Epiphany 2 (B) + Wonderfully made + 1.14.18

(www.etsy.com)

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(1 Samuel 3:1–10, (11–20); Ps. 139:1–5, 12–17; 1 Corinthians 6:12–20; John 1:43–51)

For you yourself created my inmost parts; *
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I will thank you because I am marvelously made; *
your works are wonderful, and I know it well.

(Ps. 139: 13-14)

Today amongst other things our scriptures direct us to think of our bodies.
St. Paul says to the Corinthians: “do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own (1 Cor. 6:19)?” Now, it is important to be aware that in the context of this passage, it was actually a fairly common practice in the ancient Greek society of Corinth for men to engage prostitutes. Paul says you cannot be Christian and proclaim a certain faith and then get into bed with someone with whom you are not in a respectful relationship. We must strive for integrity, so that our life does not transmit one message in one place and another message in another place.
Today this may not be the presenting issue, although for some it is about not treating those in their lives in much the same way, as we saw in the #metoo movement. But we have the same problem as to how we interpret this passage. We can make idols out of all sorts of things. We can decide that since our body is temple, that we must exercise and eat right. And those things are good. But if we obsess about them, they become our idols, and we get into an empty moralism about our own bodies and other peoples’.

Somewhere, the body’s grace is found in knowing we are made by God, and that everything about us is created by God. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. But also in accepting ourselves radically, in all of our mess.

I just read Brene Brown’s book Braving the Wilderness and it is about the kind of belonging we feel when we first belong to ourselves enough to own our own truth. In it she shares an interview she did with the actress Viola Davis. She talks with Ms. Davis about how she overcame a traumatic childhood and never fitting the perfect Hollywood beauty mold and how she began to flourish. And she shared this:

“At thirty-eight, things changed. I didn’t jump out of bed one morning and everything was perfect. I have always known I was a strong woman, but I wanted ‘fast-food joy’—quick, easy joy. More tools and tricks. I could also still fall back into ‘not enough—not pretty enough, not thin enough, not good enough.’ One day my therapist asked me a pivotal question: ‘What if nothing changes—your looks, your weight, your success—would you be okay?’ For the first time I thought, You know what? Yes, I would. I really would.”[1]

This resonated with me as, like I suspect many people, I spend a fair amount of time unhappy with some aspect of my body. The sore neck I get from a whiplash injury, the belly that is never flat enough. Things that would seem ridiculous to others. But how often am I grateful for the body has given me?

When we look at the body we have, the body God has made, can we honestly look at ourselves and ask, “What if nothing changes? Would I be OK?” God made us good. Now, I am not saying to the sick that they not strive to be well. But sometimes we need to radically accept what is in order to be able to move forward with a clear head and heart.  And while Paul’s words can lead us to guilt about whether we are caring for the temple of our body, I believe they are really just meant to encourage us to treasure this gift that God has given us.  So that we can care for ourselves well. And to strive to live our whole lives in harmony as Christians as we can. Because bodies are sacred. Those eighteen bodies of those whose lives were snuffed out in Montecito earlier this week are sacred. We mourn them. We also mourn Phyllis Bauer, who died yesterday morning. We pray for and as we can, try to care for the bodies and spirits of those who are left.
Jesus was not simple in too many ways. But there is one way in which Jesus strikes me as very simple in the way he lived. He lived with a single purpose. I don’t know about you, but I do not see much mention in the scripture about Jesus’ hang-ups about other peoples’ perceptions of his body. Maybe he did. He was fully human, after all. But at the least, those did not impede his ministry.

Perhaps as you continue to begin this new calendar year, you might consider a practice that allows you to reach a new level of self-love and acceptance. Perhaps it is intentional breathing and contemplative prayer or checking out our Wednesday night yoga class. Or perhaps it is journaling. If this is not an issue for you, bravo! I invite you to look for ways to help others embrace that their body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, too.

It is in knowing that we are not our own, accepting ourselves radically, that we can then step forward to heal the world, in our little corner, one bit at a time.

Amen.

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[1] Brene Brown, Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone (NY: Random House, 2017), 85.