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One of the joys of
the last two years of my life has been getting to know Greg
and Susan Jones. Not that their names should be strange to
you. Both have been here. Each has preached here. Together,
they parent the same three children while working hard at Duke
Divinity School where, when they’re not cheering on the
world’s greatest basketball team….eat your hearts out,
Carolina….they are training future ministers for tomorrow’s
churches. It is with no small measure of pride that we have
received Duke’s designation as one of 15 leadership
congregations in America, the better to help them in their
task. Our first Duke summer intern will be here on Mother’s
Day when, I am certain, we will learn every bit as much as
she. Or, quite possibly, every bit as much as he.
While it is Susan
Jones who will oversee the mentoring program, it is Greg Jones
who concerns me this morning. As you will remember, Greg is
Duke’s dean….Duke’s theologically sophisticated and
academically respected dean….but also Duke’s jovial,
convivial and considerably-younger-than-average dean…. who
(on anybody’s scale of personal magnetism and charisma) is
also Duke’s easy-on-the-ears and easy-on-the-eyes dean.
Which strikes me as odd. Divinity deans should be older,
grayer, crustier, and covered with the thin layer of olive
green moss that comes to those who spend too many hours in the
bowels of the library. None of which fits Greg, who works hard
and thinks deep, yet mixes well and laughs loud.
Which may explain
why people feel they can say anything to him, like his friend
who, clear out of the blue, said: "What Bill Clinton and
others like him fail to understand is that sexual escapades
always bring more trouble than they are worth, while it is
fidelity that makes you happy." Which so interested Greg
that he not only wrote about it in a national publication, but
has been talking about it ever since…."it" being
the observation that "fidelity makes you happy."
Which is certainly
biblical, albeit sadly counter-cultural. Whenever our culture
talks about sex (and much of our culture screams about sex),
it seems as if the loudest voices belong to those who say:
-
Fidelity is
boring
-
One man, one
woman, for one lifetime is restricting
-
Waiting until
the right one (or the permanent one) comes along is
inhibiting
-
And turning
one’s back on short-term and readily-available pleasure,
in return for long-term gain (which may or may not ever
happen), is ungratifying.
Or, as one young
man commented just before his impending marriage: "My
fiancée has reminded me that once I step to the altar, I will
never again sleep with another woman. Whoa!"
Now you can take
issue with any (or all) of my analysis. But I think you will
agree when I say that there are not many places in the culture
where anybody is telling you that fidelity will make you happy….or
that restraining yourself with the available one (because the
available one is light-years removed from the right one) will
make you happy. No, there aren’t many places you are going
to hear stuff like that. Unless in church. And probably not in
church, either. Because it’s touchy, don’t you know. We
ministers have to be so careful. Half of our members already
believe we live in the dark ages while the other half say:
"If we don’t, we should."
Fidelity makes you
happy. Somebody ought to say it. Especially on television,
where almost nobody believes it. I am not against television.
I have it. I watch it. I’ll freely admit it. And, where my
kids were concerned, I was more prone to discussing and
interpreting it, than censoring it. But while some of it is
better than it used to be, there is one thing that is
decidedly worse than it used to be. I am talking about
television’s slant on sexual intimacy….especially as
concerns who engages in it, and when.
People who measure
these things tell me that, for several years in a row, over 98
percent of the intimate acts openly depicted or teasingly
suggested on television involve people who are unmarried….or
who, if married, are not married to each other. Ninety-eight
percent. That is a staggering statistic. Not simply because it
suggests that sex before marriage is normal and that sex
outside of marriage is, if not normal, understandable….but
because it suggests that sex inside marriage is either
inconceivable or downright miserable. Television is incapable
of commenting on whether fidelity makes anybody happy, because
television doesn’t believe that faithful people ever make
love.
Yet, the Bible
suggests that this is the norm…."that (in Greg Jones’
words) sexual fidelity is crucial to a flourishing life."
I love Greg’s word, "flourishing." It’s so
wonderfully lavish. You want to be fulfilled? You want to be
happy? You want to be really happy? You want to be
flourishingly happy? Learn how to be faithful. Just a few
sentences ago, I said: "That’s the Bible’s
message." But one of the problems Christians have had
with sex is that there are occasionally mixed messages in
scripture. Or, if not mixed messages, certainly mixed models.
Early on, we read
that creation is good….man is good….woman is good….fruitful
multiplication is good….and that "becoming as one
flesh" (a 3,000 year old matrimonial symbol) is good.
But, in the Old Testament, many of the heroes were multiply
married…. more than a few were periodically (or chronically)
unfaithful….and sexual activity seemed to cause more
problems for them than it brought pleasure to them. Then we
get to the New Testament, where neither Jesus nor Paul were
married (even though we preach Jesus as Lord of the church and
Paul as its chief architect).
In several places,
Jesus affirms the "one man – one woman – one
flesh" model, although acknowledging (in Matthew 19:12)
that some people remain celibate for the sake of the Kingdom
of Heaven, even to the point of suggesting that such may be a
"higher calling" but that not everybody has received
or can embrace it.
Paul (who no less
a scholar than William Barclay believes was once married)
claims that he has received a calling to be celibate and has
grown comfortable in that state. Stronger yet, he tells the
Corinthians (1 Corinthians 7:7): "I wish you could all be
like me, neither having a wife nor longing for one." But
realizing that such is impossible, he adds: "Go ahead and
marry (if you must). Better that, than be aflame with passion.
And to those who marry, let there be mutuality in your
intimacy" (1 Corinthians 7:3-6)…. meaning "satisfy
each other, and do not look for satisfaction elsewhere."
That’s what it says. That’s exactly what it says.
Although, in this most curious of all passages, Paul adds:
"This is my opinion. I’m giving it to you because you
asked me, not because I have any word from the Lord on this
matter." How interesting to read in the Word of the Lord
that these particular words are not the words of the Lord.
Concerning sins
and failings of the flesh, many people find Paul a little
harsher than they expected and Jesus a little softer than they
expected….meaning that if you are looking for mercy, see
Jesus, and that if you are looking for judgment, see Paul. But
that would take a line-by-line analysis. And even then, I’m
not sure we’d all agree. What is interesting in Paul is that
for all the admonitions you get ("Stop this"…."Refrain
from that"…."Limit yourself here"…."Rein
yourself in there"), you never hear Paul say that
fidelity will make you happy.
But it will. It’s
how we are made. God made us so that we can have sex easily.
But God did not make us so that we can have sex casually.
People who have sex casually….here or there…. now or then….with
this one or that one….are not only in danger of getting
pregnant, infected or (in the case of AIDS) dead, but are also
in danger of getting (dare I say it?) sad.
Who says so? Well,
I do. As does Greg Jones. Along with Greg Jones’ friend. And
Catherine Wallace, who recently wrote a book entitled For
Fidelity: How Intimacy and Commitment Enrich our Lives.
What got her started on this topic was the realization that
she, herself a daughter of the sexual revolution, needed to
talk to her children about sex. Raised in a more permissive
era than I was, she has, nonetheless, concluded through her
own marriage (and by watching the marriages of her friends)
that sexual fidelity is crucial to a successful marriage and
(get this) intrinsic to a happy one.
Not that it’s
easy. Not that married people don’t have slip-ups or can’t
survive slip-ups. But she suggests that when we practice
fidelity, we are the better for it. Why? Because the very act
of being faithful to someone else lifts us out of a
preoccupation with our own needs, and whenever we get outside
of ourselves, we get closer to someone else….closer to God….and
happier for it. But she adds that fidelity and commitment are
not virtues you wake up one day and discover, so much as
habits you practice and learn….over time….starting when
you are young. To which Greg Jones adds:
We must learn
and relearn how to be faithful. Which is one reason sexual
promiscuity, even during our "sow your wild oats"
period of youthful exploration, is so problematical. Habits
formed early are exceedingly difficult to break.
Meaning it is hard
to go from being with anybody and everybody to being with
somebody….as in one body.
Throughout
history, the church has found it convenient to use the
language that parents have always found it convenient to use:
"Just say no." And if that’s all you can say….if
that’s all we can say….I guess it’s something. But what
if you could say (awkward and uncomfortable as it might be)
just how good sexual intimacy can feel in a faithful
relationship….and just how happy it could make them (in
part, because of how good you feel, and how happy it has made
you). Instead of zeroing in on all the bad things that can
happen to someone who doesn’t practice and polish the habits
of virtue, why not zero in on the good things that can happen
if you do?
Remember the
groom-in-waiting (earlier in the sermon) who said: "My
fiancée has reminded me that once I step to the altar, I will
never again sleep with another woman. Whoa!" What if he
had heard the kind of messages in church and home….messages
even from his mommy and daddy….messages of the kind that
would lead him to say not " whoa" but
"wow." Then the ultimatum from his bride, instead of
being the worst news he ever heard, might sound like the best
news he had ever heard.
My friends, I don’t
know whether celibacy is a calling, a gift, or just darn hard
work. To whatever degree it is a calling, I will leave the
Catholics to fight it out, even as I suggest that there are
few I have met who have received it. But, then, Paul said as
much ("I wish you could be like me….but you can’t").
So the question is not whether most of us will be sexual, but
whether we will be faithfully and joyfully so.
Late last July, I
accompanied Kris on her business trip to Ford of Mexico,
following which we spent three days in Acapulco as a belated
present to ourselves for our 35th anniversary.
Having always wanted to stay as Las Brisas, known for its pink
jeeps and private, mountain-side casitas, we were sitting on
an outdoor terrace overlooking the ocean when a large,
well-lighted vessel (colloquially known as the "Booze
Cruise") headed out to party.
Every tourist port
has such a boat. And I am certain that many who ride it are
simply out for a fun evening in the moonlight…. quite
possibly with spouses, fiancées, groups of friends, whatever.
I am making no judgment here. I do not disparage taking such a
cruise in the least. Be my guest.
But such ships are
also notorious for their great pick-up potential. Indeed, they
are advertised as such. Which is why it is not uncommon to see
cruisers (of both sexes) wearing T-shirts that read: "I’m
horny. You’re drunk. How about it?" I ask you, what do
you think are the chances that such revelers will experience
anything even remotely resembling what the church likes to
call "joy in the morning"?
If, however, there
is another way….and if that other way is a better and
happier way….then, if someone knows it, they ought to say
it.
I do!
And I just
did!
Note: The essay by
L. Gregory Jones that jumpstarted my thinking was printed in
The Christian Century (September 9-16, 1998) under the
title "Fidelity Makes You Happy."
As concerns
celibacy, the word does not exist in the Bible and most Bible
dictionaries refer to 1 Corinthians 7:1-7 and Matthew 19:10-12
as the primary places it can be inferred. The mainstream of
Judaism clearly looked on celibacy as an abnormal state, and
marriage was not only permitted but commanded by God. The
eunuch was one of the most pitied of human beings and needed
special consolation (Isaiah 56:3-5). The Old Testament forbade
eunuchs to act as priests (Leviticus 21:20). Obviously, those
sentiments were somewhat softened by the words of Jesus and
Paul.
Paul’s advice
needs to be couched in the context of his view of the times.
Paul’s belief in the imminent return of Jesus Christ
suggested that marriage would be a "temporal state"
and might serve as a distraction from spiritual preparation.
In short, if the form of this world is passing away, the fewer
entanglements, the better.
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