More notes from a seminar on Spirituality and Sexuality.
Feel free to reproduce for discussion purposes…

SEX IN CHURCH?

In our reading from the Song of Songs, we heard a
celebration of human sexuality. The first commandment in the Bible:
‘Be fruitful and multiply’ i.e. ‘Have sex!’ Our sexuality is affirmed
throughout Scripture.

Now why talk about this in church? Because our sexuality
and spirituality are intimately interconnected. There’s a throwaway
line about there being three sexes – males, females and clergy.
Some time ago Charles Rassieur wrote a book about sexual ethics
entitled ‘The Problem Clergymen Don’t Talk About!’ (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1976). And I guess clerywomen too: although
I heard of a church here in Melbourne where the woman pastor had
just commissioned a man for a particular ministry, and as he got
up to go back to his seat she whispered in his ear, ‘Give me a
hug!’ And they did!

Sex in church? Yes. The ‘kiss of peace’ is sexual.
Hugging a person of your own sex is different from hugging a member
of the opposite sex. I heard of a pastor who preached a well-advertised
series of sermons on the Seven Deadly Sins. On ‘Lust Sunday’,
as it came to be called, the church was packed!

Church ought to be the place, the community, where
people can relate intimately. But sometimes there is a short step
from intimacy to genitality. More of that later.

SEX IN THE WORLD

But everybody *is* talking about it. Our kids are
talking about it: and they know how to find naughty stuff on the
Internet. TV commercials and sitcoms and talk shows are sex-saturated.
In most newsagents kids can see sexually-provocative pictures
on magazine covers.

SEXUALITY AND CREATION

Sex is not only about genital intercourse so that
ultimately we can ‘have fun or have babies’ (‘recreation’ and
‘procreation’ respectively!). Sexuality is our way of being in
the world as female or male persons. Sexual dynamics are part
of every human transaction: our sexuality and sexual identity
are an essential part of who we are. We can’t and shouldn’t think
of our sexuality as something mainly physical – it’s also personal,
social, spiritual. If we don’t put sex into this larger dimension
we’ll probably get into trouble. Because sex is infused into out
total lives.

God says Genesis, created us ‘in his image’, male
and female God created us. So sexuality is a spiritual, not merely
a physical issue. It’s not just about bodies, it’s about, well,
just about *everything*: it expresses our wholeness. So sexuality
and spirituality are linked: you can’t separate the two: you can’t
fully express one of these areas of your being without the other.
And how we *practise* sex is not simply physical either: it’s
ethical, theological, yes, spiritual. We are whole, unitary beings,
so it’s a bit artificial to separate sexual energy from psychic
or spiritual energy. Our masculinity or femininity are part of
being human.

Sexual intimacy is a means of grace: it is ‘communion’,
being known (and we all know the biblical connection between ‘knowing’
someone and being sexually intimate with them). So sexual union
has a sacramental quality: it’s grace in action. One person puts
it this way: ‘For me, sex with my wife is an act of worship, an
opportunity for both of us to lose ourselves in a higher reality
of love and connectedness.’ (Karen Lebacqz & Ronald G. Barton,
‘Sex in the Parish’, Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox
Press, 1991, p.34). In sexual union boundaries fall away. Nothing
physically is hidden. Relationally we are physically and emotionally
– and spiritually – very close to another. There’s also a creative
energy about sexuality: we are bonded to life itself.

UNION WITH GOD

Deep within each of us is a deep desire for bonding
with another, for intimate union. It’s a gift that is expressive
of an innate longing for intimacy with God. This is what ‘eros’
is essentially about: and why the saints talk about union with
God in intimate, sometimes sexual terms. In his book ‘Between
Two Gardens’ James Nelson writes about prayer as a sexual/spiritual
experience: ‘I was feeling unmistakable sexual arousal. My entire
body-self was longing for the divine.’ (Between Two Gardens: Reflections
on Sexuality and Religious Experience, New York: Pilgrim Press,
1983, p.4).

For the saints God is eternal lover, creative energy,
compassionate power, passionate seeker of the lost. God woos us,
pursues us, down the alleyways of our lives and our times.

SEX AND INCARNATION

God is love, so in the incarnation God expresses
ultimate love in the presence of Jesus: God-with-us.

And when God wanted to ‘connect’ with us God became
flesh, ‘bodied forth’, incarnated in Jesus Christ.