1 Corinthians 6:12-20
Epiphany 2 - Year B
"This is what some of you use to be . . . ." To look back is to see what was there before we later recognized it. It is to remember there is always more present than is recognizable at the moment.
When did I first know who I was and what was it I knew? Looking back, that would have been a good question to ask back then, but one quite difficult to respond to. It is still a good question even if we still don't quite know how to respond to it.
It does not take traditional Christian sanctification or justification or confession or redemption to come to understand that in the midst of many options (everything being lawful) some options are better than others (you are not simply your own).
A call and response is to see more within another than they can yet see in themselves and to listen when others see more in us than we can currently see. Sometimes that visionary is a neighbor, sometimes G*D. Whichever visionary starts the process of awareness, the other will soon be engaged. May your dreams be strong, may your relationships be strong, and may your strength be the start of a new community.
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http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html
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The Message has helpful language when it says, "...we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy."
The flip side of this is that sex that dives deep into commitment and intimacy moves us closer to creation's intent of the many becoming one.
The issue might be made clearer if we begin to see relationships in light of commitment and intimacy rather than physical plumbing. This is another way of glorifying G*D in our bodies - to focus not so much on the clay vessels alone but to take into account the relations of relationship, commitment and intimacy, and to let our bodies follow our commitments. Is "the image of G*D" the clay or the breath of life?
In this light many different forms of sexuality from the scriptures and our current culture are acceptable past the limitations of so-called scripture and/or family value groups who get caught in form rather than function. Commitment and intimacy are available in more ways than mere heterosexual means and procreative ends.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/january2003.html
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Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? [NIV]
...remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master's body. [The Message]
Again we have the tension of everything being one kind and every thing having basic equivalence with different manifestations.
We can only go as far as we understand Christ went and we can go farther than Christ went as we do even greater things. We recapitulate Christ and then we set out on a further course. A part of our task is to know when we have ridden the shoulders of Christ long enough and when we begin to shoulder others.
Is this something that needs to be taught ("do you not know")? Is this something that has always been with us since we were "textured in the depths" (Ps. 139:15) and so "remembering" what we have always known is our point of revelation? This is part of the tension within the church as folks concretize both of these and forget they both have their place.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2003/january2003.html
Here it is helpful to remember the story of Jesus with an adulterous woman (don't forget the man's part - it takes two to adulter). What does it mean to be united with a prostitute? If we are not joined with all people, as was Jesus with prostitutes and tax collectors, we are not able to be of one body and spirit with them as we move toward their resurrection, and ours.
It is all too easy to use this passage as a division between us and them. But, insofar as Paul also knows we do the things we don't want to and vice versa, we need to be careful here not to draw too broad a caricature of a sinner (one that doesn't have a face like our own) lest you give into a temptation to throw a first stone.
As a temple of the Holy Spirit, a keeper of the token of Belovedness given and received in baptism, continue being brought back to your best image of a preferred future and enter again upon that path without judgment of self or others. It is this forward imaging that moves us best, not a tight control upon that which is ultimately mysterious and transformable.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/january2006.html
"We are not our own," presupposes both community in general and active community in particular.
There are, oh, so many who would take this as a way of beginning to act on behalf of someone else, to use it to take over that someone else by claiming it is in their best interest. And, oh, so many who avoid taking responsibility for themselves, for that is somone else's obligation. This is how we get into all manner of difficulties from simple misunderstanding to war. Our body (their soul) is a temple that requires their mind (our idea) to be the organizing principle.
The Spiritual Formation Bible puts it this way: "The bread of sincerity and truth that Paul advises us to eat nourishes the spirit much like a loaf of bread satisfies hunger. What happens, then, when sexual immorality replaces integrity? When overindulgence replaces self-control? The body is not separate from the soul; what nourishes one nourishes the other. What destroys or degrades one destroys or degrades the other.
"If you were asked to speak to young people in your church about sexual immorality and the sanctity of marriage, how might you paraphrase or expand the argument Paul gives here? How much of your own lecture do you need to hear?"
How do we talk about and listen to community relationships beyond various codes of behavior punishable by guilt, exile, or penal punishment?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2006/january2006.html
With tingling ears we have searched and searched for something that will not disappoint. We have searched inside ourselves and found the house of Eli still alive and well. We have lowered our expectations of everything and everywhere, it is all like Nazareth - unacceptable as a starting place.
A big place we searched was the law but we found it didn't reflect a Law of Justice very well. We could follow it forever and never find it brought us to a beneficial place, only a place bounded by Eli's sons waiting for a loophole to be found.
Finally it is important to fall back on such basics as being trustworthy and without deceit. These are very tough roads to travel that go beyond easy, prior, answers and are continually in need of integrated responses.
Finally it becomes a question of whom we will be with at the end.
If we will be with those we are now with, what response is needed now?
If we will be with ourselves as we are now, what response is needed?
If we will be with that unknown to us, what response is now needed?
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follow me
come and see
hurry on
we will come to a mirror
and see as we are seenchoices will be feasted upon
responses will be made and remade
we'll see how this looks
and thatshapes will be formed
lives hidden will be revealed
roads will open
laws will fadehurry
pay your money
takes your chance
you are seen
you can see
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_01_01_archive.html
There are two competing values going on here. One is about Jesus and one about G*D.
Jesus has become a certifying authority. Here we get into atonement theologies. Here we find liturgy and ritual with baptism. Fore and aft, these technical diagnostics wrap around a conversation about unity with G*D.
G*D is a living tension between all possibilities and the limits of choice. While having many choices ahead of us, we are limited in those actually available to be implemented. And even within this more limited field we find our choices to be revealing of our deep desire. Here we find a reuniting of body and spirit beyond any creedal power or institutional authority.
The simplest proposition here is, “Anyone united to G*D is one in spirit with G*D”. This basic is also the most complex in its application. Have we honored Jesus by affirming “we have been bought” or is this a prostitution of our unity in G*D? Have we glorified Christ by being baptized or prostituted ourselves to ritualized language about baptism?
Eventually we come back to re-connecting body and spirit, ourselves and G*D. Jesus and Christ, similarly connected, are one model by which we catch a glimpse of what it means to love G*D with our mind and heart, our actions and stillness, our uniqueness and unity.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/01/1-corinthians-611-20.html