September 27, 2020: Thrive Physically!
1 Corinthians 3:10-23
Rev. Dr. Rhonda Blevins
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple. Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise,
that they are futile.” So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
I used to believe this saying from an anonymous source, but I don’t anymore. Allow me to repeat it once more, and see whether you agree with this statement or not:
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
Here’s why I no longer believe this: while I think it points to truth in that it reminds us that we are spiritual beings (and this is a vitally important truth!), it discounts the fact that we are human. It eschews our common, shared humanity; it rejects flesh and bone. This saying diminishes the very elements we celebrate when we gather around the Lord’s table at holy communion, the body and the blood.
You see, one of the most profound, paradigm-shifting things that Jesus taught was when he said, “The kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21 NKJV) The Apostle Paul, writing to the troubled church at Corinth, reminds the church of this truth this way from the scripture lesson we read together a moment ago, “You are God’s temple and . . . God’s Spirit dwells in you.”
We are so accustomed to hearing these things, that we forget how radical, even blasphemous, they were at the time. When Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you,” this was bucking the system—it was sacrilege on two fronts: 1. What was the kingdom? The Roman Empire. 2. Where did God dwell in Jesus’ day? God lived in heaven, and would visit planet earth once per year, in one cordoned off room in the Temple in Jerusalem called the Holy of Holies. No human could ever enter the Holy of Holies except the high priest once per year on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.
Tonight at sundown, our Jewish brothers and sisters begin their observation of this high holy day with a day-long fast and intense prayer—in a normal (non-COVID) year many Jews, even secular Jews, spend a good bit of time at synagogue.
But in Jesus day, when the Temple was still standing, the high priest had to perform a complicated set of actions which included wearing five different sets of clothes (three golden and two white linen), immerse five times in the mikvah (pool of water), wash his hands and feet ten times. He would have to make all kinds of animal sacrifices, two lambs, one bull, two goats, and two rams, as well as offer food and wine and incense offerings.
All of this before stepping into the Holy of Holies—all of this before stepping into God’s presence.
So for Jesus to say, “The kingdom of God is within you,” to many of his hearers, is both treason and blasphemy!
Fast forward roughly 25 years, and we find the Apostle Paul writing to the church at Corinth, a church that he established years prior. The church is in trouble. There are factions within the church, as church members are ascribing loyalty to one leader or another, some to Paul, some to Apollos, some to Cephas. Paul urged them to put aside these differences and find unity in Christ. He addresses sexual immorality, which the city of Corinth was known for around Mesopotamia. In fact, the temple in Corinth was to the goddess Aphrodite, from which we derive the word “aphrodisiac.” The temple at Corinth had, by some counts, 1,000 temple slaves/prostitutes, which made Corinth somewhat of a tourist destination. So now you have some context for why Paul writes to them, “you are God’s temple and . . . God’s Spirit dwells in you.” Paul repeats himself again in chapter 6: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”
At least part of Jesus’ salvific work was to redeem our human condition—our flesh and bone, body and blood, human condition. Our bodies are sacred. Jesus never said that 50 is the new 30, but he did indicate that the human body is the new holy of holies.
So back to where I began, here’s how I would tweak the saying I started out with:
We are human beings having a spiritual experience
AND
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
So what does this mean? If our bodies are sacred, if my body is the dwelling place of the most high God, does that mean I have to take up jogging or stop eating potato chips? Do I interpret it like my youth minister did, telling us kids that our bodies are temples so we better not smoke or drink or fool around?
“Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial,” the Apostle Paul writes later on in the same letter (1 Cor. 10:23). He also writes in the same letter, “Glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor. 6:20). If we do this, we thrive physically. Not by the world’s measures necessarily. Not even by our own standards. But by God’s standards. And at the end of our life, if we stand before God and God says, “Did you glorify me with your body?” (if that’s how this goes down) and we can say, “Yes!” then we have been a successful steward of this precious gift of flesh and blood. And that will be enough.
How? How do we glorify God in our bodies? I’ve got three pathways, and I’ve made them rhyme to help us remember!
1. Friend It
We must “friend” our bodies. We must love our bodies. They have been so good to us, doing the unseen work of pumping our blood, transforming food into energy, firing neurons to help us walk and talk and think and read and see and hear. We don’t focus on that. We tend to focus on the negative, don’t we? Did you know that a vast majority (I’ve read 80-90%) of American women are unhappy with their bodies? But it’s not just women. Men deal with poor body image as well, but they are less inclined to talk about it, because men aren’t given permission in our culture to talk about a lot of things. Poor body image is ubiquitous. Did you know that Americans spend over 40 billion dollars each year on dieting and related products? By and large, we don’t believe that our bodies are temples. We don’t love our bodies. We glorify God in our bodies when we love the one body God has given us. We love our bodies when we “Friend” our bodies.
2. Tend It
We must “tend” our bodies. Example: over the course of my lifetime, I can’t tell you how many weed eaters I’ve owned. I’ll go out and buy a weed eater, and use it a couple of times, and then the dang thing won’t start. So the trimming doesn’t get done for a few months because the weed eater won’t start and I think, “man, I need to weed eat, but my weed eater won’t start.” So I go out and buy a new weed eater because it’s about as cheap to go buy a new one than have the old one repaired. Do you know how much work it is to maintain a weed eater? Apparently, you have to clean the exterior, clean off the trimmer head, replace the air filter, replace the spark plug, empty the fuel tank, change the oil. Apparently weed eaters require a lot of tending for them to work. So you know what I do now? Pay a lawn service. Anyone want to buy a non-functioning weed eater that’s been used twice?
In the same way a weed eater needs “tending,” our bodies need tending. Most of us have been doing a lot of this lately, taking measures to stay away from COVID. Annual physicals are important. Getting your flu shot this year is particularly important (we’ll be offering flu shots here on October 18.) Proper nutrition and exercise. Vitamins and prescription meds. We have this one precious, beautiful body given to us in this lifetime. Self-care isn’t an option. It’s our duty. We are to be good stewards of this gift. We glorify God in our bodies when we take care of one body God has given us. We love our bodies when we “Tend” our bodies.
3. Spend It
We must “spend” our bodies. Everyday, we “spend” our bodies. We do something with our bodies. In the same way we do something with our money: we save it, invest it, we buy things, we give it away. We do something with our money. We do something everyday with our bodies. We spend it everyday. The question is, “how” do we spend it? We can spend it
on the couch watching Netflix, we spend it working or doing chores, we spend it giving it away through volunteerism or acts of friendship. Part of being good stewards of this one precious body we’re given is to make sure we’re spending it in ways that count in the long term.
Have you ever prayed, asking God how God might want you to use your body, this one, precious gift, in service to God’s purposes? I love a song written by Ben Harper and sung by Jack Johnson that speaks to how we can use our corporeal being, our bodies, in service to (what I consider) God’s purposes. I invite you to say the refrain, “with my own two hands,” with me:
I can change the world, with my own two hands
Make a better place, with my own two hands
Make a kinder place, with my own two hands
With my own, with my own two hands
I can make peace on earth, with my own two hands
I can clean up the earth, with my own two hands
I can reach out to you, with my own two hands
With my own, with my own two hands
Now I can hold you, with my own two hands
And I can comfort you, with my own two hands
But you got to use, use your own two hands
Use your own, use your own two hands
Two hands. One body. One precious, God-given body. Imperfect by the world’s standards, perhaps, but perfect in God’s eyes. You want to thrive, physically? Glorify God with your body. It doesn’t matter if you’re tall or short, fat or thin, curly-haired or bald, black or white, wrinkled or smooth, healthy or ill: friend your body, tend your body, spend your body in ways that honor God. Your body, in all of its glorious imperfections is a miracle. Your body IS the temple of God. Alleluia!
I close with a poem written by Arielle Estoria:
This body, is a temple
with sacred novels and Holy Scriptures etched into our bones
built to hold more passion than a human being can fathom
You were made for glory, the human epitome of a light
a spirit so vast, that it had to be contained behind flesh
to tone down the brilliance
This body is glitter
and yet, we wake up,
tell our bodies before they even
start breathing that they are wrong
that each day they have failed
at their chance of being something worth holding
These bodies have done us nothing but good
they have loved us through every skipped meal,
cried tears for every time we compared them to another,
wrapped their arms around us when everything else felt distant
These bodies are faithful
it’s time that we start returning the favor
Say it with me…
This body is mine This body is beautiful[1]
[1] https://yellowco.co/articles/this-body-is-mine-this-body-is-beautiful-a-poem-on-embracing-ourselves