Letting Grace Stretch Us--August 23, 2022

Letting Grace Stretch Us--August 23, 2022

"Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of command. I wish that all were as I myself am.  But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind." [1 Corinthians 7:5-7]

To hear the Bible itself tell it, we don't all have to be the same. 

To hear the voice of God's Word in the Scriptures tell it, it is not only okay, not merely permissible, but it is actively and positively good, to be as God has gifted you to be.

Just let it sink in for a moment that this isn't a message cooked up by some new trend in psychology, or a feel-good self-esteem curriculum for your local elementary school to prevent bullying, or a campaign you can dismiss as "a bunch of politically correct activists."  This is the apostle Paul, the occasional apostolic curmudgeon of the New Testament, saying that the way you are made to be is a gift of God, and even if your gifts are different from his--or different from what he would do if he were in charge of things--it is a good and right thing to live according to the gifting God has given you, rather than to force yourself impossibly into the mold somebody else has made for you.

Yep.  He really says that.  Yep, this is the Bible--the two-thousand-year-old witness of the early Christian community.  Yes, none other than Saint Paul himself tells Christians whose romantic lives and relationship status are different from his, that is good for them to live according to the gifting they have, including finding permanent relationships as in marriage, rather than to get sucked into the dangerous whirlpool that comes with turning sex into a cheap commodity, and turns people into objects.

Now, if that's the headline--WE DON'T ALL HAVE TO HAVE THE SAME ROMANTIC ARRANGEMENTS TO BE CHRISTIAN--let's go back and show the work for how we get there.  Paul has been talking about relationships, sex, and marriage in response to the questions the Corinthians had written to him about.  And part of his response was to upend their expectations about who got to boss around whom in a marriage--spoiler alert: NOBODY.  Despite the assumed and ingrained patriarchy in a lot of Greco-Roman culture, Paul said that each partner in a marriage is to give themselves away to and for the other.  Wives place their lives, hearts, and bodies in the care and love of their husbands... and husbands do the exact same for their wives.  That by itself was a radical thing for Paul to say.  But now Paul takes an even bigger step when he says that he doesn't think everybody needs to be married or in a romantic relationship at all.  In fact, Paul says he thinks it would avoid a lot of headaches, and presumably a lot of heartaches, too, if more people were just single like him. But for those who are married, sure, he says, sex is a part of that relationship.  

Now, none of that might seem very radical on the face of it, but let's think about what this really means.  For a lot of folks, both inside and outside of the church, the messaging they've heard from Respectable Religious People for a very long time goes something like this:  "You are only successful in your Christian life if you are married with kids--if that's not you, you're doing it wrong."  Along with that, an awful lot of folks have heard messages like, "In your Christian marriage, the only way to do it right is for the husband to have the ultimate authority over his wife, and what he says goes."  Paul has now shot down both of those.  He just got finished in the previous verses insisting that husbands submit themselves to the care and stewardship of their wives just as much their wives are to do for them.  And now he says, "It's fine if you want to be married, but personally, I think it's actually more complicated to follow Jesus wholeheartedly if you also have the challenges of negotiating a marriage--I kinda wish everybody was free and single like I am."  Paul himself is the one saying, "It's not better to be married rather than single, at least not necessarily."  

But the truly radical thing Paul says is at the ends of these verses for today: Paul sees human relationships, including sexuality, as a gift that comes in different forms.  And even though Paul clearly has his own thoughts about what he thinks works best for him, he doesn't insist that everybody else's arrangements have to look like his or be the same as his.  Being married, he says, is a gift of God--and the right thing to do with a gift is to appreciate, enjoy, and receive it.  But also, Paul says, some people are given different gifts--and they don't have to look like the cookie cutter husband-and-wife-and-2.5-kids picture. And it's not only OK, but holy and good, for you to live in light of the gift you have been given, even if it's different from the person next to you.  You receive your gift, and you don't have to worry when everybody's gifts are not the same.

This is the big deal.  For folks who are used to hearing that Christianity requires us all to fit the same pattern of husband-and-wife [where the husband bosses the wife around, in a lot of folks' assumptions], Paul not only says that particular arrangement isn't the only one permissible, he also says it's not even the best for everyone.  Paul the apostle sees the diversity of our kinds of relationships as an expression of God's diverse gifts, not as a flaw to be merely tolerated begrudgingly, but as grace to be received joyfully with thanks, and indeed, celebrated. 

And furthermore, Paul seems to acknowledge that there are limits even to his insight on the subject of romantic relationships and that he himself is having to adjust to God's choice to create people with different "gifts" for how and whom they love.  If Paul had his way, everybody would stay single so they were free from obligations of providing for their families and were more able to go and spread the gospel unencumbered.  Paul is having to make room for what our culture has tended to assume is the only acceptable arrangement--the husband-wife-two-point-five-kids-and-a-dog nuclear family.  He would rather, he says, not have to accommodate that, but he's willing to allow that God's wisdom on this is more reliable than his own limited perspective.  That's amazing.  Here in these verses, we get Paul saying, "Despite what I had thought, apparently, God is open to a wider diversity of options when it comes to love than I would be if I were in charge.  And I guess I'm going to have to be the one to grow in my understanding."  This is not Paul the rigid gatekeeper we have probably been taught to expect.  Rather, this is someone seeing that God's gifts are given more widely, generously, and diversely than he had bargained for... and learning to let the grace of that God stretch him.

Maybe that's where we need to let these verses hit us, too--to let grace stretch us, and to allow the diversity of God's kind of gifts, in who and how we love, lead us to grow where God would have us grow.  

Yes, even if that means it takes some getting used to on our part.

Lord God, let your good gifts go where they may, and let us be stretched by the wideness of your giving.