Friday • 3/18/2022
Friday of 2 Epiphany, Year Two
This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 69; Genesis 43:1–15; 1 Corinthians 7:1–9; Mark 4:35–41
This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)
The gift of celibacy. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul commends single celibacy like his own as a mode of living for the sake of Kingdom-service and devotion to the Lord. See 1 Corinthians 7:32–35: “The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord….” If one can receive the call to celibacy as a gift (charisma, 1 Corinthians 7:7b), singleness offers freedom from the obligations of domestic life.
With its extra-biblical demand that clergy remain unmarried, Catholicism has overplayed aspects of what Paul calls “counsel” rather than “demand.” (“I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that” — 1 Corinthians 7:7.) By the same token, with its championing of “traditional” family life for virtually everybody, Protestantism has underplayed Paul’s godly advice. Seldom do I meet Protestants who choose singleness and celibacy for the sake of a life of ministry. It’s something to think about. To those whom God gives the charism of celibacy, the surrender of their sexuality directly to the Lord is their “gift” to him. And that is a sacred thing.
The limitations of “Just say No!” A cursory reading of Paul’s permission to marry regards Paul as seeing marriage as little more than a solution to lust: “better to marry than to burn (with lust)” (1 Corinthians 7:9b). To leave it there, however, is to do injustice to Paul’s advice.
Marriage alone does not tame that lust. Nor does it insulate relationally needy hearts from creating a dream world in which an imaginary perfect partner listens all the time, picks up their socks, and never has a bad day.
The value of “Just do it!” Thus, it is a wonderful thing that Paul complements the negative aspect of his teaching with the positive. Yesterday we saw him champion sexual propriety for the sake of love for Christ, union with Christ, and the glory of God. Today we find him saluting the way a man and a woman can minister to one another.
The Corinthians are a congregation of people utterly concerned with securing their perceived rights. They take each other to court. They argue about whether they have the right to eat meat from the marketplace. They want Paul to receive financial support from them so they can put him under obligation to them.
Paul is working hard to get them to understand that the Christian life is not about claiming your rights. It is about surrendering them. We’re all called more to give love than to get love. What Paul wants the Corinthians to understand about marriage is that this is a special relationship in which two precious bearers of God’s image are entrusted as stewards of each other’s needs and desires. That’s the point of Paul’s instruction about relations between a husband and a wife:
“The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife” (1 Corinthians 7:4 NIV). The passage is not a warrant for either side to pressure the other. The passage invites — indeed requires — each to ask the other, “What do you desire and need from me: a listening ear? doing the dishes? physical comfort?”
Likewise, Paul builds into marriage the prospect of a mutual granting of permission for periods of abstinence. Paul says, “Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control” (1 Corinthians 7:5 NIV). As we saw above, the call for each spouse to surrender “authority” over their body is no grounds for the other to make selfish demands. Neither, as Paul cautions here in verse 5, does the proviso of periods of abstinence warrant a kind of blackmail or deprivation of physical intimacy. Rather, Paul leaves breathing space for mutual spiritual reflection and growth.
Paul genuinely believes the power of the gospel and the example of the One who was rich but became poor for our sakes (2 Corinthians 8:9) can make a couple care more about each other’s needs and desires than about their own. Within marriage, cherishing one another in intimacy is a profound way we contribute to each other’s growth in Christ.
Be blessed this day,
Reggie Kidd+
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