In 1 Corinthians 5, Paul explores community and unity while addressing the issue of sexual immorality in the Corinthian church. The Bible celebrates sex as good, sacred, and beautiful - not something to be approached with guilt, shame, or prudishness. The Christian view of sex needs to be centered on joy and delight, not scandalized by human sexuality. The Christian stance on sexuality is not about idealizing a specific family unit but recognizing that everyone’s story is different, marked by love, joy, heartbreak, and unforeseen circumstances. From a Christian perspective, sex is never to be treated flippantly. People are precious, all sexual encounters carry sacred weight, and personal decisions affect our community. The church often falls into the pitfall of focusing solely on promoting oppressive systems of accountability or invasive surveillance to strive for sexual purity. But what if we aimed to share wisdom for real-world situations, respecting personal decisions about sex and intimacy? Rather than implementing rigid rules, the goal is to begin a nuanced conversation about the theology of human sexuality, exploring the mystery of God’s design for our intimate connections, understanding that our bodies, hearts, minds, and spirits are deeply intertwined. In 1 Corinthians (specifically in chapter 5), Paul’s primary preoccupation is with the Corinthian church’s health as a community. He’s contending for their unity. Paul is essentially saying to his friends in Corinth, “If these issues of sexual immorality within your church are left unaddressed, they will eventually serve to undo the very fabric of your togetherness.” How we treat each other matters, both in our personal relationships and within the larger community. These are inextricably linked, and our approach to sexuality should reflect this understanding. How might our sexual relationships define our broader connectedness to the community? How might we embrace a holistic understanding of sexual intimacy as a force for either division or unity/joy? What if we embraced Christian community as a place to nurture a holistic view of people, each filled with dignity and each an occasion for joy?

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At first glance, it appears as though the divisions in the Corinthians church were over very different and unconnected issues. After all, what have class divisions, the exercise of spiritual gifts, and eating meat sacrificed to idols got to do with each other? But Paul is able to see the connections beneath the surface and he frames them together with a vast theological vision. For example, the Corinthians had sensationalized the gift of tongues and made it the mark of serious Christian faith and by doing so they placed a question mark over the faith of anyone who didn’t possess this particular gift. In this context, Paul uses his famous body analogy and pushes it to an absurd place. (Corinthians 12:17-21) Paul pushes the analogy as far as he can go because he wants them to know how absurd their behavior is when they create a spiritual class system in the church. The point of the gifts is to nurture unity and togetherness in the body. But then again, in another dispute over dietary differences, Paul calls some Christians weak and others strong depending on whether they eat meat sacrificed to idols? (1 Corinthians 8:9-13) Paul is having a joke at their expense. He knows that the Corinthians have been trained to think in terms of class and status, it was part of their culture and how they operated day in and day out. And so Paul plays along and he says - with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek: You who are so ‘strong’, you super believers you, don’t stumble your ‘weaker’ brother. Throughout the letter, Paul maintains the distinction between mature and immature Christians but the Corinthians have been using the entirely wrong register. For Paul, maturity and immaturity are always about whether or not a person’s life brings people together or pushes people apart, whether they create peace or strife between people, whether they create unity or division. How can our lives be a bridge between people who think they can’t be together?

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Guest and friend of Trinity Heights, Steve Gumaer, delivers a reflection on Matthew 19.