Pleasure Seekers, Life Givers (1 Cor 6:9-10)
In fact, St. Paul often lists the types of people who will not inherit (or receive) the kingdom of God, and yet one has cause to wonder – did he mean they would not be allowed, or that they would not be interested? A brief look at this list (1 Cor 6:9-10) of seemingly arbitrary sins can be more easily understood and interpreted when they are distilled to their single common denominator – pursuit of pleasure:
- Fornicators – those who pursue pleasure without a sense of obligation
- Idolaters – those who pursue pleasure in material objects
- Adulterers – those who pursue pleasure in defiance of their benefactors
- Homosexuals/Sodomites – those who pursue pleasure in possession of the idealistic forms of the human body (note that this applies to all orientations in the present day)
- Thieves – those who pursue pleasure without paying their share
- Covetous – those whose desire for pleasure incites unhealthy pursuits
- Drunkards – those who pursue pleasure at the expense of a balanced mind
- Revilers – those who pursue pleasure at the downfall of others
- Extortionists – those who pursue pleasure at the expense of the ignorant or powerless
While St. Paul could easily have legalisticaly quoted each of the passages in the Torah stating the laws against such behaviors – addressing their physical manifestation, he takes things a step further and draws the psychological roots of these sins together as being against the culture of the Kingdom. This connection is designed to point the faithful in a direction that is in accord with the rules of the established kingdom – the following opposite roles are therefore acceptable and will inherit the Kingdom:
- Those who give life without expectations
- Those who give life with their material objects
- Those who give life in recognition and honor of their benefactors
- Those who give life through the subjugation and service of the human body to another
- Those who give life according to their share
- Those whose wish to give life inspires righteous pursuits
- Those who give life and courageously retain a sober mind
- Those who give life when faced with the downfall of others
- Those who give life to those who are ignorant
It’s funny, I tried thinking of terms/labels that one could slap on all of these definitions and I was reminded of the scene in the Wizard of Oz where the wizard claims, “Back where I come from there are people who do nothing all day but good deeds – they are called… erm… ‘Good Deed Doers’ It is ironic that we don’t have a name for these groups. When we think back on our lives, these are the people who transformed us and often changed our lives forever. Hopefully they are the ones who we have closest to us and who we wish to emulate. Since those belonging to that sin catalog are called ‘unrighteous,’ the folks listed above are the ones who St. Paul considers to be ‘the righteous.’ Notice that it has nothing to do with perfect action – it is entirely based on generosity.
Ask any family therapist and they will probably tell you many stories of codependent relationships that were the result of pairing between the first group (St. Paul’s pleasure seekers) and the second group (righteous life givers). At best, they exist in equilibrium but have a difficult time offering much to society and they often find their social networks fragmentary, themselves isolated, and generally someone at some point becomes dreadfully unhappy with the relationship.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
© 2006 Jacob Gorny