“Do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.”- Romans 6:12

This is how our second reading from this weekend begins, and it touches on a concept that Paul returns to over and over throughout his epistles: The contrast of the body vs. the spirit where the body represents all things bad and sinful that we should avoid and the spirit represents all the good things that we should strive for. It’s easy to take this concept too far and reduce Paul’s theology to a rigid binary that views our bodies as nothing but evil cages for our souls. Paul even seems to support this pigeonholing in some of his letters. For example, in 2 Corinthians he talks about the thorn in his flesh that keeps him from worshipping perfectly. In 1 Corinthians he seems to view marriage as something to be avoided if possible, but concedes that it’s better than succumbing to worse immoralities of the flesh.

But I think we do Paul a disservice when we simplify him in this way. Someone once pointed out to me that the most important thing to remember about Paul is that he truly believed the resurrection would happen during his lifetime. When we look at his writings through that lens, it makes sense that he would pour all of his energy into worship and spreading the gospel and spend as little time as possible focusing on things that would be obsolete in a post-resurrection kingdom of God.

And, of course, Paul held himself to a much higher standard than he held anyone else. If he was guilty of a theological binary, it was more like a goal for him to achieve in his quest to be an apostle. Remember, he also wrote beautiful passages about the diversity of the church being like the many parts of one body working together in harmony, and how binary labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free, and man or woman hold little value in the kingdom of God because we are all one in Christ.

But we don't have to choose one way or the other. There are many points on the scale of body vs spirit, and we can all follow Jesus with our whole heart while still honoring the beautifully made bodies that God created for us. I’m reminded of a poem called “They/Them” by David Gate:

If God created night & day

& dawn, of course

& dusk

& the tangerine rosepink sunset

& the deep amethyst twilight

& the infant bright of morning

then to perceive the world in binary

is to forego knowledge of the divine.

I look forward to preaching and worshipping with you this Sunday,

Jeff Rockey