lovemaking

Shalom Mennonite Church

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Body & Soul: Healthy Sexuality and the People of God

Part 3: "Honoring the Gift of Sex"

Texts: Selected verses from the Song of Songs, 1 Corinthians 13:4-13

Eric Massanari

“lovemaking”

[begin with reading of 1 Corinthians 13:4-13]

When I was a child,

I spoke like a child:

I sat in church with my friend

and we flipped through the hymnal

whispering hymn titles to each other

and adding “between the sheets”

to each one.

“Move in our midst” . . . between the sheets

“Oh, how shall I receive thee” . . . between the sheets

“Joyful, joyful we adore thee” . . . between the sheets

When I was a child,

I thought like a child:

Around the time that my father sat me down

to have “the talk,” I thought the idea of sex was gross.

Then, of course, by adolescence it all seemed

quite enticing, exciting and mysterious, and I assumed

that no human being was thinking about it nearly

as much as I was.

When I was a child,

I reasoned like a child:

I reasoned that sexual feelings were something to keep hidden.

Out of guilt, I never told anyone before today

that by age 12 I had discovered that special

section of the Dewey Decimal System

in the public library where all of the books

about sex were shelved.

I learned a lot about speed reading in that section.

I reasoned that the longings I felt in my body

and the wild imaginings of my mind

were dangerous, something to be ashamed of,

something God was not entirely pleased with.

When I became an adult,

I set aside such childish ways.

Or not.

When it comes to those deepest

and most innate parts of our being,

like our sexuality,

we do not easily set aside

“the ways of our childhood.”

When it comes to our sexuality,

the things we learn at a young age,

the experiences we have from

the earliest moments of our lives—

whether those experiences are

ones of great pleasure, great pain, or great confusion—

shape us and leave indelible marks.

Consider for a moment this question:

What and who has had the most influence

on your own sexual awareness and development?

Parents? Peers?

Popular media?

Books? Classes?

Experiences by yourself?

Experience with sexual partners?

The community of faith?

I would have to say that the community of faith,

the church, falls near the bottom of my own list

of what has shaped my own sexual learning and growth.

I would hazard a guess that I'm not alone

in having experienced the church as largely

silent on matters of healthy human sexuality.

Which is probably why it felt strange

and more than a little intimidating this week

to plan a worship service entitled

“Honoring the gift of sex.”

Where exactly does one begin

when so much has gone unspoken?

Can we expect the world

to take the church seriously

if we are only willing to state a few

rules about when and with whom

one can be sexually active,

and then the only other times we

are heard to openly speak about sex is

when we're in one of our raging,

damaging arguments over homosexuality?

Some history...

From the first centuries of the church

it was believed that our human sexuality

and especially its expression through

and between human bodies,

was fundamentally tainted and fallen.

Gregory of Nyssa, a 4^th century church leader,

said that the sexual life was one of the most

disastrous consequences of the fall because

from sexuality “the passions as from a fountainhead

flow over human nature.” (a rather passionate image!)

Gregory was not a great fan of human attractions

and passions, as you might be able to tell.

In the Western church, Augustine stands out as

one of the greatest and most influential early church leaders.

Augustine, like Gregory, did not have a terribly

high view of human sexuality.

Like many of the other male theologians

of those early years of the church

seemed primarily focused on

sexuality in its physical and genital expression.

Augustine was troubled by the fact

that in the act of sexual intercourse

people seemed to lose control of themselves.

Sex couldn't take place without, as he put it,

“a certain amount of bestial movement,”

and “a violent acting of lust.”

For Augustine, these were signs that

sex was inherently shrouded in sin,

with its only redeeming

quality being the fact that it was needed

for the perpetuation of the human race.

Influenced by this view of sex,

it took many centuries before Christian theologians

of the church dared to acknowledge

what human beings had known for eons:

sexual intimacy isn't just for procreation,

it feels really good, too,

and that perhaps this pleasure is actually

something intended by our Creator.

Such views from the early church may seem archaic

to our ears today. However, they shaped

the church for hundreds of years

and continue to shape the shame,

guilt and discomfort in the church today

when it comes to matters of our sexuality.

The church has a great deal of learning

and growing to do to move beyond

some of our “childish ways.”

Though perhaps that is not the most helpful way to put it.

Perhaps we need to be a bit more child-like

in terms of reclaiming a sense of curiosity,

wonder, and awe when we consider our own sexuality.

The church must find its voice in

this world and in this age

where we are literally inundated

each day with sexually charged

images and messages—some of which

may be quite healthy and life-giving,

while many others are undoubtedly

harmful, abusive and exploitative.

For a long time societal norms

mirrored the morays and rules of the church.

That is no longer the case.

What does it mean to be Christian

and sexual in this day and age

where sex has become so casual

and commodified?

What does it mean to be a Christian

in these times when silences

around sexual abuse, rape and incest

are being broken, sometimes

silences that church has been

complicit in keeping?

What does it mean to be a Christian

in this age when we are learning more

about what it means to be sexual and human,

and the rich spectrum of healthy

human sexual expression that exists?

How does our faith inform and impact

our desire for sexual intimacy

when we are alone

and when we are with others?

There are potentially many meaningful

responses to these questions.

This morning I want to

suggest one possibility,

one hopeful word that the church

might speak into this world and our lives

regarding the expression of our sexual selves.

And it can be stated in very simple way.

The Christian faith can offer the world

and understanding of sex as a sacrament.

I realize that I am using the “s-word” here.

Not sex, sacrament.

For Mennonites that is almost

as forbidden a word in worship as sex.

“We're not sacramental!” we're proud to say.

We don't believe in that magical

sort of spiritual stuff.

Perhaps.

We might consider one traditional definition of “sacrament”

which goes something like this:

a sacrament is a visible sign

of the invisible grace of God.

In other words, a sacrament

is a tangible, physical, lived reality

that holds in itself the essence of the Divine;

it not only points the way to God

but it directly connects us with the God

who dwells within us and among us.

Sacramental moments of life are those moments

and experiences that connect us to the

ground of our being, the source of energy

which animates our breath, our heartbeat, our cells.

Sacramental experiences are those experiences

which connect us to the underlying unity of all life,

those glimpses—sometimes all-too-brief glimpses—

the very heart of who we are in God.

I believe it is Christianity's place

to claim that sex is sacramental,

that our yearnings for one another

and the bodily expression of those

yearnings within committed,

mutually loving and affirming relationships,

reveals something to us about

the Love that is God's own love.

When my father told me about sex

when I was a pre-adolescent child,

he said something like this:

Sex is a special way that grownups

show how much they love one another.

And this, we can only hope, is true.

What we might offer the world as the church

is the insight that there is even more than this.

Sexual intimacy is a special way

that we can experience God's love for us.ⁱ

In the middle of our bibles there is

this rather steamy, sultry collection of poetry,

the Song of Songs.

You may or may not be surprised to learn

that for Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine

and many of those early leaders

the Song was a much beloved book of scripture.

They held it in very high esteem, though,

it came with a caveat:

don't take this too literally!

Breasts aren't actually leaping like gazelles here!

This isn't real honey dripping in these verses!

They interpreted this poetry as metaphor.

They read it as figurative speech

about God's passionate love for humanity.

Others have interpreted this book

as a collection of erotic love poems,

focused on the passionate feelings

shared by two human lovers.

In truth, those two interpretations do not necessarily

need to be set in opposition to one another.

In fact, the fullest meaning of the Song of Songs

may be found when we hold them together

and hear these verses as describing

both physical longings and spiritual longings.

As we have been reflecting on for these

last few weeks at church, these are longings

that cannot be fully separated in our beings

as humans created in God's image.

We are body and soul.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!

For your love is better than wine,

your name is perfume poured out;

Draw me after you, let us make haste...

Ah, you are beautiful my love;

ah, you are beautiful...

Set me as a seal upon your heart...

for love is strong as death,

passion as fierce as the grave.

Such words can rightly be heard

as both expressions of the passion

that is God's for us, and the passion

we might encounter with another human being.

20th century theologian, Philip Sherrard, puts it this way:

The energy which manifests itself as the sexual energy in man and woman has its source in the deepest strata of their life. It is rooted in the ultimate mystery of their being. It is the source and generator of all human creativeness, whatever form this may take. It is the radiating, magnetizing, vibratory current which courses through the whole living fabric of human life and beyond human life. It is the energy of life itself, divine in its origin and sacred in its nature . . .

- Philip Sherrard, Christianity and Eros, p. 76

The sexual intimacy we share

in human relationships as a channel

for our love, finds its source in the love

that is of God.

This is what makes it sacrament.

It has the power to reveal to us

something true and real about God.

And what do we know and believe

of God's love?

We believe that the love of God bears

the shape of mercy—it heals, forgives and reconciles.

We believe that God's love

seeks justice in relationships.

We believe that God's love

is creative, playful and life-affirming.

We believe that God's love

is faithful and steadfast.

We believe that God's love

is a self-giving, self-offering love.

Healthy human lovemaking,

our expressions of sexual intimacy,

are meant to be channels of this very love—

love that is reconciling, just,

creative, playful, life-affirming,

faithful, steadfast, and self-giving.

To add the Apostle Paul's descriptions:

our expressions of love for one another (including lovemaking)

are to be patient, kind, never boastful, arrogant or rude.

Sexual intimacy, particularly in its

deepest and closest expressions

like genital sex, is meant to be held

in the sanctuary of a trusting,

mutually loving relationship.

For the fullness of this sacrament

to be honored and revealed it must

be held in a vessel of trust and love.

If it is twisted through coercion,

abuse, or manipulation;

if it is put on public display

or made a commodity for the pleasure of others;

if it is exploited for personal pleasure

at the expense of others

then it becomes what the Apostle Paul

called porneia - “pornographic.”

To share with another human being

in sexually intimate ways is one of

the most vulnerable things one can do.

That is one reason why sex is so easily twisted

into unhealthy and abusive forms,

and why it can be so terribly wounding,

because it involves so much vulnerability.

In the depths of sexual intimacy

we offer ourselves,

we lose our own self in the other, for the other,

for a profoundly wonderful and pleasurable moment in time.

We understand, even if only briefly,

what it means to "die to self,"

to let go of our self-involvement

and encounter deep unity with another.

Sex involves this great gift of oneself,

one's whole self—body & soul—to another.

And in that passionate gift,

in that sacramental union,

is the very Passion of God.

iBoulton, Elizabeth Myer and Matthew Myer Boulton. “Sacramental Sex: Divine Love and Human Intimacy,” The Christian Century, march 22, 2011. Page 31.