ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET

EPIPHANY 3, 2010 Sermon preached by the Vicar at Evensong

Readings: Numbers 9.15-23; 1 Corinthians 7.17-24

"Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called."

Paul is responding to various pastoral problems faced by the Church in Corinth. In Chapter 7 he deals with the question: May Christians continue to consummate marriages, or should those who have received the Holy Spirit live celibate lives? He began by quoting something they had written: "It is well for a man not to touch a woman." Paul does not entirely reject this slogan bit he strongly qualifies its implications.

In our passage this evening, Paul reflects on the guiding principles behind his specific advice on marriage. In this short section he says three times that believers should remain in the condition in which they were called - their position in life at the time they first accepted the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This section is rather like a club sandwich: the bread is the maxim stated three times; the filling two illustrative examples. These compare the distinction between the married and unmarried to those between the circumcised and uncircumcised;the slave and free. All these are unimportant before God.

Circumcision and slavery do not seem to have been controversial among the Corinthians. Paul merely uses them to support his advice that they should not seek to change their marital status. It is probably no coincidence that these two illustrations, combined with the surrounding discussion of sex in the Christian life, parallel precisely the three elements in Paul's baptismal instruction in Galatians:

As many of your were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." Galatians 3.28

These are the basics in Paul's understanding of the human condition. These were categories which the world saw as fixed. But for Paul even such basic markers of human identity have been rendered meaningless in the light of the gospel. Chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians can be read as Paul's application of it.

Some of the Corinthians thought that "no male and female" obliged them to give up sex. To the contrary, Paul declares that the gospel is meant to set us free from anxiety about such distinctions and to call us to find our identity in Christ rather than in gender. Marriage, like ethnicity and social status, belongs to the category of adiaphora: matters that fundamentally make no difference. On this basis, Paul spells out a very simple rule: Do not try to change your position. Your salvation does not depend on it.

In view of Paul's string proclamation elsewhere of the world-transforming power of the gospel (cf. 2 Cor 5:16-21) , this seems a rather conservative account of the social implications of the new life in Christ. But Paul writes believing that "the present form of this world is passing away" (1Cor 7:31). To scramble for new social positions is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic: it is a pointless exercise generating only anxiety. His concern is to set his readers free for wholehearted service of God wherever they find themselves in the present time. "Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called" means, in effect, "Blossom where you are planted; don't worry about trying to be something you are not". Paul's application of this advice to the Corinthians' situation was to dissuade them from abandoning their marital commitments. There was more wisdom in such counsel than in ideas breaking free from human limitations in pursuit of a heroic celibacy to which they were not called.. At the same time, the application of Paul's advice requires discernment and the ability to know when exceptions are appropriate, as his discussion in the chapter indicates.

Let's look at Paul's illustrations. His belief that "circumcision is nothing, and un-circumcision is nothing" would have shocked his Jewish contemporaries, but it was central to his vision for the church as a community that transcended ethnic boundaries; uniting Jew and Gentile as one new people serving God. More shocking still, is his punch-line: what matters is "obeying the commandments of God". But surely circumcision is one of the commandments of God. If obeying the commandments is so crucial, how can circumcision be unimportant? Paul's statement presupposes that the Law is to be read anew through a different interpretive lens, since Christ is the goal and fulfilment of the Law. He develops these ideas more fully in the letter to the Romans. The Gentile Christians in Corinth, who had been instructed already in these matters by Paul, would have acknowledged the force of his argument.. Becoming a member of Christ's people had not required them to change their ethnic status. So, Paul suggests, there is no reason for them to change their marital status either.

To us, the second illustration appears more problematic, because it urges Christian slaves to remain contentedly in their slave status. The "conservatism" of Paul's teaching seems to play into the hands of oppressive social forces. Before jumping to this conclusion, we need to consider two things:

The word slavery conjures up the horrors of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and sweltering plantations in the Deep South. We think of the film "Ben Hur" with slaves chained to the oars of a galley or of Spartacus leading a doomed slave revolt against the might of Rome. There certainly was cruelty but the ancient reality was more complicated. Slavery provided for many y economic security and upward social mobility. To be the slave of a powerful master could be an honourable station, and slaves were sometimes highly educated and entrusted with major administrative responsibilities. So "slave of Christ" could be a honourable title. Many slaves did seek emancipation when possible, sometimes by saving up money to buy their freedom. The emancipated slave was still not a free-born citizen, but a "freedman", who often remained attached to the service of his or her former master. Many of the early Christ converts came from these lower ranks of society, being either slaves or former slaves. The Christian movement which transcended social barriers may have been especially appealing to people of low social status who were nonetheless relatively well-educated or economically successful.

So, how does Paul use the example to support his argument? He begins by saying that those who were slaves when called by God should not "be concerned about it".

What he says echoes his status-overturning words at the beginning of the Letter: "Consider your own call...not may of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; god chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, thi9ngs that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are , so that no one might boast in the presence of God,"

Through his death, Christ has paid the price to redeem those whom he has called. The result of this transaction is a reversal of status within Christ's household. The slave becomes " a freed-person belonging to the Lord", whereas the one who was free when called becomes "a slave of Christ". So, Paul insists that that those who have been "bought" our of slavery by Christ's death should not "become slaves to human masters". He may in part intend a literal sense here - "Do not change your status by selling yourselves into slavery", but he certainly means also that they should live their lives, whatever their outward station, as people devoted to the service of Christ.

One sentence in our passage is very difficult to translate. It can be rendered two ways:

Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever". Or

"Were you a slave when you were called? Do not let that trouble you; but if a chance to liberty should come, take it"

This latter follows the pattern of Paul first telling the Corinthians to remain as they are but then allows exceptions of various reasons. The exception here is the slave's opportunity to gain freedom. Paul's point is not to insist that people must remain in their present status, even to the extent of refusing emancipation - something which would have been legally impossible anyway ; rather, his point is to reassure his readers that they should not be troubled about their present social location endangering their salvation and to urge them to focus their attention on serving God, wherever they stand in the social order.

The purpose of all this is to support Paul's argument that the married should not abandon their marriages and that the unmarried should not necessarily be rushing to find partners. For many of us this example may seem more opaque and troubling than it would have been to the Corinthians who would have found it relatively clear and reassuring.

There is no denying that supporters of unjust systems which enslave or subjugate people on the basis of social status or gender have seized upon this text, torn out of its context, to justify the status quo as somehow divinely ordained. But the reality is that Paul's belief that before God these distinctions are meaningless, means that the symbolic world of the ancient slave system has been dramatically destabilised. Paul expected the socio-political order of his day to be swept away in the immediate future by God's final judgement. When that did not occur, the reversals of the present passage could only serve to undermine the system from within and to prepare the way for the withering away of slavery as a social institution in later Christian civilisation.

The miracle was that many slaves were able to see the Gospel's truth that all are equal before God, in spite of the appalling example of their Christian owners, and often proved better Christians.