God's Love of the Human Body

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

        -1 Corinthians 3:16

Recently, I came across some passages in the writings of St. Symeon the New Theologian where he used the occasion of hymn writing to take jabs at his theological opponents. 

Because, you know, that will show 'em. 

He may have been onto something, though. Can you imagine how much more fun the debate between John Piper and N.T. Wright would’ve been had they taken all of their frustration out on each other through aggressive hymn writing? It would have been like an epic churchy rap battle of the ages. Wright would have written a hymn called, “O Christian hedonist, the one around whom the whole galaxy revolves.” Piper would have written one called, “N.T. Wright? More like N.T. Wrong because, you know, he doesn’t understand the New Testament very good.”

Even though this hypothetical scenario would have been a tad bit ridiculous (awesome, but ridiculous), if you can picture this kind of theological hymn battle, you would actually come kind of close to picturing what Symeon’s hymn writing project was, at least partly, about. In one unforgettable hymn, Symeon responds to some of the people who have already rebuked one of his previous teachings. In this teaching he had affirmed the goodness of the human body, and the deification of the whole of the human body, which also includes human sex organs. 

“Why should we be ashamed of those things and those parts of us that God is not ashamed of?” This is Symeon's question. 

For those who are ashamed of such things, he says this to them: “You attach your shame to Christ and to me, saying, ‘Do you not blush at these shameful words, and above all to bring Christ down to the level of shameful members (sexual organs)?” To this Symeon responds (quite brilliantly), “Just picture Christ in the womb of his mother. Picture for yourself the interior of this womb and his escaping from it (at his birth), and what my God had to pass through in order to come out of that womb and into this world!” 

(If you don't get what Symeon is getting at, I am sorry but your Biology classes failed you.) 

In other words, if Christ is so ashamed of certain aspects of human embodiment, or certain types of body parts, he sure picked a funny way to enter into this world didn't he?

Now, as fun as it may be for me and as uncomfortable as it would inevitably be for you if I were to talk about the implications of the Incarnation for human sex organs, I actually want to come closer to the heart of the struggle that many, if not all of us, face whenever it comes to how the divine interacts with our embodiment. I want to tease out the wider and more urgent implications of both Symeon’s thought and the office lesson (1 Corinthians 3:16).

Sure, we believe that the divine does interact with, redeem and abide in human bodies. We do believe in the incarnation, the resurrection, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit into human flesh after all. Yet, it is so hard for us to accept this truth in a specifically personal way. There is a disconnect between the dogma and its implications for these things we call “bodies,” the very stuff we are made of. Why? Because we are so prone to hate our bodies. 

Whenever we look in the mirror we often say, “I don’t like what I see.” Whenever we are envious of the way somebody else looks we say, “I wish I could be that person or, at the very least, look more like them.” Whenever we see the signs of aging we wish our bodies were younger again. Whenever we see the effects of Randy’s cooking (Nashotah's excellent cook) we wish we had a thinner, pre-seminary, body again. 

The truth of the matter is that, because of our bodies, a great many of us spend a large amount of our time wishing we were somebody else, or we spend a large amount of our time feeling shame over that which what we presently are. 

How we despise that which God loves! 

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

This idea is believed in our heads but far from our hearts! 

We don’t see ourselves as God sees us. This is quite sad because God still loves and abides in our bodies regardless of how we feel about them! Do you know what God sees whenever God sees you? Temple, Home, Rest. God sees the culmination of a project that began at the beginning of time (before the beginning of time, even); the very location where true Sabbath rest is being fulfilled. 

How close does God desire to be with you? 

You are a temple close

Indwelling close

Closer than your own breath

Closer than your own heartbeat

So close that you cannot pinpoint exactly where you end and God begins close

Unfortunately, for most of us it takes a lifetime before we begin to figure any of this out. It doesn’t have to be this way, though. Beloved, baptized ones, children of God: all we have to do is rest in God’s resting in us. All you have to do is rest in God’s resting in you. To put it another way, as Elisabeth of the Trinity once put it, “Your vocation is to let yourself be loved by God." 

Your vocation isn’t to make yourself better and then come to God. 

Your vocation isn’t to earn God’s love or respect for you. 

Your vocation isn’t to figure out what you need to do to get to God. 

Your vocation is to accept what God has already done to get to you.

Let us stop our striving after that which has already been given to us, and let us rest in the gift that is the Giver.

Let us accept God’s acceptance of us as his temple.  

And let us remember what St Paul says. “God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”

*Homily delivered on November 27, 2018 in St. Mary's Chapel at Nashotah House Seminary