This morning is the last in our Lenten series in which we have been exploring some different areas of life in which we can experience freedom in Jesus. We’ve already looked at freedom to worship, freedom to give, freedom to be truthful, and freedom to love. If you’ve missed any of these, then do look them out on our Facebook and Youtube Channels. This morning we are exploring the ways in which distorted understandings of sex can prevent us living in the freedom that God gives us in different relationships. We’re also going to be celebrating the freedom that Jesus can give us to live freely as sexual beings.
It seems to me that over the years the church hasn’t always been particularly helpful, in fact sometimes it has been downright damaging to people’s lives with its teaching about sex. It has taught that sex is inherently sinful. That sexual desire, especially in women, is unnatural. That husbands have the right to demand sex from their wives. It has led the way in heaping shame on those who have sinned.
All of these go well beyond what I believe that Bible teaches about sex and relationships.
Not only do these false teachings cause damage to the people caught up in them, but the after effect is that that we have become shy about saying anything at all about sex for risk of looking foolish, out of touch, or irrelevant. The irony is that an increasing number of people in the secular world are arguing that the “anything goes” so-called freedoms of the sexual revolution have proved to be hollow freedoms that bring anything but life.
We do have a better story to tell, one that brings true freedom.
And so we begin with our reading from John’s eye witness account of Jesus’ life and ministry. If you’ve been following along in your pew Bibles, you might notice that these section is written in italics. This is because it isn’t there in some of the earliest copies of John’s gospel we have. In others it appears elsewhere in John and in one if even appears in Luke’s account.
Why do I mention this?
For two reasons. Firstly I believe that being upfront about the few places in Scripture where we’re not sure about the authenticity of the text builds confidence that we are sure about the rest of it. Secondly, it was included for a reason. The teachers and leaders of the early church thought that this episode taught something really important, something that was consistent with Jesus’ approach to people in other contexts, and so it was worth including, even with the question marks about who wrote it down and when.
And what is this teaching that is so important?
That Jesus reached out to a woman who had been caught in adultery, in sexual sin, with forgiveness and acceptance. He dealt with those who wanted to condemn her by challenging them to look in the mirror and examine their own behaviours. Then he offered her forgiveness. He didn’t pretend that what she had done didn’t matter, or that it wasn’t sinful. He told her to leave her life of sin. He named this truth without condemning her, rather he invited her into the freedom from shame and guilt that forgiveness brings.
With this in mind, let’s turn to our reading from Paul’s first letter to his friends in the church in Corinth. Corinth had been an ancient Greek city, with a notorious reputation for immorality. It had been destroyed by the Romans in 146BC, and then a new town, with the same name had been built by the Romans close by in 44BC. It was on important trading routes, and so had people from lots of different cultures living there and passing through. It seems that the earlier city’s reputation had passed on to the new one. It was an anything goes city.
This philosophy is seen in the quote that begins our reading, “I have the right to do anything”, which Paul quotes as an objection that has been put to him about his teaching about holy living. “Ok” says Paul, “you’re right – you do have the right to do anything, but not everything is good for you, and you might find yourself mastered by, enslaved by, the things that you think are your freedoms.”
He then goes onto explain something that was as counter cultural to his first readers as it is in today’s culture. The foundations of Paul’s teaching are found at the end of our reading, they are threefold, one pillar for each of the persons of the Trinity.
Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.
We are not our own, we were bought at a price.
We are to honour God with our bodies.
Let’s think about each of these truths in turn.
Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. Paul reminds us that the Holy Spirit is in each of us who follow Jesus, that the Holy Spirit is a gift of God to us. We talk quite a lot about the idea that the Holy Spirit is here to help us, to correct us, to encourage us, to empower us. But what does it mean for my body to be a temple of the Holy Spirit? Well, in the understanding of the time a temple was a place of worship, but it was a place of worship because it was believed to be a place that was dedicated to a god, or in which a god was present in some way.
So, Paul is saying that this is how we should think of our bodies, as places that are dedicated to the Holy Spirit, set apart for the Holy Spirit’s presence.
We are not our own, we were bought at a price. The price was Jesus’ death on the cross. When we had communion a little while ago we remembered Jesus’ death that redeemed us, that paid the price for our sin, the returned us to life. We sang of the wonder of the cross, in which we watch wide-eyed at the cost. That cost was paid, not just for our souls, but for our whole selves, including our bodies. We are not our own. Our bodies are not our own.
We are to honour God with our bodies. This is, after all, what we were created for. The whole of creation, including human beings, each of us as individuals, and our bodies were created to honour and glorify God, As Paul puts it a little later in the letter, in chapter 10, verse 31
“Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
These are deep truths that touch every part of our lives, including our lives as sexual beings. They help us to understand why God cares about our sex lives, about what we do in private.
We are whole beings. We are created, redeemed, and dwelt in by God. Our whole selves, not just our souls and minds, but our bodies as well. Our bodies are not just flesh machines that carry around our minds and souls – we are totally integrated. When we have sex with someone, we link with them physically, and we also link with them psychologically and spiritually.
God intends that those links reinforce each other in marriage – in committed, faithful relationships. When these links are acknowledged, and reinforce and strengthen each other they bring great depth and joy to relationships.
On the flip side, when these links are ignored, aren’t taken into account, then we can damage ourselves. If we form these links with many people, without due thought and consideration, then we end up in a psychological and spiritual network of relationships and traumas that trap us in patterns of behaviour and thinking that we don’t understand and which never satisfy. The promise of freedom becomes a reality of captivity.
In place of this captivity, Jesus offers us freedom. In fact he offers us two kinds of freedom.
Firstly he offers us the freedom to live differently. Freedom to enjoy friendships without aren’t overshadowed by sex. Freedom to embrace celibacy as a positive option, rather than one in which we’re missing out on something that is vital to our flourishing. Freedom from the false and unrealistic portrayals of sex in pornography. Freedom from the broken lives that come from infidelity. Freedom from our soul being torn by being rushed into sex in a relationship. Freedom to enjoy sex in marriage.
Secondly he offers freedom from the shame and guilt of our sins. We can be forgiven when we turn away from those sins, and ask Jesus to forgive us. Those wounds in our souls and minds can be healed. It isn’t always a one off process – it can take a while, but it is possible.
We started with the account of the woman caught in adultery, and that is where I want to end. By reminding us that in all that we have explore this morning, there is no condemnation.
It might be that we are feeling convicted, that there are areas of our life in which Jesus is saying to us, “leave your life of sin.” That is an invitation to new life, to freedom, and is something to be obeyed and celebrated.
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