IV. Vows
of Voluntary Sacrifice
“We freely offer up
our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world,
for the sake of our neighbors
and God’s joy.”
- I will discipline my sexual appetite by practicing chastity and purity in my relationships and recreation; I will treat sexual intimacy as a public, lifelong and exclusive covenant for marriage; I will respect the bodily image and sexual dignity of each person as a child of God, and refrain from lust and pornographic media.
Wait—sexual intimacy? What does that have to do with peacemaking
Christian discipleship? This sounds a whole lot more fun than that “expect to
be persecuted and bear your crosses” stuff in the other vows!
When we talk about the very real specter of sexual
violence and abuse in war-ravaged settings or even behind domestic doors, the
connection between sexuality and Christian nonviolence is abundantly clear. But
the clarity dissipates as we move closer to our own practices and experiences
of sexuality (though some of us may indeed have experienced or even committed
some of this more explicit violence).
Contemporary conversation has helpfully raised awareness
that sexuality is a fundamental, powerful and broad-ranging element of who
humans are, and as such, has profound implications for human wholeness. What
popular conversations haven’t noted so well is the inherently relational and
corporate nature of sexual thought and practice. In much current conversation
and media depictions, sex, and its place in the fulfillment of free and happy
individuals, is portrayed primarily (if not solely) in the realm of the
independent individual. Even when speaking of or showing intercourse, the
primary value of that sexual encounter is usually placed on the pleasure of
each independent individual involved rather than on the relational connection
between the two that this act has forged.
Yet to commit our sexuality and related desires to Jesus’
nonviolent life, we will have to see the unavoidably relational nature of our
sexual being. As with all other interactions and internal dispositions,
sexuality both connects us to others and affects our relating with them and
ourselves. This moves sexuality out
of the context of just one (our individual selves) and into the context of two.
But the connectivity does not stop there. Every person is connected to multiple
others, and to one degree or another, this means our interactions with one
person rebound and affect interactions with others (we’ve all seen this
connectivity at work when we come home mad at a co-worker and, partly as a
result, snap at our housemate). This is sexuality in the context of many. When
we move into the context of the church, the connections broaden even further as
our sexuality affects God and the very community God has called into being as
God’s missional people.
All this to say, one individual’s sex and sexuality have
all kinds of far reaching effects which cannot simply be contained
to one other person, or even oneself. Nor can the traces simply be
erased as a bit of harmless fun. Given our interconnections and the power and breadth of our sexual attitudes, desires
and practices, our sexuality has big implications for living in shalom
with one another, for finding Christ’s salvation for ourselves and the whole community (That is, our own wholeness cannot be fully achieved without
the wholeness of those around us)!
Phew. And we haven’t even stated yet how all this
connectivity ties our sexuality to our practice of Christian nonviolence! To
keep this post short(er), I’ll point to just a couple of things. But first let's refresh ourselves on today's vow:
"I will discipline my sexual appetite by practicing chastity and purity in my relationships and recreation; I will treat sexual intimacy as a public, lifelong and exclusive covenant for marriage; I will respect the bodily image and sexual dignity of each person as a child of God, and refrain from lust and pornographic media.”
So, why take today’s vow of disciplined desires and avoidance of lust when we also equally affirm that sexuality is good and God-created?
Without going into great detail, allow me to suggest that at the heart of unchained, individualistic sexual desire is the potential to dehumanize, disrespect, and even explicitly harm the other (and oneself). This is why such a vow is included in a covenant of Christian nonviolence!
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| "The Perfect Woman" (by Tal Bright via Flickr) |
As one example, consider the images and messages you
see daily in internet sidebars, magazines, through song lyrics, on
television shows and commercials, on billboards and tabloid covers, in store
windows or covering teenagers and twenty-somethings. If your memory is not
deceiving you, many of them contained or conveyed some (or much) sexual
content. While it may seem an innocent fascination with beauty, the dark heart
of our sexualized and pornographized culture is the turning of other people
(particularly women) into objects for our desire and pleasure rather than
seeing them as dignified humans with real lives and relationship.
People are reduced to tools for our self-gratification
(and then used by savvy marketers to play into our desires and get us to buy
unnecessary stuff). The pornographic or advertisement images and messages
slowly re-shape our brains to partially believe other humans are just semi-numb
bodies available for exploitation. Through porn in particular, we become
detached from true consequences of reality because we repeatedly entertain
impossible fantasies unrestricted by the hard work of respect, intimacy,
forgiveness, patient long-term attachment, and considering the needs of
another. In doing so, one also loses connection to one’s own body seeing it as a machine driven by desire to maximize the
experiences of pleasure. Through this individualized, pornographized
sexualization, all are dehumanized, depersonalized and violated.
And the connections to harm go on (e.g. the child and sex
trafficking enhanced by pornographic market demand, the self-loathing, eating
disorders and even suicides that stem from impossible standards of beauty,
domestic violence and abuse influenced by the objectification of others for our
own pleasure, or even the life-long, confusing baggage from “casual” sex
or intimate affairs). At the core, untransformed sexuality can warp our desires
so that we view and treat others (including ourselves) with less respect as
human brothers and sisters made in God’s image.
The Christ-following life includes unfulfilled, or
rather, re-ordered, desires. Satisfaction of desire is not the ultimate goal,
but transformation. May we allow the spirit to re-order our desires today,
helping us see and respond to one another with appropriate love.
For Reflection and
Action:
Ø
While not to be equated only—or even
primarily—with sexual desire, sit
with Galatians 5:13-26 and 6:7-10 as a way of reflecting on desire
as re-ordered by the Spirit, in service of one another.
Ø
Recall some of the advertising images you have
seen today. Which ones conveyed something about sexuality? Reflect on what
those images and messages convey about women, men, desire, intimacy, value,
life goals, responsibility, families, relationships, etc.? How does the gospel
counter or transform those messages?
Ø
Consider your own thoughts and actions:
- Over whom have you exercised unhealthy sexual power (domination, coercion, seduction, or slander, judgmentalism)?
- What fantasies of intimacy do you currently hold that would be destructive to those in your life, to yourself?
Prayer Focus
Holy Spirit,
Transform our desires into fruit of the
Spirit,
so that we will use our freedom not for
self-indulgence
but
for loving service to one another.
Thank you. Amen.
