Unadulterated Choices

Sermon, February 20, 2000

Texts: Exodus 20:14; Mark 12:18-34

A third grade boy received a homework assignment to write a little research paper on his family roots. He then went home and began questioning his mother, but neglected to tell her that this was an assignment at school. The mother was distracted with preparations for dinner, placating an ornery toddler, tripping over a hungry cat, and a thousand other things that mothers have to simultaneously do as her son asked her, "Mom, where did I come from?" The mother, who had her hands full at the moment, didn't want to get into "that" just now, so she replied, "Well, honey, the stork brought you." And then the boy asked, "Mom, then where did you come from?" Again, she didn't want to get into that so she just said, "The stork brought me, too." Then the boy was persistent, and he asked, "Mom, where did Grandmom and Grandpop come from?" With slight exasperation in her voice, she replied, "Well, the stork brought them too, now please, honey, we'll talk later but right now Mommy's real busy." So the third grade boy went up to his room and started to peck out these words on his computer for his report, "There hasn't been a normal birth in our family in three generations."

Sex also sells the news; it makes many of the headlines. To review all the headlines from the last few years about sexual episodes would take the rest of the morning, if not the day...but you know about the stories over the past years involving the United States Navy, the Army, the Air Force, you know about the Congressmen, the senators, and the judges, you know about the athletes and the entertainers. You know about the sportscasters, you know about the pastors, and the evangelists, and the religious leaders. You know the names and you know the stories and I don't need to repeat them all. You know the story about the President of the United States. We not only know about the current President of the United States, but in the last years as all has come out about our President's confirmed involvement with a White House intern and alleged involvement with several other women to whom he was not marrried, we have also been made aware of other Presidents throughout our nation's history and their involvement with women to whom they were not married. Not only does sex sell products, but also be very sure that sex makes the headlines.

Before we get at why God gave us the seventh commandment and what it means, as pastor of this congregation I would like to say from the start that I know that there's some people here for whom human sexuality is a very difficult topic, because you were sexually abused as a child. I know that some of you have been sexually harassed at work or even in the home. I know that some here have difficult problems with self-esteem due to sexual conflict in your life. I know there are single people in this congregation who have very strong desires and are trying to discern what kind of behavior is appropriate in a world that has gone crazy with sexual images. I know there are some married couples in this congregation who are having a difficult time with intimacy in your marriage. I know there are individuals in this congregation who struggle with homosexual desires. I know that some of you have sons, daughters, grandchildren, loved ones who are afflicted with these conflicts and more related to human sexuality. Like all revolutions, the so-called sexual revolution has littered the landscape with casualties; emotional, psychological and spiritual casualties. Many people bring something to this sanctuary that is painful for you, and I want to affirm for you that this is a church which will not ignore your pain. This is a church where we want to allow the presence of Jesus Christ to minister tenderly to you. This is a church that wants to encourage you to rest, relax and lean back for a time on the everlasting arms. Let Jesus Christ put His loving arms around you and let Him gently and quietly tell you the one word that human sexuality is all about. As the Rev. Dr. Tom Tewell, pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, expressed it so well, sex as God designed it is a twelve-letter word. It is spelled F A I T H F U L N E S S.

Faithfulness. It is about faithfulness to God, it is about faithfulness to one other, it is about faithfulness to the social intercourse of the entire human community. I've said this before, and I'll say it again with loving redundancy: The Ten Commandments are not given to us because God is prudish and doesn't want us to have any fun. The Ten Commandments were given because God wants to live life as He meant it to be lived. God designed us. He created us. He loves us, and He knows our limits and our aspirations. The Ten Commandments are not the "Thou shalt nots" of a God who anytime anybody has fun says, "Now cut that out!" These commandments are from a wise God who loves us enough to tell us how to best live, who wants to tell us how the human mechanism was designed to operate, and then we have free will as to how we will choose to live. One might say that God is "pro-choice" in the proper sense of that word. As mentioned last week, I think few words today have been more politicized, propagandized and, frankly, bastardized than the word, "Choice." Choice can be wholesome and desirable; choice can also be mischievous and destructive. What we choose matters. As also mentioned last week, perhaps it's no accident that the Greek word for choice is "Haeresis," we get our word "heresy" from it. There are good choices, and there are bad choices. There are productive choices, there are destructive choices. There are choices which make us better, and there are choices that make us worse. There are choices that better integrate us, that enable us to better "put it all together," and there are choices that fragment us, that dis-integrate our very being. There are choices which serve to enhance and grow our faithfulness to God and others, and there are choices which harden us to God and others. Too often our choices are adulterated by impurities, impure influences and ideas rampant in this increasingly secularized world, and we choose wrongly. Again, sexuality as God designed it is a twelve letter word. In the little time I have remaining, I'd like to give three principles that might help us better understand God's faithfulness as it touches human sexuality, three principles that might help us make better, purer choices in this culture that seems to have gone crazy with sexual imagery.

Principle number two: Human sexuality is a sacred gift from God that must be exercised with the utmost care. Sexuality is ordained by God the Creator and it is indeed His gift, but it is a gift that is good and beneficial only within the natural framework God intends for it. I used to live near the Susquehanna River in Pennsylania, a beautiful, mighty river that did much to benefit the community around it...provided it remained constrained by the natural banks governing its flow. Occasionally, however, and usually about this time of the year, the river would overflow its banks. Instead of being a blessing to the surrounding community, the mighty Susquehanna would become a curse...it would ruin homes, cause untold damage to lives and property, and, in a word, become a source of destruction and havoc instead of a source of power, beauty and blessing. It is the same with human sexuality. As God designed it, it is a tremendous source of blessing and power, it does much to enhance and secure homes and health, in a word, it is a wonderfully gracious gift of a loving God....if it remains constrained by the "banks," the restraints, God designed for it. If it ignores those restraints, if sexuality overflows its God-ordained divine "banks," it becomes a devastating source of destruction and havoc. Like a flooding river, it ruins homes and health and causes untold damage to the lives of those involved. In his classic little book, Mere Christianity, author C.S. Lewis writes: "Chastity is the most unpopular of the Christian virtues. There is no getting away from it: the Christian rule is, 'Either marriage, with complete faithfulness to your partner, or else total abstinence.' Now this is so difficult and so contrary to our instincts, that obviously either Christianity is wrong or our sexual instinct, as it now is, has gone wrong. One or the other. Of course, being a Christian, I think it is the instinct which has gone wrong." This is God's parameter, His "banks", for sexuality, this is God's design...faithfulness to Him and faithfulness to one other human being. Again, principle number two, Human sexuality is a sacred gift from God that must be exercised with the utmost care. It must be cherished, it must be protected, it must be kept pure, it must not be adulterated, if it is to provide the blessing He designed. Which brings us to the third principle:

Principle Number three: Promiscuity destroys people. God doesn't want to rob us of pleasure, but again, God knows how the human mechanism was designed. When we sin, it's not so much that we break the Ten Commandments as it is that they break us, especially with sexual sin. Paul alludes to this in his epistles to the church in Corinth; suffice it to say for now (due to time constraints), Paul underscores the deeply bonding nature of sexuality. There's something uniquely different and devastating about sexual sin that goes to the very center of our being; promiscuity fragments the very core of who we are. It takes a heavy, heavy emotional and spiritual toll. We weren't designed for promiscuity, nor were we designed for serial monogamy, we were designed for faithfulness.

I'm way over time; we'll go into more detail on some of these things in a future elective to be sponsored by Adult Christian Education. In closing, I reiterate that sexuality, as God designed it, is about faithfulness. In fact, it is significant that God would choose to use the ultimate imagery of marital faithfulness as the paradigm of His relationship with the church; we are the Bride of Christ. Properly honored, the gift of sexuality as God designed us reveals as nothing else can something more of the ultimate mystery of God's faithfulness which is at the very core of His being. In the face of the constant bombardment of (normally illicit) sexuality we receive in our culture today, know that sexuality cannot be fully enjoyed or appreciated apart from faithfulness in God, know it is a sacred gift from God that must be exercised with the utmost care, and know that promiscuity destroys people. Do not commit adultery; do not adulterate God's gift of a precious and pure expression of His very being.