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Foundry United Rev. |
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Sermon Series:
Christianity Without Easy Answers “What about Sex,
Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll?” Sunday, March 8, 2009 |
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Galatians 5: 13-26
Rev. |
Let’s
start with a quiz. Here’s the question: What was Kevin Bacon’s best role ever?
What was the best role Kevin Bacon ever played? I’d like everyone to think of
a Kevin Bacon movie that you think was his best role. Everybody have one? Here’s
the correct answer: Kevin Bacon’s best role ever was Ren McCormack in Footloose. Anybody get it right? Has
everybody seen Footloose? Kevin
Bacon is a super-cool kid from The
enforcer of the ban against rock ‘n roll and dancing is a minister played by
a pinch-faced John Lithgow. Kevin Bacon and John Lithgow do battle and Kevin
Bacon wins, bringing rock ‘n roll and dancing to small town I understand
So this
is the image Christianity often has…a sort of protector of society’s personal
morality, or depending on how you look at it, a sort of killjoy or buzzkill. To
many people’s minds, Christianity’s job is to suppress sex, drugs and rock ‘n
roll. This is
interesting because the Bible is pretty frank and open when it comes to sex. There
is the book of the Bible, The Song of Solomon, which is about King Solomon
romancing one of his 700 wives. The book is entirely about two lovers’ desire
for each other. It is very sensual. The word God is never once mentioned in
the entire book. It is all about human love. This is what Solomon says to the
one he desires: How beautiful you are, my love,
how very beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a
flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Much of
the imagery in Song of Solomon still works (well, maybe not the goats). But it
is vivid and sensual and sexy. Even
the Apostle Paul, who did not understand homosexuality and who can seem to be
a bit of an extremist, is quite frank and realistic about the power of our
sexuality in a guy sort of way. Because he is so focused on ministry and
wants others to be totally focused on ministry, he advises single people to
stay single if they can, but then he adds that if you are having a hard time
“practicing self-control,” it is better, he says, “to marry than to be aflame
with passion.” (I Cor. 7: 8) He recognizes that the sex drive can be very
powerful and, if we try to repress it, we can become consumed by it, so it is
better to have a committed relationship than to try to suppress our
sexuality. That’s Paul’s practical advice. He also
advised partners not to withhold sex from one another. “Do not deprive one
another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to
prayer,” he writes, “and then come together again…” (I Cor 7: 5) Although I
would advise you to be very careful about the circumstances in which you
quote that verse to your partner. If you
are looking for a G-rated book, you will not find the Bible to be one. The
Bible is a pretty frank and realistic book when it comes to sexuality. There
are aspects of sexuality biblical writers do not understand; who did? But the
Bible is clearly not anti-sex. What
about drugs? Well, let’s talk about what a native American Methodist friend
of mine calls the Methodist drug of choice. He says the Methodist drug of
choice is alcohol. However, I know wide stretches of Methodism where I would
argue the Methodist drugs of choice are sugar and butter, but let’s talk
about alcohol. Lots about alcohol in the Bible. There
is a passage of scripture that those of us who run churches have tried to
hide from you. It is about what you should do with your tithe if you are too
far away from the temple to give your tithe to the temple. Has anybody ever
heard of the scripture? Here is
the scripture: Deuteronomy 14: 22-26: Set apart a tithe of all the yield of your seed that is
brought in yearly from the field. In the presence of the Lord your God, in
the place that he will choose as a dwelling for his name, you shall eat the
tithe of your grain, your wine, and your oil, as well as the firstlings of
your herd and flock, so that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. But
if, when the Lord your God has blessed you, the distance is so great that you
are unable to transport it, because the place where the Lord your God will
choose to set his name is too far away from you, then you may turn it into
money. With the money secure in hand,
go to the place that the Lord your God will choose; spend the money for
whatever you wish—oxen, sheep, wine, beer [some translations say “strong
drink”] or whatever you desire. And you shall eat there in the presence
of the Lord your God, you and your household rejoicing together. If
there is no place to give your tithe to close enough to get it there, you are
supposed to buy food and wine and beer and have a party with it. You
understand why we haven’t wanted you to know that it says this in the Bible? Jesus’
first miracle recorded in the Gospel of John is to turn water into wine at a
wedding reception, after people had already been drinking so much that they
had run out of wine. People
called Jesus a glutton and drunkard and he himself allows that “the Son of
Man came eating and drinking.” (Matt. 11:19) The
Apostle Paul who served as a mentor to the young preacher Timothy is
interesting in his letter to Timothy about eating and drinking. He criticizes
a group of Christians who had committed themselves to celibacy and a restricted
diet; some people think the diet was vegetarian. He says to Timothy about
this group: “They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods, which God
created to be received with thanksgiving…For everything created by God is
good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with
thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by God’s word and by prayer.” (I Timothy
4: 3-5) Later
in Paul’s letter he advises Timothy to stop drinking only water. He tells
Timothy: “Take a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent
ailments.” (I Timothy 5: 23) The
Bible is not anti-alcohol. So why
is Christianity so often identified in people’s minds as being against sex,
alcohol and rock ‘n roll, or what people think of as “good times”? I think
here’s why: Because sex and alcohol are prime examples of ways our lives can
get wildly out of control…and therefore they scare us. They fascinate us and
scare us and, in both cases, for good reason. While
the Bible insists sex and alcohol are good gifts of God for us, they have the
potential to possess us rather than us possessing them. They are not the only
examples of this, of course. In this
morning’s scripture lesson there is a long list of things that can get way out
of control in our lives. (Galatians 5: 19-21) The list includes fornication, sex
without intimacy, and drunkenness, alcohol use out of control. But it
also includes jealousy, anger, strife, quarrels, dissensions and factions, idolatry,
which Colossians 3:5 associates with greed. Paul lists 15 examples of ways
our lives can get wildly out of control and sex and alcohol are only two of
them, but they are two powerful examples. Many of the others have to do with habitual
patterns of negativity or divisiveness or possessiveness that destroy
relationships and community. These
are all examples of things that can come to drive our lives rather than us
managing them. They can come to possess us rather than us possessing them. They
can come to control our lives rather than us having control over our own
selves. I would
venture to say that there are none of us who do not wrestle with some aspect
or aspects of our lives getting out of control, taking us over, driving us,
taking us where we really don’t want to go, possessing us. It might be sex,
drugs, rock ‘n roll, but it might also be anger, rage, negativity, jealousy,
hate, greed, anxiety, compulsions, defensiveness, or irrationality. So the
Bible has no difficulty with sexuality and alcohol, but it does recognize
that these are examples of ways that our lives can spiral out of control. So what
does Christianity have to say to us when we lose control of our own lives or
feel we are in danger of losing control? When sex or alcohol or a bitter
spirit or contentiousness begins to consume us? In the
Gospels, people whose lives were out of control were drawn to Jesus. Mary
Magdalene, who was probably closer to Jesus than anyone, had seven demons
before she met Jesus. (Luke 8: 2) Seven is the number of completeness. Seven
demons meant her life was totally out of control. We tend
to think of demons the way the movie the Exorcist portrayed them, but demons
are simply those things that possess us and take over control of our lives in
destructive ways. We all have our demons we wrestle with. One of
the most famous persons whose life was out of control was the Gerasene man called
Legion because his life was totally out of control. As soon as Jesus entered
town, the man ran to him. As a result of his encounter, the Gospel says, he
was restored to his “right mind,” but the word we translate “right mind”
actually means “sober.” Jesus helped the man find sobriety. (Mark 5:1-20) People
whose lives were out of control were drawn to Jesus. I believe it is because
he was not judgmental. In the Gospels, women who are considered “sinners” are
drawn to Jesus. One washes his feet with her tears and dried them with her
hair and he tells her she is forgiven much because she has loved much. (Luke
7: 36-50) Hans
Kung says that one thing that no exegete, no biblical scholar no matter how
critical and skeptical, has been able to dispute is that Jesus ate and drank
with sinners – that Jesus was drawn to those at the fringe of society –“dubious,
obscure, abandoned, hopeless types” – and they were drawn to him.[i] I think
they were drawn to him because there was not an ounce of judgment in Jesus
toward them. And I think the reason there was not an ounce of judgment is
because they did not make him anxious. Sex
makes many of us anxious. It makes us anxious because we are insecure about
being in control of our own sexuality. This is partly why discussions about
homosexuality make so many church people anxious. People are not secure about
their own sexuality. They are afraid of what they might have the capacity to
do. This creates great anxiety which gets acted out as homophobia. Psychiatrists
call it reaction formation. Reaction
formation is a defense mechanism in which anxiety-producing or unacceptable
emotions and impulses are defended against by substituting for them the
opposite feelings.[ii]
The feelings are automatic and exaggerated and intense. The
Gospel portrays a Jesus who had no anxiety around people who made others
anxious. Jesus was not judgmental because he was not anxious. Our
goal as Christians is to be so in touch with our own desires and impulses
that we are threatened by no one and able to love everyone. This is much of
the meaning of prayer. To become so in touch with our own deepest desires and
impulses that we are threatened by nothing in the world around us. Decades
ago a psychiatrist named Thomas Harris used to teach classes here at Foundry.
He is best known for the title of a book he wrote which is made fun of by
many people, especially preachers, who probably never read the book. The
title of the book was I’m OK, You’re
OK. It was actually an excellent
book. Thomas
Harris was a student of a school of psychiatry called Transactional Analysis
begun by Eric Berne, author of the book The
Games People Play, which was also an excellent book. Part of
the theory of transactional analysis is the concept of life scripts. I think
it is a very biblical concept. The theory says that at some point early in
our lives we tend to adopt a script for our lives. There are an endless
variety of scripts but they tend to fall into three categories: loveless or
no love scripts, mindless or no mind scripts, and joyless or no joy scripts.[iii]
Most of
us, the theory says, tend to live out a script in one of these three
categories. Those of us with no love scripts tend to live with feelings of
being unloved or unlovable and we organize our lives to verify those
feelings. Those of us with no mind scripts live with feelings of
helplessness, not being capable, unable to cope and we organize our lives in
such a way as to live out that script. Those of us whose script is joyless
will cut ourselves off from our feelings and our bodies. No love
scripts tend toward lives of sadness and depression. No mind scripts tend
toward lives without self-esteem. No joy scripts tend toward lives of
addiction. The
theory says that most of us flip-flop between our scripts and their
counter-scripts. No love scripts may flip-flop with times of great passion.
No mind scripts may flip-flop with times of great risk taking. No joy scripts
may flip-flop with times of stark sobriety and Puritanism. The
goal of life, according to the theory, is not to be in bondage to our script
or our counter-script but to live script-free lives. I think this is very
biblical. This is the goal of Christianity…to live script-free lives…to be
free to love…to be free to think and to act…to be free to feel sadness and
joy. “For
you were called to freedom, brothers and sister,” Paul writes. (Galatians 5:
13) “For freedom Christ has set us free.” (Galatians 5: 1) All
that we do here within Christianity is aimed to set us free so that we will
be under no compulsion, so that nothing will possess us or drive us other
than the love of Christ. We can
be so intimidated by sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll that we live rigid lives of
self-restraint and repression and judgmentalism and condemnation. We can be
so seduced by sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll that we become enslaved and
addicted and alienated from others. Christ
offers us freedom. Christ says: “You are ok.” You are lovable. You are smart.
You are made for joy. It doesn’t matter what paths your life has taken to get
you to where you are today. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or failed to
do. You are lovable. You are smart. You are made for joy. Our
goal is to find ourselves, the self beneath the scripts and the
counter-scripts we live out in life. “The
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” (Gal. 5: 22-3) That’s who you
are: Someone in whom the Spirit of God dwells. Someone whose life is meant
for love, joy, peace, patience, generosity, and self-control. That’s the
excellent life. That’s the very best. That’s the good life. God
wants for us to have life and life more abundant...life in all its fullness. God
wants us to be free. Free to love, free to think and do, free to have joy. www.foundryumc.org |
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