Homily 674 – 35 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
February 8, 2026
Epistle:  (135) 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
Gospel:  (79) Luke 15:11-32

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.

This morning I want to talk for a minute about the Epistle reading.  There are some things in the Epistle that hearing it read aloud you may not notice or realize.  Those who have the text, either from the printed bulletin or the PDF version sent via email may have already realized this.

What St. Paul is doing here is quoting what the Corinthians have said to him.  When he says, “All things are lawful for me” there is a small prefix.  You say.  You say that all things are lawful.

Now, St. Paul doesn’t object to this language, but he clarifies it.  The Corinthians are claiming that they don’t have to obey the law of God.  St. Paul basically says, you are correct – you don’t.

But the better path is to obey the Law, not in the rituals and feasts of how the Jewish world lives, but in the way they interact with one another as human beings.  This is an important point.  Acts 15 and the council at Jerusalem set forth only four things that Gentiles needed to pay attention to.

We no longer keep kosher, for instance, but still don’t consume blood.  Importantly, sexual immorality, which St. Paul focuses on here, is one of the commandments that is still required of those following Christ.  The Greek word which is translated here as sexual immorality is the Greek word “pornea.”  It has a pretty broad use in the first century – but that isn’t the focus this morning, so we’ll leave it for another time.

The Corinthians were abusing their freedom from the law – the commandments.  So what St. Paul does is point out something that should have been obvious, but wasn’t.

Just because we are not required, or judged by God, for our adherence to the Law doesn’t mean that the Law is of no use nor value to us.  The Law still serves a great purpose, telling us how people who seek God generally behave toward God and one another.

Now, this isn’t to say that transgression of the Law condemns us.  The Gospels make that quite clear, through the statements of Christ Himself.  Christ tells us, and shows us, that He doesn’t condemn us.  He doesn’t even condemn the woman caught in adultery.  St. Paul in his letter to the Romans even says it point blank:  There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

If we did continue to walk “after the flesh” as St. Paul puts it – which is to say, according to our own selfish desires and will – if we continued in that fleshly, earthly path, then the Law would be our judgement.

But we are crucifying the flesh.  We are crucifying our ego, our will, our desire.  So that we who love God and follow Christ can live according to the Spirit.  And the Law doesn’t judge the Lawgiver.  If we follow Christ, we follow the One who gave us the Law.  Who embodied the Law.  Who exemplified following the Law in every possible way in the incarnate humanity He took from Mary.

We who follow Christ live according to the spirit.  While the Holy Spirit is the animating force of every aspect of life, I’m not convinced that living by the spirit refers to the Holy Spirit.

I rather think that the spirit of the law by which we live is the example that Christ gave to us, in fulfilling the law in every aspect of His life.  We live in Christ’s spirit.  We follow Christ’s example.  And, in so doing, the Law gives us a mirror in which to evaluate ourselves.  To evaluate the degree to which we are indeed following Christ’s example.

St. Paul goes on to speak of one other aspect of following Christ, and that is to glorify Christ.  He tells us to glorify God in our bodies.

What “glorify” means in this context is to reveal.  To glorify is to reveal – to demonstrate.  We demonstrate God, we reveal God in our bodies, in our actions, in our relationships with others.

Not just in our intellect.  Indeed, that may be the way God reveals Himself to us, but it is the bottom of the list in the way we glorify God.  We glorify God the same way Christ did.  Through His activity and actions and expressions of love for the world, particularly those who depended on Him for their very existence – their daily bread, we might say.

Those were the poor, the sick, the lame, the widow, the orphan.  The rich had enough to care for themselves.  They didn’t need God.  Which is to say, they rejected God’s help, for the most part, believing themselves self-sufficient.

Their wealth in fact got in the way of them revealing, glorifying, God.  It became and still is a hindrance.  We cannot live for God and depend only on ourselves.

So in the end, what St. Paul gives us is quite practical advice.  No, you don’t have to follow the Law.  But you will find yourself better off if you listen to what the Law tells us.  Again, not the dietary law, not the ritualistic law.  The law of how we relate to one another.

Just to tie it in momentarily to the Gospel account of the Prodigal, let’s mention this.  The prodigal didn’t sin in anything that he did by asking for his inheritance and moving away.  He lived immorally – but that wasn’t sin.  Sin was separation from his father.  He certainly didn’t glorify his father when in a foreign land, but neither did he transgress any laws that we are told about.

He lived immorally – but so do we.  He relied on himself – but so do we.  It took extreme poverty and hunger for the prodigal to “come to his senses.”  And when he came to his senses, he returned home, expecting nothing but work as a hired servant  of his father, and brother.

In the end, though, his father longed not for his son’s work, not for his output or productivity.  The Father longed for the Prodigal’s presence.  That’s enough.

And brothers and sisters, it still is enough.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ!