1 Corinthians 5:6-13: a reflection

6Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump? 7Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place. 8Therefore let’s keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 9I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners; 10yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortionists, or with idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world. 11But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist. Don’t even eat with such a person. 12For what do I have to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within? 13But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”

Paul rebukes the Corinthians, who were boasting even while tolerating serious sin in their midst, with a proverb: Do not you know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? A small amount of yeast works its way through an entire batch of dough; so a little tolerated sin spreads through a life and a community. Purge out the old leaven, he urges, that you may be a new lump, for Christ our Passover has been sacrificed; let us celebrate not with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

Notice the danger Paul warns against: complacency about sin that seems small. The Corinthians were self-satisfied, even boastful, while tolerating corruption among them, as though a little sin did not matter. Paul's warning is that it does: like leaven, a small tolerated sin does not stay small; it spreads, working its way through the whole. What we treat as minor and tolerable has a way of corrupting far beyond itself.

That is a warning against the complacency that shrugs at small sins. We can be self-satisfied, even proud, while quietly tolerating sins we consider minor, in ourselves or in our communities, assuming they do no real harm. But a little leaven leavens the whole lump; tolerated sin spreads. Do not be complacent about the sins you consider small. Deal with them, purge them out, rather than letting them work through the whole. And celebrate the life Christ has given, not with the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. What seems a small, tolerable sin will not stay small; take it seriously before it spreads.

Lord, Paul warned the complacent Corinthians that a little leaven leavens the whole lump, that a small tolerated sin spreads through a life and a community. Guard me from complacency about the sins I consider small. Keep me from being self-satisfied, even proud, while quietly tolerating sins I assume do no real harm, in myself or around me. Help me see that tolerated sin, like leaven, does not stay small but spreads. Give me the seriousness to deal with it, to purge it out, rather than letting it work through the whole. And help me live not with the old leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Let me take even small sins seriously, before they spread.