever we are.
Even as the days of our lives come to an end, God is there with us.
3. a powerful affirmation of identity.
b. But, it also carries with it the expectation that we live into that identity.
1. According to Tom Long there was an occasion a few years ago when a biblical scholar was explaining Mark 1 to a group of teenagers. This scholar told the teens that when Jesus was baptized, the skies did not just open up, as some older translations said, but in the original Greek of Mark 1:10, we are told the skies ripped open, split in an almost violent way. This was very dramatic and forceful. "Get the point?" the scholar asked the group. "When Jesus was baptized, the heavens that separate us from God were ripped open so that now we can get to God. Because of Jesus, we have access to God--we can get close to him."
But there was one young man sitting in the front row, arms crossed, making a fairly obvious display of his disinterest. Yet suddenly he perked up and said, "That ain't what it means." “What?" the Bible scholar said, startled. "I said that ain't what that means," the teenager repeated. "It means that the heavens were ripped open so that now God can get at US anytime God wants. Now nobody's safe!”
2. The God who knows us in the womb, who follows us all the days of our lives expects us to live as people freed from the law and as slaves to Christ.
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