The Deeply Formed Life: Five Transformative Values to Root Us in the Way of Jesus

by Rich Villodas

sexuality and genital sexuality. In Genesis 1, human beings are created in the image of God and given the holy task of relating to the rest of creation in ways that declare the harmony and interdependence of all things.

In Genesis 2:24, however, we see another dimension of sexuality. God lovingly established a means of covenant love whereby man “is commanded to leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.”

To have our lives deeply formed toward sexual wholeness, we must discern and distinguish these two kinds of sexuality. Otherwise, we aim our desires in directions that aren’t meant to meet the longings of our souls. For example, many in our culture have assumed that the desire to truly belong and be seen by another requires an act of genital sexuality. In the process, we dangerously open ourselves up to others in the most vulnerable way (nakedness) to meet a need that doesn’t require us to take off our clothes. As Dawn wrote, “I am convinced that, if the Church could provide more thorough affection and care for persons, many would be less likely to turn falsely to genital sexual expression for the social support they need.”

Prior to this “fall,” Adam and Eve didn’t live blind to each other’s bodies; they saw each other. Yet their gazes didn’t begin and end with a fixation of each other’s body parts but rather in the wholeness of their being. Their bodies were certainly objects of desire, but not in such a way that their desire objectified the other.

But upon their disobedience, sin distorts their vision, ironically, by opening their eyes. Prior to this moment, they saw with the pure eyes of God. Now they see with the marred vision of human fallenness.

Their eyes being opened is the anti-miracle of the New Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus repeatedly opened blind eyes, helping people see physically as well as spiritually.

But in this Genes...

way sin opens humanity’s eyes paradoxically cuts off the deeper vision by which w...

now live ashamed by our exposure, self-conscious of our vulnerability, and needing to protect our...

God finds Adam and Eve and offers them a word of hope, but by this time, the damage is done. They are under a different kind of power now. Humanity is not bereft of an ability to love well, but our desires are disordered.

we have often had our understanding of sexuality formed by sexual repression or sexual flippancy, and in the process we have missed the larger feast before us. These diets are frameworks to help us better grasp the disintegration we experience as well as the integration of our humanity available in the gospel.

Women were regularly scapegoated, being depicted as

temptresses and shamed when word got out that they were sexually active.

The starvation diet has no imagination to see sexual desire as a means toward God. The fast-food diet relegates sexual desire to being its god. Both are missing the point.

not fully manifested. But that is not true. Jesus lives the human experience to the full, connecting with others intimately, compassionately, and sacrificially. In his death and in the Eucharist, he offers his body as a gift.

This has been the story of humanity

throughout the ages. But it need not end there. In Jesus, a new humanity is offered: one not shackled by the prison of sin and shame but liberated into the fullness of God’s love. In that singular act involving that tree in the Garden of Eden, the world was sent into a dangerous tailspin of sin. But then Jesus came and, in an act of obedience, forever changed the trajectory of the world. Yes, Adam and Eve hid behind a tree, naked and conquered by shame. But Jesus hung on a tree, naked, and conquered shame. This is the good news of the gospel. In Jesus, shame doesn’t have the last word. Our desires no longer need to be disordered. We can live in the freedom that comes in his name.

By naming the illusions and lies we’ve been handed, we open ourselves to the liberating truth of God’s saving love.

A deeply formed sexual life is one marked by sobriety.

I acknowledge, sobriety as a practice is difficult. It asks us to lay down the false selves of strength we project onto the world. It invites us to live with poverty of spirit, nothing to prove, nothing to possess, and nothing to protect. It calls us to live free from the judgments and opinions of people. Some of the freest people are those with nothing to hide, yet being that way remains a gargantuan task, especially in the area of sexuality. How do we practice sobriety when our lives are marked by shame? I’d like to offer three ways forward.

Whatever we cannot name reveals our bondage to shame.

prayer doesn’t mean that God leads us into temptation; rather, it is a confession of our weakness. It’s us essentially saying, “Lord, I’m weak. I can’t handle the pressure. I’m vulnerable. Don’t put me to the test.” In the words of author Dallas Willard, “It is a vote of ‘no confidence’ in our own abilities.”

When we pray confessional prayers regularly, we gain the proper perspective of our lives. We see ourselves in honesty and transparency before God, which is to be carried on to our relationships with others. This is why daily confession in prayer is essential to our lives. We repeatedly remind ourselves that we aren’t as strong as we think. This is the heart of a sober person.

No one could say there was anything lacking in Jesus’s humanity, even if he didn’t experience genital sexuality.

The act of healthy touch in church settings is profoundly needed and must be carefully discerned.

exposed to pornography at a very young age, I was formed to believe that the act of sexual intercourse should look like what I saw. I was shaped to see sex as a performance-driven, self-satisfying endeavor that went no deeper than my body parts. How destructive.

Lovemaking—if it is truly deeply formed—requires all our being.

And this takes lots of practice. As I said earlier, the practice of lovemaking requires the protective context of covenant marriage.

Lovemaking Is Communication, Not an Activity It’s quite easy to think of sexual intercourse

Certainly, there are seasons for recovery, rest, and disengagement, but there is to be an interplay at work. We are not to be Mary to the exclusion of Martha, nor are we to be Martha at the exclusion of Mary (see Luke 10:38–42). We are called to be active contemplatives or contemplative activists, holding together the invitation to be and to do. This is what we see with the God revealed in Scripture. The invitation to deeply formed mission is one that starts with the liberating understanding that he is always on mission but from a place of being. From the quality of God’s life, God acts.

Christians have seen people as projects to fix instead of relationships to nurture. Being on mission is often awkward, coercive, and unnatural because our fixation with getting someone to a “decision” reduces that person to that decision.

Christians have been formed to engage the world in mission through guilt and fear, as opposed to grace and mercy. When our lives are fixated on a particular outcome, we lose our ability to be truly present.

The Evangelistic projects undertaken by some often come across as self-protection and works-righteousness. We are made to think that if we don’t get these people to th...

How can mission that is consistent with Jesus be established on the grounds of judgment, disgust, and “othering”? Actually, it can’t. Missional presence takes on the posture of the God and Father revealed in Jesus. God didn’t need creation or company, but out of divine generosity, he brought creation into existence not to subject it to bondage but to have it feast at the table of goodness.

In the next chapter, Matthew 9, Jesus created space to welcome and connect with people considered outsiders. Matthew, a newly called disciple of Jesus, joyfully opened his home to his fellow tax-collector and sinner friends (see verses 9–13). It was a wonderful idea. Matthew wanted to get his friends to connect with Jesus. What I love about this story is that Matthew and Jesus were offering hospitality in that moment. Matthew opened his home; Jesus opened his heart. In order to practice hospitality as mission, it requires us to do the same.

The deeply formed life is one that creates space for others. Whether that space is at our work right in our cubicles, with families at parks, or through opening our homes to others, we cannot be deeply formed into the image of Jesus without our lives mirroring gracious hospitality.

In the practice of hospitality, the goal is not to convert anyone (as if we could). The objective is not to corner someone and obtrusively preach at him or her.

When we have our commissioning services at New Life, we try to drive this home. Toward the end of the service, we acknowledge people in the various professions they give themselves to. In the process, we remind them that their work is done as an expression of worship to God. Then we say, if you’re an accountant, you count your numbers with care as if you’re doing Jesus’s bookkeeping. If you’re a car salesperson, you sell that car as if you’re selling it to Christ. For computer programmers, it is Jesus’s computer you are working on; construction managers, it’s Jesus’s house you are building; sanitation workers, you pick up all the garbage that fell out of the can because it’s Jesus’s street you’re cleaning; educators, Jesus is one of your students. Musicians play or create to bring Christ joy. And

I’m reminded of the words of poet and essayist Dorothy Sayers, who wrote that “the very first demand that [a carpenter’s] religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.”11 What good is our witness to Christ if we talk about him to everyone but do our jobs poorly?

This is why offering high-quality work is part of our missional call. When I speak of our work being of this quality, I have in mind integrity of character as well as our commitment to demonstrating excellence. In the words of Dr. King, “If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted

pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of Heaven and earth will have to pause to say, ‘Here lived a...

Deeply formed mission resists the pull of compartmentalization. We don’t bring just our skills and aptitude to the workplace; we bring our very selves. Our being is connected to our doing.

Our presence is a valuable gift we bring to the ethos of the workplace.

To announce the gospel in a deeply formed way moves us beyond techniques and one-size-fits-all strategies.

Who are we, really, for Christ today? Both questions call us to seriously consider our lives. And

honestly, the current state of things is not encouraging. We

find ourselves in a world increasingly shaped by dangerous rhythms, racial hostility, emotional immaturity, flippant sexuality, political idolatry, and individualistic consumerism, to name a few of t...

it is certainly possible to be deeply committed to identifying with a shallow form of Christianity but not be deeply formed by Christ.

So to come full circle, when I speak of being deeply formed, I’m specifically referring to a way of being in the world that’s marked by new rhythms, contemplative presence, and interior awareness, which results in lives that work for reconciliation, justice, and peace while seeing the sacredness of all of life.

The best witness we have as the church is not our good music, nor the programs that meet felt needs, nor the quality of the edifice that people worship in. The best witness we have is our transformed lives.