AMOS 2:1-3 HONOR GOD WITH YOUR BODY

1 This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Moab, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath. Because he burned, as if to lime, the bones of Edom’s king, 2 I will send fire upon Moab that will consume the fortresses of Kerioth. Moab will go down in great tumult amid war cries and the blast of the trumpet. 3 I will destroy her ruler and kill all her officials with him,” says the LORD.

Jerome tells us that the King of Edom sided with Israel and Judah against the King of Moab. Later, after the King of Edom died, the Moabites dug up his corpse, heaped insults upon it and then burned the remains until they were dust, which they may well have used as lime for plastering a wall. This total disrespect for the dead king was an aggressive disregard for the humanity of the king and his subjects. It was a sin against God because it destroyed and desecrated a divinely created image of God.

The total lack of respect for what God has created reflects a total lack of respect for the Creator. Unlike the Gnostics of the early church and those of today who believe that the divine spark or spirit is imprisoned in the evil material body and the purpose of the spiritual person is to escape the confines of the body, the Bible proclaims that we are embodied spirits and that in the end our physical bodies will be resurrected and brought into the new creation; the very eternal presence of God. Throughout the Old Testament it was seen as a divine curse to have your body hung on a wall or tree, remain exposed and unburied to be food for animal or to be trampled under foot. In ancient cultures dead bodies were handled with respect regardless of whether they were buried or burned.

Our bodies are the tools that God has given us with which to interact with one another and to perform the work he has given us to do. It is with our bodies that we are to announce and demonstrate the direction and purpose of God in the world. But St. Paul raises the bar even higher.

19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

St. Paul was saying this in the context of sexual immorality, but it also has serious implications for all other sources of physical abuse, whether it be chemical, dietary, mutilation, misuse or even neglect. The idea of having to stand before God and confess to having destroyed his temple is not a pleasant one.

Father, I give you thanks for the body you have given me. Help me to see my body as your holy temple and treat it with the respect and attention that a sacred gift demands. But most of all, Lord, empower me to use it as my main tool for glorifying you, for through it I am made manifest to the world. At the same time, keep me from worshiping my body, but help me to worship you through my body. Amen.