Pampering the body

But what we lose our temper or our “control” to, what begins to govern our actions at that point, is precisely our body and the inclinations to wrong that, as Paul and James both knew, actually inhabit its parts as living forces. You can verify this by carefully observing the bodily behavior of the next person you see in a rage.

For usual human beings in the usual circumstances, their body runs their life. Contrary to the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:25, life is, for them, not more than food, nor the body more than clothing. As a matter of simple fact, their time and energy is almost wholly, if not entirely, devoted to how their body looks, smells, and feels, and to how it can be secured and used to meet ego needs such as admiration, sexual gratification, and power over others.

THE BODY BETRAYED NOW 
THE HUMAN BODY is betrayed in its own nature when it is thus made central to human life. It is created for spiritual life in the kingdom of God and to be honored—indeed, glorified—in that context.3 But when taken out of that context and made the central focus of human experience and endeavor, it is betrayed—robbed of the spiritual resources meant to sustain its life and proper functioning—and in turn it then betrays those who center their life on it. The sense of this betrayal is what lies at the heart of youth worship in Western societies. It also is the source of the fear, shame, disgust, and even the anger directed at fat, old age (or just aging), and death and dying that dominate our culture. An outlook focused entirely on the body finds the body’s failure and cessation to be, of course, the ultimate insult from which there is no recovery. You have to understand this if you want to understand Western life and culture.

The same mis-location of the body explains many other intractable problems now facing much of our world: the sexualization of practically everything, abortion, eating disorders, and racial and other discriminations. All of these are rooted in taking the body—our own or that of others—to be the person and thereby depriving ourselves of the spiritual perspective on the person, which alone can enable us to cherish the body and its central role in our life.

NOWHERE DOES THE MODERN frenzy of self-assertion and the “me” god come more clearly into view than in the claim now often made that “my body is my own.” This is taken to mean that I alone have the right to say what is done in and with it. Now, there is an important truth here—especially in a world where there are so many ways of getting at you through your body. But it is a truth misstated and misunderstood. Our only safety lies in a proper solidarity with others, not in isolation and pretending to go it alone.

And this is all the more true for an apprentice of Jesus, whose body and whole being has literally been bought back from evil by God through the death of his Son. It is therefore God’s to do with as he pleases, and he pleases that our body should be “a showplace of God’s greatness” (1 Corinthians 6:20, PAR). Christians are the last people on earth who could say, “My body is my own, and I shall do with it what I please.”   pp. 167-170 SOURCE