The Body of Christ | a sermon

A sermon by Paul Peters Derry on 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

May only truth be spoken, and only truth received. Amen.

It started innocently enough, perhaps a tad naively identifying which of the four readings assigned by the revised common lectionary from the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, the Psalm that the Epistle and the Gospel to decide among. Those four readings prescribed which ones we would follow for this second Sunday after Epiphany.

It all started innocently enough. Me taking a look at the scriptures, just the titles, not the scriptures themselves, the headings and I thought OK it makes sense for us to read through first Corinthians during this season of Epiphany time. First Corinthians, that Pauliano epistle that. As love is patient, love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. There's surely some good material in them that are biblical hills to mine. What possibly could go wrong?

It started innocently enough. Well, you heard the reading from First Corinthians chapter 6 this evening that Robin read for us. It's the kind of scripture that once it's read, it could not be unread once it is heard, it cannot be unheard. It had me turning to CHOP GTP this week. It had me even wondering, hey, maybe I could call Andrew. Maybe you could call start a few weeks early. Anything but having to wrestle. With this passage from First Corinthians Chapter 6. It is anything but. Love is patient and love is kind.

As one commentator puts it in First Corinthians chapter 6, verses 12 through 20, we meet the Paul we either love or hate. He gives lessons, he stands on solid ground and provides a clear moral compass. Flea, debauchery, immorality and the like. Either the command parabolas this commentator says and I had to look up what that word was horrible late means the hairs on the back of your neck will stand up straight. Either these words from Paul terribly. Because of its moralizing tone. Or reassures. Because it provides a clear behavior to follow and adopt.

Now, regardless of whatever reaction this passage elicits. What we should attempt to do when we come upon Paul's letters, even especially those challenging portions, is to try to grasp what Paul was saying, to try to get into why he was saying what he was saying. To be sure. We approach Paul's letters at a disadvantage. We hear only his side of the communication. He is responding to concerns to divisions, to strife that is happening in the Corinthian church. And they have sent him a letter, but we don't have that letter. So we don't know what they said. We only know what Paul is saying in return.

It's generally thought that Paul founded the church at Corinth while he was living there for about a year and a half, around 49 to 51 of the common era. And it was some time later, around 54 year in the common era, when Paul was living in Ephesus. And he heard that all, you know, what was breaking out in the church in Corinth, they were fighting with each other. This church that he had founded that he had poured his heart, his soul, his blood, sweat and tears into. This community that he loved so deeply and so dearly. They were tearing each other apart. It bothered him. It worried him. It perplexed him and it compelled him to his core.

Now Paul responds to whatever correspondence the Corinthians sent to him. He responds with exhortations to be united as a body of believers over against divisions. And he exhorts them to maintain good behavior over against some very specific immoralities or lapses in good behavior. And he exhorts the Corinthians to settle disputes. Over against having one camp fighting against another, or even pray tell, going to the secular courts to try to solve whatever disputes were tearing them apart. With tonight's reading from Paul.

Paul tackles one of the most difficult issues for the Corinthians ancient. For he he tackles one of the most difficult issues for Christians, not just the Corinthian church, but for all of us, then and now. How do we negotiate? How do we respect? How do we live with the freedom that is ours as believers in Christ?

Are we free to do whatever we want? Are we not free to do whatever we want, or is there some other call upon us? All things are lawful for me, Paul begins the first line in tonight's reading, all things are lawful or all things are permitted. All things are legitimate. And perhaps a better translation, as they say, is all things are permitted or everything is permissible. We are free in Christ, Paul affirms, to carry on our lives, apart from restraints of any kind.

The restraints of laws, the restraints of customs, the restraints of morays or expectations we are free to deny systems of belief and behavior that others wish to prescribe for us. But when Paul says all things are lawful for me. There's good reason to think that the Paul is quoting back to the Corinthians, A slogan that he had originally said to them because he would have said something like all we are free in Christ.

And so they started to say, Paul, hey, we're free in Christ, we can do this, that or anything that we. Care 2. And Paul says, well, that's good. And true. To a point. But all is well and good until everyone doing whatever the heaven we want. And that we find that we are dominated by that libertarianism. We are dominated by something even more insidious. And the danger there is that we would become dominated by a lack of domination. And Paul is so insistent on this last point that he switches to the first person singular with an emphatic bull bent. And he says, but I shall not. Myself be dominated by anything. Apart from being dominated or under the Lordship of Christ.

I will not be dominated by anything. Apart from being under the Lordship of Christ. And indeed, at the end of the passage that we read tonight, Paul reminds his readers or his hearers his listeners that we are no longer our own. We were bought with the price, the redemptive life and death and resurrection of Jesus for God, so love the world that God gave God's. Only begotten son.

We are adopted. As God's own and that places a claim upon us and on everything that we do. Paul then takes up forms of sexual misconduct that may or may not have been taking place among the Corinthians. Fornication and carrying on with prostitutes.

Given what Paul has said in the previous chapters, possible that these activities are taking place under the slogan of all things are permitted. I can do whatever I want. Paul argues against fornication, against carrying on with prostitutes, and his argument may be based on the view that when we engage in acts of immorality, we risk becoming enslaved by passion. Now it is entirely possible that Paul is hung up on sex. He probably was not the first, and certainly won't be the last pastoral leader so preoccupied.

That said, I think what is key to understanding these words from First Corinthians are two basic principles that Paul is proclaiming. First and foremost, are we free to do whatever we want? Is this gathering of believers seekers who stumble and fall and rise again? Is this not a context where there are demands that are put upon who we are and how we conduct ourselves among each other? And with the world. Are we free to do it? Whatever we want or is there another, even more powerful demand placed on our lives?

The second intrinsically related proclamation that Paul is saying is are we islands to ourselves, operating within our own silos and spheres of influence are we are our our own bosses. Or do we owe allegiance to something bigger? Something more. A greater calling. A deeper summons. That carries both responsibilities and accountabilities.

Paul declares that we are part of the body of Christ. We are not islands to ourselves. We are not individuals working with our in our own silos. We are not. Isolated one from the other. A Full disclosure, one of my pet peeves when we talk about church stuff is when we talk about, well, we're all volunteers here. We are not volunteers. We are part of the body of Christ, and that places a call on us. We are not free to do whatever we feel we want to do. We have a call that is placed upon us. A connection with one another. Obligations and accountabilities one to the other.

I think there's a third principle that Paul is getting at or that we can take out of this. It is the third principle being that preoccupation, that assumption that self-imposed domination that comes when we are convinced that we are right. When we are convinced that we are right, we can do so much damage one to the other. When we are convinced that we are right that we have the corner on the truth, we can rot so much divisiveness. So much sin. So much brokenness. Within ourselves and within this body to which we are accountable.

Somewhere, somehow. Even here, and even now. We need to realize that part of being the body of Christ is that we only ever. Grasp one small part of the picture. We need each other. We need this body. To give us a sense. Of the greater whole and the greater good. We need each other. To keep ourselves accountable. When we stumble. When we fall. So that we too may rise again.

In the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen