God lives here, now – in vulnerable human bodies. It is surely scandalous and offensive to claim that a human body is God’s temple – the place where we are most likely to encounter the Holy. When Jesus made that claim in the Jerusalem temple (John 2:13-21), people were appalled – foreshadowing all the human bodies we religious folks scorn or cast aside as “too political.” Perhaps exposing and disrupting the business of buying and selling in and around these bodily temples is what most offends us. Yet the place where God meets us is here among the bodies of vulnerable people, not just in a spiritual sense but in a physical one. It is also a place where Lutheran women have committed to be present, especially in the fight against human trafficking.
When we look into the eyes of Jesus, Joanna or Jackie, we gaze into a temple in which God dwells. And we must look. The bodies in which God lives are not disposable. They should not be ignored. Our bodies deserve to be seen and evoke responses of solidarity from our human kin.
This message is excerpted from “Our bodies” by Lee Ann Pomrenke in the September 2020 Gather magazine.
Continue to pray for those involved in the Twelfth Triennial Convention (2023), including the voting processes that will result in new officers and board members for the churchwide organization.
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