PEOPLE'S CHURCH OF DOVER

Matthew 5:27-30                                                                                                        The Deadly Sins:  Lust

Sermon for Lent II, February 17, 2008:  People's UCC, Dover, DE:  the Rev. Dan Griggs

 

          There was once a man who loved books.  His favorite subject was "love."  One day this man was at the airport to fly to a distant city.  He was running a little late, but not so late that he couldn't stop in a bookstore and browse quickly.  And there he found a volume entitled "HOW to HUG."  Just as he saw it, his plane was called, so he grabbed it, paid for it without really looking at it, and started for the door.  He ran to the gate, boarded the plane, strapped himself in, and only then took the time to open the book "HOW to HUG," for which he had paid nearly forty dollars.  And what he discovered was that he had bought the sixth volume of an encyclopedia set.[1] 

          Do you ever wonder why your life doesn't go right?  Sometimes it's because your heart is in the wrong place:  you've messed up your LOVES, as Saint Augustin would have said.  One way to mess up your heart's direction has to do with your sexuality, and that's what I want to talk about today.  The traditional word for it is "lust."  Lust is one way people mess up our heart's direction.  Lust is the corruption of love.  Lust is the failure of love.  To lust is to miss out on real love. 

 

          The Seventh Commandment says, "You shall not commit adultery."  In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus took that commandment and intensified it.  The Commandment is merely about a deed, but when Jesus comes to the subject he takes it into the human spirit.  This is the only time in all the Four Gospels where Jesus uses the word "lust."  His concern is not just for our behavior (though that is important):  his concern is for our redemption, our freedom, our liberation from the forces which twist life and condemn us to false lives.  And lust is one of these forces.

          Because human sexuality involves so much primal energy and touches so many social values, there has never been an age when it wasn't subject to boundaries, limits, rules, taboos, laws, and lawsuits.  Our era is certainly affected this way.  Modern Western society seems to have concentrated a lot of energy on sex.  Back in the 1970's there was what they called "the Sexual Revolution."  The birth control pill, the medical research by Kinsey and then by Masters and Johnson, the "free love" movement, the idea of the "open marriage," the impact of the Gay Pride movement—all these changes have been dizzying for anybody who is half-conscious.  As a minister who performs many weddings for both church members and non-members, I've seen a sea-change in the way young couples manage their relationships and engagements; and it has taken me some time to adjust my vision.  I still think a lot of the "new morality" was not anything but self-indulgence.  When the HIV/AIDS epidemic struck in the 1980's it stopped "free love" cold and made everybody reassess human sexuality:  even the James Bond movies phased out "gratuitous sex."  The generation of "free love," like every generation before it, has had to think through the consequences of our choices. 

          It seems now that the only aspects of our culture that haven't gotten the message are advertising and entertainment.  I'm not going to launch into a tirade about MTV, the movies, and certain television shows; I'm just as concerned that advertising continues to sell everything from attorney services to yachts with sexual innuendo:  car ads, soap ads, coffee ads.  Don't we even realize that we're being manipulated?  Isn't that something that ought to make us angry?  Because to lust is to miss out on real love:  as I tell couples in pre-marriage counseling, "pornography harms people because it's a lie." 

          What did Jesus have to say about human sexuality?  Well, first of all, Jesus did not harangue about sexuality.  He taught that our bodies and our natural desires have been given to us by God, and that they are good in themselves.  He taught that there are sexual sins, that they can be forgiven, and that we need to use good sense and moral responsibility in our choices.  Jesus' view of human sexuality was pretty healthy.  I only wish our culture's view was as healthy, because to lust is to miss out on real love. 

 

          In the second pre-marriage counseling session I do with couples, we look at basic Bible texts that teach the spiritual meaning of marriage.  We begin with key verses in the first two chapters of Genesis—the creation of humankind, and then the creation of Eve.  We start by recognizing what kind of literature this is—not literal history, but rather symbolic stories that communicate meaning rather than "facts."  Once we recognize what the Book of Genesis is trying to do in chapters 1 and 2, we then discover five purposes for human sexuality. 

          First:  "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it."[2]  It says that this is a "blessing."  Human sexuality is a blessing, the first purpose of which is to have children.  I always ask, "Have we filled the earth?"  And since the answer is "Yes," we can then go on to recognize that responsible reproduction is required of us. 

          The second purpose of human sexuality is this:  "Have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."[3]  "Dominion" doesn't mean "domination":  it means responsible management.  So I tell couples that together they are to act responsibly with their little portion of God's creation. 

          Third:  "In the image of God he created them:  male and female he created them."[4]  Both the man and the woman bear the image of God.  This means that husband and wife are equals and ought to develop their relationship as a partnership of equals.  There's a clear application of this to sexuality:  that other person is a person, not a thing; and personal relationship is required.  That's why I say that to lust is to miss out on real love. 

          Then turning to Genesis 2, a fourth purpose for human sexual life is this:  "The LORD God said, 'It is not good that the man should be alone:  I will make him a helper appropriate for him."[5]  This means "companionship."  Human sexuality is given to us for companionship.  Sex isn't supposed to be a single event:  it's supposed to create an "us," that is a life-long blessing. 

          And the fifth purpose for our sexuality, as described in Genesis, is this:  "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and is united with his wife, and they become one flesh."[6]  The sexual union implies and helps sustain a spiritual union:  the partners sustain each other's faith, and hope and love. 

          When Jesus taught anything about human sexuality or marriage, he didn't present new ideas:  Jesus went back to Genesis chapters 1 and 2[7]—to these five purposes:  children, responsible management, equality, companionship, and a spiritual union.  This is what our sexuality is for, and to lust is to miss out on this real love. 

 

          Lust is that selfish use of our feelings and our bodies that turns the other person into a thing.  Lust removes the humanity from looking, from feeling, from talking and touching and thinking.  It's all about self, and that is the core definition of "sin." 

          True partnership, the appropriate fulfillment of our feelings, eliminates the selfish lust.  We've all heard the Zen story of the two monks on a journey.  They came to a wide river, and on the bank stood a woman weeping.  The first monk ignored her and started rolling up his trousers to cross; but the second monk asked her, "Why are you crying?"  She said, "My mother lives in that village across the river, and she is dying.  I want to see her one more time, but I can't get across."  So the second monk carried her on his shoulders across the wide river, set her down on the other side, turned and continued his journey.  That evening as the two monks made camp the first monk said, "Master, have you not broken your vow of chastity?"  The second monk replied, "What do you mean?"  He said, "You touched that woman at the river!  You carried her across, sitting on your shoulders!  You broke your vow!"  The second monk answered, "My son, I carried her across the river; but you have carried her all day long."  To lust is to miss out on real love. 

 

          So we may conclude:  sexual feelings are not evil—it's what you do with them that is good or evil.  Sexual sins can be forgiven, and it would be well if Christians were to be as gracious as God is about this.

 

 

 

To lust is to miss out on real love.  As we move through the season of Lent, let us guard our hearts against the selfishness of lust.

AMEN