Sunday, July 6, 2014: Romans 7:15-25a

In my early twenties, I worked on an organic vegetable farm. We made lunch every day from the rejects—misshapen carrots, pockmarked zucchini, Swiss chard lacey with holes. Even most of the better vegetables had some blemish, insect damage, or discoloring. I began to understand that produce grown without pesticides, industrial fertilizers, or dyes tends to look kind of ugly. Produce at the grocery store began to look plastic to me—so shiny, clean, and perfect.

We live in a world without much decay. A professor of mine liked to say that until recently, human thought was deeply influenced by the fact that people did not have refrigerators. Food is extremely perishable. In ancient kitchens, meat, bread, and produce lasted only so long before they became disgusting and inedible. Human bodies were much the same. There were no antibiotics, no emergency rooms, and no dentists. People got scars and lesions; they lost fingers, toes, and teeth. They died from what we now consider minor infections and illnesses.

Could the body be considered good when it broke down so easily? Today, we may be shocked by Paul’s words, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” or “I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh.” But we’re protected from physical death and decay in a way that Paul and his neighbors were not. Unlike him, we are surrounded by images and examples of perfection.