Last week we talked about the lure of money and we saw how money is such a great temptation for us because of the way the love of money is promoted by our culture. Well, if that’s the case, then perhaps even more so is the temptation to misuse our sexuality. Sex is power in today’s world. Sex is used to sell everything from cars to washing machines. Sex is enjoyable and we all want enjoyment in life, so sexuality is promoted as necessary for a fulfilled life. But the trouble is, sex is both misunderstood and distorted so that we’re easily confused about what’s right and what’s not and those promoting it are usually doing it from an amoral and basically self-centred position.
What I’d like to do today is to suggest a number of areas where our understanding of the place of sex has been distorted and then to give some biblical perspectives on sex and how we should deal with it.
Distortion 1: Sex is a male issue.
It seems to me that there has been, in the past at least, an idea that sexuality is a particularly male issue. Men have been seen as the ones who have the strong sex drive and a woman’s role, in marriage at least, is to help to meet his needs for sexual satisfaction. Now that misunderstanding is being addressed to some extent in the popular media. Shows like ’Sex in the City’ portray women’s interest in sex in a fairly explicit way, but I wonder whether in Christian circles the myth isn’t still alive and well. The fact that we don’t talk about sex in public much doesn’t help, does it? I wonder how often women discuss sexual feelings when they meet in women’s groups of various types. My guess is not very often. Not that men discuss such things much either I might add.
If you want some evidence that sex is as much a female issue as it is a male issue, think about the popularity of Mills and Boon potboilers. Women buy these by the hundreds, not for their literary value, but because they provide a safe outlet for their sexuality. They allow their readers to enter a fantasy world where love and romance, intimacy and physical pleasure, can be found without any pain or difficulty. Or think about the number of chick flicks that appear on the movie screens or on video. All providing vicarious enjoyment of just one thing - sex. Oh, it’s clothed in words like romance and passion, but in the end it’s just sex. So let’s be clear that sex is an issue for all of us.
Related to this is the idea that only men experience lust. Well, I can’t speak personally, but I’m told by people who know, that women also experience lust. It’s part of our human sexual makeup, I guess, that we’re naturally attracted to those of the opposite sex. But there’s been some sort of denial of this over the years, possibly because the people doing the research and writing the books have all been males who saw the world from a male perspective. But the result of that denial is that women have felt guilty, even felt perverted when they experienced strong feelings of attraction for a man. And sometimes they even carry those feelings of guilt into their marriage. It’s only in recent years that women have begun to talk openly about their feeling of sexual attraction for men. Again, in the church though, I fear that there’s still a perception that Christian women shouldn’t be carried away by feeling of sexual attraction to men. That’s related to:
Distortion 2: Sex is bad.
Ever since the fall, human beings have had a problem with sex. What was meant to be a pure expression of the love between a man and a woman has been distorted and misused. But that’s led some to go too far the other way. To condemn all sexual feelings as sinful. To mistake sexual attraction for uncontrolled lust. The shame that Adam and Eve felt in the garden because they were naked has been taken further to equate all sexual expression with shamefulness. You see, the devil loves to distort the good things God has given us and twist them into temptations that will destroy us. And if he can get us to see those good things as essentially bad, then he’s won a great victory. So the answer is to be clear about what is wrong in the sexual area, but also to delight in what’s good about it.
So why has sex been seen as bad? Well, some people suggest it goes back to the Church fathers, like St Augustine who wrote about "the shame which attends all sexual intercourse." They suggest that his teaching about sexuality came out of a reaction to his own promiscuity before he became a Christian. He had trouble distinguishing between intimacy and the wild lustful passions of his youth. Well, whether that was true or not, plenty of people have taken up his ideas, and taught that sex is evil. Now we need to say here that this sort of thinking comes more out of a Greek dualist frame of thought, where the physical or material world is the realm of sin and evil, and the spiritual realm is the place where God is. But that has little to do with the world view of the Bible, as we’ll see in a little while.
If you’re a woman, this is particularly a problem, when you think about the images that we’ve been presented with of ideal womanhood. Who is the person who has been presented to women down the ages as the ideal woman? It’s Mary isn’t it? Blessed virgin Mary? Here is the ideal woman. Ever a virgin, yet ever a mother. Nurturing, loving, caring, but never stained by crude sexuality. Untouched by the temptations that ordinary women experience.
Of course we forget that after the birth of Jesus she and Joseph were married and she bore a number of other children. The reality doesn’t matter. We forget about Mary’s most important attribute, her willing acceptance of God’s will, despite the social cost to her. No the image is what matters. Women should be pure, loving, nurturing, unstained by the world, and certainly untouched by any desire or sexual lust for a man. Why? Because sex is bad.
Distortion 3: You can have free sex
One of the great lies that we’ve been sold since the 60’s is the idea that there is such a thing as free sex. But the truth is that free sex is like the free lunch. There is no such thing. It’s an illusion as great as the one we saw last week, that money will make you happy.
But here’s how it works. The illusion begins with the suggestion that enjoying sex with someone will bring into our lives the sort of intimacy that we desire. Now there’s a subtle and seductive power in this illusion. The physical sensations of sex are very real and strongly suggest warmth, intimacy and deep relating. But the trouble is that beneath the physical sensations of casual sex, there’s nothing. The paradox is this: True intimacy and free sex are a contradiction. Free sex by definition is temporary, anonymous, self-centred. Otherwise it isn’t free. True intimacy is the opposite. It’s committed, personal, open, other person centred.
Now don’t underestimate the power of this illusion. It’s an illusion that’s thrust at us at every level. You’ll hardly see a movie or watch a show on TV these days where this illusion isn’t presented to you. If someone turns you on, then you have a responsibility to yourself to see where a relationship with them might lead. If the person who turns you on is of the same sex as you, well then, you’re just one of the growing percentage of the population for whom that’s normal. Don’t fight it. Just enjoy it. It’s just physical after all. And it will help you find intimacy where you might never have found it with someone of the opposite sex. Similarly, if your present relationship isn’t working out, don’t worry, another one will turn up soon. If you want to play around in the meantime why not? As long as no-one finds out it’ll be OK.
But it won’t be OK. The misuse of sex carries with it a price, whether in your own life or in the life of others with whom you relate. Following a fantasy might seem fantastic at the time, but in the end it’ll fade away and we’ll realise we’ve been taken in by a cheap lie. In the end we’ll discover that intimacy, authentic relationships, are only possible in the context of responsible long-term commitment. The physical experience of sex alone will never bring the wholeness and integration for which we yearn.
Distortion 4: Lust is OK as long as it doesn’t go any further.
Like the man who was caught by his wife, ogling a gorgeous young girl. His response to her complaint was that he was just window shopping. But he had no intention of buying. But is that OK then? Is it only when we step over the line into a physical relationship with someone that we’re in trouble? Well, let’s hear what Jesus has to say about that question. "You have heard that it was said, ’You shall not commit adultery.’ 28But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Mat 5:27-28 NRSV) Jesus was in no doubt that looking was as bad as buying. The issue isn’t the act, but the lustful desire.
In fact it’s interesting to think about the process that people go through who have affairs. Rarely does anyone intentionally set out to have an affair. More often what happens is that the affair sneaks up on them. Someone crosses their path with whom they seem to get on, who perhaps they find strangely attractive. Then they meet again. Perhaps they work together or are in the same social group. Then they find that there’s a certain rapport, a certain empathy growing between them that they find helpful. And slowly the relationship grows, until it becomes more than just a friendship. Now at this stage they haven’t stepped over that line of physical intimacy, but you can see how the line gets thinner the longer the relationship goes on unchecked. Well, Jesus says, don’t let yourself get anywhere near that dangerous precipice. If your eye leads you astray pluck it out. Better to get to heaven without an eye than to be thrown in hell with your eyes wide open.
The issue of pornography is part of this. There’s a great market out there for both soft and hard pornography. In fact the definition of what’s pornography seems to have blurred somewhat over the years. What would have been banned 20 or 30 years ago is now commonplace. We hardly blink an eye as sex is portrayed on our screens for our satisfaction. So pornography has to be more and more sensational and hard-core to satisfy those who go after it. And what it does is it reduces sexuality to a mere physical experience separated from any true intimacy. It becomes a series of 2-dimensional images that empty it of all the richness that God intended for it. It plays on our deepest insecurities, on our fear of failure in personal relationships, allowing people to follow fantasies without ever risking the failure of a relationship and the hurt that that might cause. Or it allows us to escape the difficulties of relating to a real person with real needs.
What’s more, it exploits and dehumanises those who are the objects of the voyeurism involved, often people who are powerless and open to exploitation. And it dehumanises all of us in that it demeans and devalues the experience of sex in its right context, in that of a lifelong committed relationship with one other person.
A Biblical Perspective.
In the remaining time I want us to think about some of what the Bible says about sex.
1. Made in the image of God, male & female
In the creation account in Genesis 1 & 2 we find a number of things that help us in thinking about our sexuality. The first of these is in 1:26-27. (Gen 1:26-27 NRSV) "Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; ... 27So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."
In some mysterious way, God mirrors his personality in us through our sexual identity as men and women. That is, our sexuality is deeply rooted in the very nature of God. God didn’t make us an androgynous combination of genders. Nor did he make 3 or four genders. Just 2.
2. Be Fruitful and multiply
Secondly he instructed the man and woman to "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it." The potential for reproduction is an important part of the creation intent. Sex was meant not just for recreational purposes. It had a larger view in mind that goes beyond the couple to the future of the world. That of course has all changed with the advent of contraceptives, making it much more possible for sex to be solely a recreational pursuit.
3. Not good to be alone.
Gen 2 gives a different view of the creation. There the man is created first, but God sees that it isn’t good that he’s on his own. So he creates a woman to share with him the labour of tending the garden. The picture is of the man and the woman needing each other as partners to share the joys and efforts of life. And we’re told:
4. The two shall be one
So although God has created 2 human beings, a man and a woman, his intention is that they be one flesh. There’s a unity between the man and the woman in this picture that goes beyond just the physical union of sexual intercourse yet incorporates it. They are one flesh in the sense that they’re designed to come together in sexual union, but their union, their intimacy is also related to their common direction, their sharing in the work of tending the garden. This is why the fantasy of greater intimacy through casual sex is such an illusion. Intimacy as God intended it comes from being joined at all levels of our being. It has to do with us enjoying the sort of commonality of purpose and direction that God enjoys within the Trinity. Sexuality is a gift that God gives us that helps to cement that commonality, to bind us together in shared enjoyment of each other as we share our life’s direction. But it will never create that commonality, that intimacy.
So God’s intention for our sexuality was this: that it express in some way something of the intimacy that God experiences within the Trinity, that part of the sexual experience is the possibility of new life being brought into the world, that it provide a means of companionship and mutuality in a shared and common purpose. Sex is not bad. On the contrary, it’s part of God’s design of the world. Part of what he declared to be very good. But it can be distorted and corrupted.
It seems to me that what we find in Gen 1&2 goes counter to everything that we’re fed by our culture today about sex and sexuality. That means that it’ll be hard for us to resist the temptations that sex presents. It’ll be hard to resist the undermining of Biblical standards with regard to sex. For example, it seems to me that there’s a conscious campaign in the media to present homosexuality as normal, and homosexuals as an underprivileged or oppressed minority. There is some truth in the latter assertion. But we mustn’t let our concern for justice and our desire to support those people, override our understanding of God’s intention for human sexual expression. We need to find a way to support those who are homosexual without condoning homosexual expressions of sexuality.
Similarly we need to find ways of helping those who are single to enjoy real intimacy with others without the need for sexual relationships. We need to offer an alternative to the illusions that the popular culture offers, an alternative that consists in real relationships of mutual support and encouragement.
If you have a particular problem in this area of sexuality, ask God to help you with it. Repent of those areas where you know you’ve been disobedient and ask God to change you so you can respond in a way that matches his intention for your sexuality.
This is a huge subject that, again, I’ve only just touched on. But its a subject that it would be good for us to talk about with those we trust, so we can keep a godly perspective on what’s a central part of every person’s makeup.
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