That Ain't Jesus--August 16, 2022

That Ain't Jesus--August 16, 2022

"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!  Do you not know that whosever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, 'The two shall be one flesh.' But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him." [1 Corinthians 6:15-17]

It's always more than just "Or else!" with the followers of Jesus.  There's always more to the rule than just "I said so, that's why!" for the community of Christ.  And being able to hear the reasoning underneath the "Thou shalt nots" makes a huge difference--the difference, in fact, between bad news and good news.  And sometimes, when we actually listen to what the voices from Scripture say about what we do, how we live, and why, we will end up being surprised at the reasons to do or not do certain things.

So, take, for example, the scenario Paul raises here in First Corinthians. [And just to be forthright here, the topic by its nature makes this conversation a PG-13 sort of discussion.  This is probably not a read-aloud devotion for your elementary school-aged youngsters during bedtime snack, fair enough?]  We've seen in this most recent section how Paul's readers in Corinth have been flirting [yeah, I said flirting] with a notion of "freedom" that says, "We can do whatever we want, and nobody can tell us not to, because we are free in Christ!"  And even though that's clearly NOT what Paul had in mind when he had taught them they were "free" in Christ, that's how they have taken it. When Paul had said, "You don't have to be bound by the dietary restrictions of ancient Israel's kosher laws," the folks in Corinth took that to mean, "God doesn't care what you do with your bodies at all--after all, you're spiritual people now!" The Gospel's promise that they couldn't earn God's love by rule-following had become a sloppy slogan, "All things are lawful for me!" and from there it was an easy slide into, "You-can't-tell-me-what-to-do-because--'Freedom!'" as a mindset.  And that cheapened definition of freedom is, not to put too fine a point on it, a load of dingoes' kidneys.  But that didn't stop the "freedom-lovin' Christians" in Corinth from beating that same drum and announcing that they could do anything they liked, including with their bodies, because [again]--"Freedom!"

It's easy to imagine, then, that some group within the church in Corinth had tried to follow that line of train of thought even further, and said, "Well, if God doesn't care about whether we do or don't eat bacon cheeseburgers or circumcise our baby boys, then God must not care about whether we solicit sex workers, either.  If we only concern ourselves with 'spiritual' things, then we must be free to consort with prostitutes, too!"  And, as you've surely noticed, Paul shouts a really clear, "No--don't do that!" in response.

What's easy to miss, however, is the reasoning behind Paul's, "Don't do that!" here--because he doesn't simply threaten his readers with hellfire.  He doesn't say, "If you do X or Y or Z bad action, you are stripped of your status as God's beloved and will be thrown into the pit of hell."  He doesn't threaten divine lightning bolts, social stigma, or a communal shunning.  He doesn't threaten anybody with shame or the possibility of a public stoning, either. Neither does he mention needing to preserve some fine, upstanding reputation of the church as a club for Respectable Religious types. [Jesus himself, after all, often got into hot water with Respectable Religious types of Palestine precisely for hanging out with the notorious "sinners," including tax collectors and sex workers. And the story of Israel has a number of well-known women who engaged in prostitution and were still regarded as heroes of the faith, interestingly enough.]

Instead, Paul's argument boils down to, "Consorting with prostitutes cheapens someone made in the image of God and turns them into one more consumer product--and that isn't the way of Jesus!"  Buying sex is one more way of commodifying people, of trying to turn our deepest and most personal kinds of human experience and emotion into something impersonal, interchangeable, and replaceable.  It takes another person and makes them disposable.  It takes, to use Martin Buber's famous language, a "You" and makes them into an "It." And that ain't Jesus, to put it simply.  Jesus will not dehumanize other people--even if they have told themselves they are not worthy of being treated any better and have convinced themselves they are OK with it.  Jesus will not reduce another person, made in God's own image and beloved of God unconditionally, to an object to be used and thrown away.  And so those who follow Jesus are called not to objectify or commodify people, either.  That doesn't fit with the way of Christ.  That isn't consistent with the character or the love of Jesus.  That's why we don't do it.

In other words, Paul doesn't pile on the shaming or condemnation for the women engaged in prostitution here.  He doesn't really have any direct message to them in these verses, and doesn't say to the ones in Corinth soliciting prostitution that they will be "tainted" by the sin of the ones they pay for their services.  Paul's train of thought is not, "Prostitutes are unclean, and therefore if you are engaged in sex with a prostitute you will be unclean, and then you'll make Jesus unclean because you are connected to Jesus." Jesus, after all, is not afraid of being identified with human sin or stuck with the shame we humans foist on one another.  So it's not that Jesus has to guard his purity and doesn't want to sully his reputation with "those sinful prostitutes" [as sometimes Respectable Religious folks want to frame it], but rather that Jesus is not to be identified with exploiting or dehumanizing people.  Jesus isn't afraid of being associated with scandal--but it's got to be the right kind of scandal.  He is perfectly willing to be known as the friend of tax collectors and sex workers.  He is not willing to be known as someone who objectifies or commodifies anybody made in the image of God.  That just ain't Jesus.

And this is the thing that floors me about the Good News of Jesus--just when I think we are getting to the fine print that is meant to scold us for bad behavior or shame us into keeping up our holy reputation, even the "thou-shalt-nots" turn out to be about love that refuses to dehumanize or objectify people... and even when those people may think they have no other choice than to settle for being dehumanized or objectified.

I hope that you were not teetering on the edge of deciding whether or not to hire a sex worker today--I really do hope that this one is a clear-cut, "Not a good idea" without having to read it in the Bible.  But maybe hearing Paul's reasoning will change other areas of our lives where we are more subtly tempted to objectify other people or turn them into consumer products.  And maybe we need once again to have Paul lead us in the question, "Does this fit with the way Jesus loves people?"  And where we have gotten accustomed to habits and practices that dehumanize or commodify other people, maybe we need Paul's clear, "Never!" to wake us up and get us to change directions.

How can we live today in ways over which Jesus will happily say, "Yes--this is what my love looks like"?

Lord Jesus, make us to love like you.