Dearest family,
As we have seen in recent weeks in our series “Biblical Sexuality: some considerations”, scripture covers so many things: the nature of male-female union, boundaries for behavior and thought, pleasure, passion, mystery, real and potential threats, and the constituent elements of intimacy (like commitment, trust, assurance, faithfulness, sex) This Sunday, we put some “post-its” out there on marital sexuality. Whether we talk about the sexuality of males and females who are married or unmarried, it is important that we all hear the same thing together, because all truth is God’s truth and is not exclusive to anyone. Whether married or unmarried, it is important for us to understand those things that are particular to each other’s needs, so that we can better love and serve each other, encourage and strengthen each other, and above all, be examples of the indwelling Christ, imaging his life to each other through our maleness and femaleness, through our “becoming holy” and “being healed” sexuality.
The OT has a lot to say about marital sex: it is clear in its commands and prohibitions (Pentateuch), it gives examples of great intimacy (Ruth and Boaz) and ravaging desolation (David and Bathsheba), it is instructional (Proverbs) both in the way it warns against dangers as well as recommends delights. It gives details that are sensuous but pure. The Songs of Solomon are exquisitely erotic. Intimate details of the body are given, and how to love it. No wonder the early church fathers wanted to allegorize it all! Chapter 1 is about the anticipation of the bridal chamber. Chapter two tells you what to do with your hands. Chapter 3 is about counting the cost of marriage. But it also talks about the tender sensitivities, about how lovers missed each other. In chapter 5 she stayed in bed, and did not get up to open the door to let him in! But you could argue that he was too preoccupied at work and was coming to bed too late. She did not seem inclined to make the effort that was required to welcome him and to make love. But as sad as all that is, what is helpful is the way we see how they commit to solve their sexual problem as they take personal responsibility for their behavior, bless the other though hurt and offended and communicate their feelings clearly, expressing and not repressing. Before you know it, they are planning a sexual retreat and talking about making love outdoors. There is an amazing interplay between them. They are certainly not painting by the same old numbers as you watch the sexual impressionism in their relationship.
The NT actually has little direct counsel on sex in marriage, but we did look in detail at Ephesians 5 and 1 Corinthians 7 and saw how much was there. The Bible is not a sex manual, but it is full of instruction about how to relate, how to love, how to bless, how to heal, how to know what is good and how to experience that goodness. If you remember, I suggested again on Sunday that the real issue is not the “greatness” of a marriage (there are hundreds of thousands of internet sites that want to tell you how to have a GREAT marriage) but the GOODNESS of a marriage. How do you have a good marriage? Admittedly, that sounds weaker than a “great marriage” doesn’t it? But there is so much subjectivity in “great” – it is essentially feeling-based. Goodness, on the other hand, is truth based – it is essentially faith-based, where goodness is defined by what God calls good. We know that what is “great” by our standards and perceptions may not always be “good” by God’s. Marriage, and marital sexuality, is about being good by being true to our sexual vows regardless of bad circumstance, so it’s not just about what we want to be great, or feel great on our terms of need or desire. It is “good” that is the supreme word in Genesis to describe the satisfaction of God with his creation. The text says: “it is not good that man should be alone” so presumably we can say that God ordained the relationship between man and woman to be good – to manifest and exhibit his goodness, to draw on the supply of his goodness. Scripture, both OT and NT, always directs us to this goodness. Your understanding of the biblical explications of “goodness” will be foundational for your understanding and therefore for your practice and conduct of marital love and sex. I often say to couples that there aren’t special marital behaviors, just Christian ones: like all the “one anothers” of scripture; like all the fruits of the Spirit. Study the good texts: what it is to do good, prove what is good, be overcome by good, abound in every good work, have a good conscience, be full of good fruit, enjoy good days, have good conversation…and on and on. You will find that you will agree with Proverbs 18:22 that whoever finds a wife (or a husband for that matter) “finds a good thing.” If these “good” things are the non-negotiable DNA and experience of a marriage then it will probably be really good. Can God say that our marriage is good? Is that not what we desire, that as at creation, it could be inscribed over us: “And God saw...and said it was very good.” So what does he see? We need to be talking about what makes for a good marriage in the same way that I talked a couple of weeks ago about what makes for a good body, in Christian terms. A good body, in God’s terms makes for good sex. A good marriage in God’s terms makes for good sex. If you’re getting the point, then you prepare that message!
But maybe all that sounds too good to be true? It often does to any who are struggling or suffering pain in their relationship. What we are about is recovering the original plan for marital sexuality. In Matthew 19, Jesus was dealing with the sexual brokenness that resulted from the fall-out of divorced marriages. The reason Jesus said that there was a need to go back to the beginning was because of what he described as a “hardness of heart”. So heart problems are at the root of sexual problems. Perfecting sexual performance and technique will not solve the root problems of broken personhood. We now live this side of the fig leaves, but what was it meant to be like, that union, that communion, that nakedness, that freedom, that absence of shame and self-consciousness, between man and woman? It is clear that their personhoods experienced each other physically, and that it was different to animal copulation. There wasn’t only a biological reality but a spiritual reality in their union. God was being imaged in their shared sexuality. Sex was not about mating but meeting, as Lewis Smedes put it. It was declared “good” by God. Sexual desire was natural and needful, and there was a freedom to give and receive. There was no lust, no selfish using, no defensiveness, just a revelation of God’s holiness through their wholeness. You’ve heard of “back to the future”. But how do we “forward to the past”? And when we do, don’t we find the sadness of how this unity was broken, and how this image of God was distorted. We find we live outside Eden. And we find there are all sorts of other realities that give plenty of opportunity for grace and redemption to transform, beginning of course, with the Fall itself and the new dynamics of rule and rebellion, self-protection, self-consciousness, self-assertion that distort and divide male-female intimacy. There are enemies that threaten our sexual vows and I gave you several on Sunday (falls, fig leaves, foxes, flaws, fears, failures, fantasies, fights, faults, falsities, familiarities) but we affirmed that there is one more point beginning with “f” that can cover them all: forgiveness!
Earlier, I made mention of sexual vows. If you’re married, maybe you should do a simple exercise and go through your vows and apply them to your marital sexuality. Fundamental to marital sexuality’s assurance is fidelity to our vows, as well as fidelity to marriage as our calling, our vocation. Remember what we discussed about the relationship between marriage’s holy boundaries and our holy freedoms of sexuality. In that fidelity is our fidelity to the personhood of our spouse and to their sexual welfare. Our vows bind us to our relationship, not just institutionally but intimately. To “cleave” couldn’t be more sexual. It implies a pressing in of breast to breast. Our vows are not just sustained by passion but by will, by faithfulness to God as well as the other. So how are you keeping your vows sexually? Are you keeping faith? Is there any part of you that you have taken back once having given it? It is not only adultery that breaks a marital covenant. The mortar of the bricks of the covenant can be loosened and crumble a number of ways, especially through with-holding, or absenting, as we discussed on Sunday. Actually, there is a sense in which in every act of marital intercourse, there is a renewing, a restating of those vows that said “all that I am I give to you.”
So are you sexually faithful to your vows?
• I take you: Are you surrendered to be taken? Are you withdrawn? Have you taken back anything you once gave? Is your relationship still sexually exclusive? Or is there something else on the side, whether fueled by neglect, preoccupation, fantasy, lust or whatever. Are there any thoughts of any other person in your head and heart? Are you emotionally exclusive to the other? Do those descriptives of Christian marriage that we briefly looked at in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, characterize how you are living out your vows: exclusivity, mutuality, particularity, unity, equality, perpetuity, spirituality and the indispensability of sexual relations?
• To be my wife / husband: Are you being everything that you can be sexually for your spouse? This is not about “doing” primarily but simply “being”. It is not about performance but about possession of heart.
• To have and to hold: This is evidently sexual. Is sex about communion as well as union? Are you cultivating intimacy and sharing the inner life, and expressing it physically and verbally?
• For better for worse: Are you dealing honestly and openly with any threats or challenges to your intimacy, whether they are external or internal? Are you committed to faithfully loving and pursuing each other despite the adversities and hindrances that you are engaging?
• According to God’s holy law: Is sex and intimacy on God’s terms still important to you. Do you need to both go back to God’s intentions for you and recover them in order to rediscover yourselves.
I made a connection in my message between our sexuality and the cross. It is unbelievable that Jesus was stripped naked and crucified. That he endured the shame of nakedness of my sin, that I might once again be naked and unashamed; that I might come out of hiding. There is healing for our marital sexuality. I have seen God do amazing things over 30 years of pastoring, I have seen it in relationships over the last few months – not always in an instant, but I have seen what he can do within the holy boundaries of a faithful marriage, that though those boundaries seemed like prison walls, were transformed into bedroom walls again.
Marital sexuality is an extraordinary idea, an extraordinary gift and grace of God – an erotic means of grace as someone has described it. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. And if you can’t find your way back to your beginning in order to recover your way, then just go to the end of the story, to the marriage feast of the lamb and work backwards, and rediscover how your marital sexuality is designed to be an intimation of that.
Marrieds – are we really committed to be those images of that creational reality, and in the wholeness of our sexuality together, be convinced that we have not yet imagined what is in store for those who love God. If you want to love God and you are married sir, love your wife with all your heart and every fibre of your being, as Christ loved the church. If Christ loved the church as you loved your wife, would there be joy in our fellowship? If you want to love God, ma’am, and you are married, love your husband with every fibre of your being, as the church loves her Christ. If Christ was loved by the church as you love your husband, would we worship, would we witness, would we work for his fame and glory?
May the sanctity and healing, the joy and the fulfillment of the private marital sexuality of every marriage in this church, the private sexuality of every unmarried person as we have also been discussing in this series, be to the public health and holiness of this church community, and to the peace and blessing of the next generation. May the holy sexuality of believers be the great apologetic for the veracity of God’s word, and the power of his winsome love in this place that we know as Christ Our Shepherd Church.
Pastorally yours,
Stuart
https://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)