Let’s Talk About Sex (and Other Stuff too)

1 Corinthians 6:11-20, The Message - Don’t you realize that this is not the way to live? Unjust people who don’t care about God will not be joining in his kingdom. Those who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don’t qualify as citizens in God’s kingdom. A number of you know from experience what I’m talking about, for not so long ago you were on that list. Since then, you’ve been cleaned up and given a fresh start by Jesus, our Master, our Messiah, and by our God present in us, the Spirit.

Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.

You know the old saying, “First you eat to live, and then you live to eat”? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor him with your body!

God honored the Master’s body by raising it from the grave. He’ll treat yours with the same resurrection power. Until that time, remember that your bodies are created with the same dignity as the Master’s body. You wouldn’t take the Master’s body off to a whorehouse, would you? I should hope not.

There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.” There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God-given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.

 

                As we talked about in an earlier reflection, Paul wrote this letter to the church in Corinth to address specific problems that the congregation he had served for a year and a half was struggling with.  In chapters 5-7, Paul addresses the broad category of sexual immorality that evidently was prevalent in the Corinthian church.  One man was having sex with his mother-in-law (um.. ewww!).  Others continued to participate in the Temple prostitution that was prevalent in Corinth.  There were still others engaged in obviously inappropriate sexual relations.  The worst part was they all believed and stated that it all was completely fine.  “Christians are freed by God, so we can do anything we wish,” was their claim.

                At the core of Paul’s response to all of this is this; to do whatever you want isn’t freedom.  When you live that way, you have become a slave to your whims and desires.  And especially when it comes to sex, this can lead to even bigger problems.  When the covenantal, spiritual, and sacred aspects of sexual intimacy are removed from sexual acts, the results create brokenness and misery in our relationships and community.  Mistrust and anger begin to abound.  In the middle of this discussion about sex, Paul inserts a quick response about Christians taking other Christians to court.  It seems out of place in a section about sex until we think about the brokenness, mistrust, and anger created by taking sex too casually.  The community’s relationships had degenerated to the point that they were taking into secular courts. 

                Sex is a good thing when it happens in the context of two people who are in loving covenantal relationship with each other.  It is in danger of becoming an unhealthy and even harmful thing when it happens outside of that context.  It can even become another form of slavery.  We are seeing the result of this play out now with the plethora of sexual addictions on the rise in our present time.  It matters what you do with your body because your body is the spiritual property of God and your spouse. We are called to honor God and our spouse with the use of our body. 

                Even though the issue Paul is responding to is sex, Paul’s teaching has larger implications that twenty-first-century Christians should take seriously.  We live in a culture that is moving more and more into a “do whatever seems good to you and trust that God’s grace will make it okay” mentality.  Paul is trying to point out that doing whatever you want when ever you want with whoever you want works against the power of God’s grace in our lives.  Trusting in God’s grace means that we do all we know to do to live in healthy relation to God and people knowing that where we fail, grace will “fill in the gap” so to speak.  Grace is even more powerful in the life a Christian when it is a partnership. 

 

Question:  Are there areas of your life that do not honor God or people who you claim to love? 

 

Prayer:  Psalm 51:10-12 - Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.  Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for people you know who are struggling with problems caused by sexual immorality and infidelity. 

 

Song:  Let’s Talk About Sex – Salt N Pepa

I couldn’t resist. No really, this song actually points to some of the same problems Paul was trying to address. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8CISk43LYg

What God Thinks of Our Self-Improvement Plans

Galatians 3:1-6, The Message - You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a spell on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.

Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!

Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don’t these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.

 

Most of us give lip service to the core message of Paul’s letter to the Galatians; our works (the things we do and don’t do) don’t earn God’s favor.  It’s very possible that many in the Galatian churches did too.  In the passage for today above, Paul calls them out.  Too often, we say we depend on God’s grace and then turn around and live like we are self-sufficient.  I have to confess that I am calling out myself as much as anyone else.  I’ve even unintentionally taught this way of living at times.  I have held up the following mantra from Saint Augustine in the 4^th Century.

“Pray like everything depends on God; work like everything depends on you.”

It sounds so good; it’s from St. Augustine for goodness sake.  But it is this very division of faith and works that Paul is confronting in this passage in Galatians. His contention is that you can work as hard as you want, but don’t ever be deluded that your work is doing a single thing to make you more righteous (righteous meaning “right relationship with God and people).  It is this very teaching that forms the basis of Step 1 in any 12-step program:

“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.” (AA)

It’s insanity to believe that God would ask us to put our faith in in God’s grace to save us, then expect us to take it from there.  

Let me make it personal here.  Think back to the time when you first considered yourself a Christian.  For some of you, you can point to a moment. Others, like me, can only really point to a season of our lives.  Whether it’s a moment or a season is not important.  As you think back to that time, is there some change that you have wanted to make in your life that you actually were convinced would be a God-honoring change that, despite constant effort since that time, has never been made?  You’ve expended Herculean effort, but there is no noticeable change.  You might have even prayed extensively for God to help you make the change (I know I have).  You’ve seen others make the same change and give God the glory for it, but nothing has changed for you. 

Paul himself understands how this feels; he had a self-described “thorn in the flesh” he wanted God to change.  We’ll discuss that in more depth when we get to 2 Corinthians, but for now I just mention that God never helped him with that problem.  God’s answer was, my GRACE is sufficient for you.  God says that what My grace is doing in you is more important that the changes you want to see happen.  That’s a hard pill for us to swallow personally.  But I want to call us back to the point Paul is trying to make to the Galatians.

                It’s also hard for us to accept that the changes we would prefer to see in others are not our responsibility.  Just as God doesn’t always cooperate with our self-improvement programs, God doesn’t always cooperate in our “neighbor-improvement” programs.  The bottom line is that Paul insists we all have to completely trust God to mold and shape us as God wills, not as we wish.  Work hard? Yes!  But trust God will effect the change in you and in others that God wills. 

 

Question:  In what ways has your life “become unmanageable?” 

 

Prayer:  Where our lives have become unmanageable, bring us to a place where we can simply accept our powerlessness and wholly put our trust in you to bring us to a better place.  Help us to wholly trust that same process of your grace in others as well.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Spend a few minutes today specifically praying for people you know personally that don’t know Christ.

 

Song:  Change My Heart Oh God - Eddie Espinosa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwudqCO7mSQ

The Beauty of Fantastic Failure

Mark 14:66-72, CEB - Meanwhile, Peter was below in the courtyard. A woman, one of the high priest’s servants, approached  and saw Peter warming himself by the fire. She stared at him and said, “You were also with the Nazarene, Jesus.”

But he denied it, saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t understand what you’re saying.” And he went outside into the outer courtyard. A rooster crowed.

The female servant saw him and began a second time to say to those standing around, “This man is one of them.” But he denied it again.

A short time later, those standing around again said to Peter, “You must be one of them, because you are also a Galilean.”

But he cursed and swore, “I don’t know this man you’re talking about.”  At that very moment, a rooster crowed a second time. Peter remembered what Jesus told him, “Before a rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.” And he broke down, sobbing.

 

            Though Peter’s thrice-denial of Jesus is famous, it is not why we remember Peter.  He is revered in the Catholic church as the first Pope. All subsequent Popes are spiritual descendants of Peter.  Peter is the author of New Testament letters and he is a central figure in the exponential growth of the first-century church.  Though this sad story is definitely one of Peter’s low moments, it does not ultimately doesn’t define the character of Peter’s legacy.

            Having said that, this denial of Jesus plays a critical role in Peter becoming the central figure in the early church.  It forces Peter to see something in himself that Jesus saw, but Peter (ironically) denied.  Jesus tells Peter that he will deny Him three times and Peter defiantly and boldly proclaims that it will not be so – that he will die with Jesus before doing such a heinous thing.  This explains Peter sobbing when He found himself doing the very thing he boasted he would never do.  It broke Peter. . . and this a good thing.

            My guess is that Peter never forgot this moment.  Even when he later did the same things Jesus did - confronting authorities, attracting hordes of disciples, and starting new faith communities around the known world – I feel certain Peter recalled this terrible moment multiple times.  It reminded him of his capacity for failure and kept him humble.  It kept him from judging others’ failures too quickly.  It reminded him that he was the beneficiary of grace and so grace should be part of his legacy as well.  In short, Peter’s failure made him more Christlike.  Another apostle, Paul, would put it this way:

“Therefore, I’m all right with weaknesses, insults, disasters, harassments, and stressful situations for the sake of Christ, because when I’m weak, then I’m strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

In the kingdom of God, awareness of our weakness is our greatest strength because it causes us to depend fully on the power of God instead of our own.  Embracing our failures and our flaws forces to live by grace alone. 

            There are so many moments in my past for which I wish that I could get a do-over.  I relive them in my mind from time to time and it’s still painful. I know I’ve been forgiven by God and others for those low moments, but the memory of them still stings.  I suspect that might never change.  But I’m okay if that is the case.  Those mistakes and the memory of them have given me a grace that I don’t know that I would have if I had always gotten things right.  Being a flawed and broken human is good thing in the Kingdom of Jesus.  Praise be to God!

 

Question: How have your mistakes, and your memory of them, helped or hurt you?

 

Prayer:  Lord, to the extent that our mistakes have paralyzed us, set us free by your forgiveness and grace.  But to extent that they keep us humble, non-judgmental, and dependent on You, we are thankful.  Make us more like You Jesus.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for the victims of mass shootings that are happening daily in our country.

 

Song:  Not By Might – Leslie Phillips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1yQstWOh_s  

The Last Supper

 

The Last Supper

 

Matthew 26:17-30, The Message - On the first of the Days of Unleavened Bread, the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Where do you want us to prepare your Passover meal?”

He said, “Enter the city. Go up to a certain man and say, ‘The Teacher says, My time is near. I and my disciples plan to celebrate the Passover meal at your house.’” The disciples followed Jesus’ instructions to the letter, and prepared the Passover meal.

After sunset, he and the Twelve were sitting around the table. During the meal, he said, “I have something hard but important to say to you: One of you is going to hand me over to the conspirators.”

They were stunned, and then began to ask, one after another, “It isn’t me, is it, Master?”

Jesus answered, “The one who hands me over is someone I eat with daily, one who passes me food at the table. In one sense the Son of Man is entering into a way of treachery well-marked by the Scriptures—no surprises here. In another sense that man who turns him in, turns traitor to the Son of Man—better never to have been born than do this!”

Then Judas, already turned traitor, said, “It isn’t me, is it, Rabbi?”

Jesus said, “Don’t play games with me, Judas.”

During the meal, Jesus took and blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples:

Take, eat.  This is my body.

Taking the cup and thanking God, he gave it to them:

Drink this, all of you.

This is my blood,

God’s new covenant poured out for many people

    for the forgiveness of sins.

“I’ll not be drinking wine from this cup again until that new day when I’ll drink with you in the kingdom of my Father.”

They sang a hymn and went directly to Mount Olives.

 

This is a longer scripture reading, but a shorter reflection.  We could have broken up the exchange between Jesus and disciples about betrayal from the sharing of bread and wine (which is where the sacrament of communion comes from), but to do so would miss something very important.  Jesus tells the disciples that one of them will betray him.  Jesus has some harsh words for that person (who we and Jesus already know is Judas).  It is revealed that it is Judas even though the betrayer is not specifically called out.  But notice what happens. Or more accurately, notice what doesn’t happen.  Judas is not expelled from the dinner.  In fact, Jesus allows him to stay for the highlight – what we now call the institution of the Lord’s Supper. 

At this supper, Jesus declares that the bread they break is His body that is broken for them and the cup they drink is His blood shed for their forgiveness.  Judas is included in this.  Of course, this doesn’t negate what Jesus said earlier; it’s going to be very bad for Judas.  We will talk about that when we get to Matthew 27.  But here, in the same moment as the revelation of Judas’s betrayal, Judas’s forgiveness and redemption is proclaimed to him.  Grace is offered to all no matter what has happened before.

I need to hear that a lot.  I make mistakes; sometimes they’re big ones.  Sometimes, they even feel like they are unrecoverable.  It is in those times that it is good to hear the words of Jesus: 

“This body is broken for you; this blood is shed for your forgiveness.”

This is why we call it a sacrament.  It is a way for the grace of God offered in Jesus to be offered to us on a regular basis.  That sacramental gift is confirmed as we eat the Bread and drink from the Cup.  We invite the grace of God to become one with us.  We are redeemed in the moment and throughout our lives.

 

Question:  What does the sacrament of communion mean to you.  Has it been a way for you receive the grace of God?

 

Prayer:  Loving God, minister to us in our mistakes and brokenness.  Allow us to experience your grace available to us in every moment.  Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for families you are aware of experiencing brokenness and conflict right now.

 

Song:  Let Us Break Bread Together – Agnes Choo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egk-pX_1nHg

Matthew 10:9-15 - What Do Disciples Really Need?

 

What Do Disciples Really Need?

 

Matthew 10:9-15, The Message - “Don’t think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don’t need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light.

“When you enter a town or village, don’t insist on staying in a luxury inn. Get a modest place with some modest people, and be content there until you leave.

“When you knock on a door, be courteous in your greeting. If they welcome you, be gentle in your conversation. If they don’t welcome you, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way. You can be sure that on Judgment Day they’ll be mighty sorry—but it’s no concern of yours now.

 

In today’s passage, Jesus continues in his instructions to the twelve disciples as He sends them on their first mission without Him.  In yesterday’s reflection, we talked about the target audience (lost sheep of Israel), the message (the Kingdom of Heaven is here), and their strategy (miraculous works).  In the passage for today, Jesus covers resources and an even sharper focus on how to spend their time and energy.  Let’s talk about resources first. 

Too many churches and too many Christians feel like they don’t have the resources to be faithful.  They see thriving ministries and/or impactful Christians making a difference with seemingly endless resources and they get discouraged about the meager resources they have.  Many even resign themselves to not engaging because of a feeling that it won’t make a difference. Hearing Christ’s instructions to his first disciples should cure us if this is the case with us.  Basically, Jesus says to them, “just you are enough” to be faithful and effective servants.”  It’s almost as if Jesus knows that having resources might even get in the way.  If you hear nothing else today, hear this; you are enough for service to God.  That thing or skill or resource you think you need to take the next step…you don’t need it.  You are enough.

Now about the focus.  On this, Jesus is just practical.  Spend your time and energy on folks who are receptive to your work.  Be gracious to all but when that grace is refused, quietly move on.  It can be tempting to try and convince unreceptive folk of your good intentions, but Jesus simply guides us to use the same energy on folks who seem to be ready for grace.  There are more of them than those “tough nuts to crack.”  I guessing we all need to heed this guidance sometimes.

 

Questions:  Have you disqualified yourself or delayed a decision to serve in some way because you are waiting for something to happen?  Think about the people you are attempting to serve these days. Do they seem receptive to your efforts?

 

Prayer:  Jesus, thank you for the way in which you have gifted and equipped me to serve you and others.  Help me rely on You and You alone for all that I need to be faithful. Amen.

 

Prayer Focus:  Pray for God to show you a new opportunity today.

 

Song:  One of my favorite hymns from one of my favorite people.  My brother-in-law  Terry is in a group called Pinder and Snow.  Enjoy!

Be Thou My Vision – Pinder and Snow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST_m5DMTNo4&list=PLdssianaWLlcBvaQXe5NHVzq8JgS7DFcT&index=12