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February 2 - February 3, 2022
To be sexual doesn’t mean to be sexually active, nor does it mean that Jesus lusted after others. He is the sinless Son of God, who fully participated in the human experience. We tend to believe that unless one is having intercourse with another person, his or her sexuality is 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. Jesus enters into loving union with others throughout his life and in so doing communes with the
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When people think of the word sacrament, such images as baptism and the Lord’s Supper come to mind. In many Christian traditions, sacrament is a particular means of grace that God grants us. In less theological language, it’s the vehicle God uses to drive home his love and favor in our hearts. The elements that are used in Christian sacramental theology (bread, wine, oil, and water) remind us that God uses the ordinary stuff of daily life to communicate something of God’s loving presence among us.
Our bodies, in their glory and fragility, in their energy and weakness, are means by which God meets us.
To put it simply, we are not just to receive sacraments; we are to become them. Whether through our compassionate love for our neighbors, shared intimacy with friends, kindness toward our children, or through the making of love with our spouses, our entire lives point to something beyond ourselves.
Our bodies, though affected by the reality of sin, are gifts from God to cherish and nurture.
We are all sexually broken in some way. But this is not the end of our stories. There is hope. In power and love, God can form us deeply in the way of Jesus. In him, our bondage is overcome. Our wounds don’t have the last word. Christ is victorious.
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.
A deeply formed sexual life is one marked by sobriety. By sobriety, I’m not referring to abstinence and willpower; I’m referring to honesty.
When we hold on to secrets, our bodies often manifest the poison we’ve stored in our psyches. I’m reminded of the psalm that says, “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long” (32:3).
The practice of sobriety is not just for people in drug or sex rehab programs; it’s for all of us. Sobriety is intrinsically connected to truthfulness and transparency.
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.
Addiction is our attempt to relieve ourselves from the unbearable pain of the moment. Whether it’s food, pornography, incessant technological distraction, or drugs, the moment has become too overwhelming. We need an outlet. But the outlet further deepens our disordered lives.
Our addiction is our best attempt to survive. Certainly, it leads us down paths of sickness and death, but it is also a signal that we long to live. We just don’t know how, apart from this attempt to self-soothe. This is why when helping someone with any kind of addiction, instead of saying, “Just stop it. Repent of your sin,” we’d do better to say, “You’ve figured out how to stay alive. You’ve learned how to soothe your pain. But this way doesn’t go deep enough. Let’s try something else.”
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.
loneliness is combated not solely by physical proximity but by emotional closeness.
questions that I should have asked sooner: “Honey, when do you feel most loved by me? When do you feel closest to me?”
It is sacramental. Our lovemaking is to manifest our union with each other and, in so doing, manifest God’s union with the world.
any talk of being engaged in the world must begin not with activity but with a life in God.
Deeply formed mission is first about who we are becoming before what we are doing.
As Jesus was arrested and crucified, his disciples deserted him. He was left alone to suffer and die. After his death, burial, and resurrection, the disciples locked themselves in a room for fear that they would be next to die. These disciples had failed Jesus. They’d dropped out. Who would want these people on their team? The answer is no one except Jesus. Jesus went back to his failed disciples and instead of bringing up their mistakes, he sent them on mission.
The missional task of being Jesus for others is open to all who would follow him, but I would be misleading you if I told you it didn’t cost you anything. To say yes to this invitation requires you to surrender a way of being on mission that compartmentalizes doing from being.
As I mentioned before, many of the Evangelical and Pentecostal traditions that have shaped me tend to place an inordinate amount of emphasis on right thinking, right experiences, and right doing. Regarding the “doing” part, the approach to mission is often compartmentalized.
