Recently we were in the studio recording for the "Becoming" podcast. (www.becomingcast.com) People had said to me, "you need to speak on the topic of sex." I protested this idea - not because I'm not willing to speak on it, not because I'm uncomfortable with the topic itself. Mostly, I protested because it seems a virtually impossible topic in our day, in our culture. There is so much emotion on this topic, so much sadness, opinion, and even vitriol - that it feels to me like a no-win to talk about it.
So when I told this to my colleagues, they said, "Well, everyone else is talking about it - if you don't talk about it, if the church doesn't talk about it, then we have no voice and no chance to give a redemptive picture of this beautiful part of life as God has created it." Ok. Fair enough. So we did - we made some podcasts on this topic which will be aired in the coming weeks. But as often happens after I speak or teach; after the time in the studio, my mind continued to run with thoughts. Many of the thoughts were along the lines of "I wish I'd said THAT..." Here's what else I wish I'd said.
I wish I'd said that sex has been so distorted in our culture - that it's virtually impossible to understand it - to retrieve it, to have a God-given beautiful understanding of it. (Actually I did say that part, but it leads to more that I didn't say.) Sex in our culture is like a river that has so flooded over the banks that it has become a raging flood that is causing more damage than we ever imagined. (Actually I did say it's like a river who's water has gone over its banks - but I stopped there.) When a river runs within its banks, it's beautiful, life-giving, enjoyable, natural. When it runs into a massive flood, it becomes scary and dangerous and it starts wiping out all kinds of things. In a massive flood, the river starts taking down trees, homes, cars, buildings. I've seen pictures of flooded rivers with houses and cars floating in them as the river boils and rolls in tumultuous angry currents. It feels to me that sex in our culture has become something like this - sex has become a massive flood. It's a river way outside of its banks, which has lost its life-giving and beautiful character, causing damage and pain and misunderstanding everywhere. (Is there a night-time TV show that isn't dripping with sex, sexual innuendo, or explicit sex? Do people do anything else in America? Anything else - but have sex everywhere with everyone? At work, with the neighbors, at parties, with ..... everyone? Wow.)
One of the biggest distortions about sex in our culture is that is has been made to be a "highest" thing. What I mean by that, is that our culture has come to believe that sex is the highest act, the highest goal, the strongest human interaction. It's not. The highest thing is love. Love as God speaks of it, indeed as God IS it, brings commitment to the other - a covenant. So God designed sex to be part of love, an element of it, an expression of it. God designed sex to be part of intimacy, a beautiful and powerful element of it, an expression of it; all within commitment, a marriage commitment. Commitment is as central to love as food is to eating. So when we understand love - then sex has a place, a purpose, a beauty. It becomes more like the river restored to its banks, beautiful and life giving. And, contrary to what some might think, God is pro-sex when expressed and experienced this way - within its banks - according to His design. There's nothing prudish about God.
The culmination of the creation account in Genesis 2 is the oneness of the man and the woman. It is their complete transparency, both outward and inward which is the core of their union. This is intimacy, it is based on love and it is the "highest." Sex is part of what God has made as a beautiful expression and experience toward this oneness, but sex is not what makes the oneness. It is the "naked and not ashamed" transparency that makes the oneness. "Naked and not ashamed," both outwardly and inwardly is the high place of human intimacy. When this exists between a man and a woman in the protection of their promise of commitment and faithfulness of marriage, it becomes the highest place of human intimacy. Their sexual union then, is the expression of this highest place, but the sex itself is not the highest place. In this regard, we begin to see that sex serves intimacy, intimacy does not serve sex. Said another way, sex is secondary to intimacy - intimacy is not secondary sex.
That, and a whole lot more, is what I wish I'd said in the podcast.
