SEX IN THE DESERT

The Saturday after the Third Sunday in Lent

The Pharisees stormed up to Jesus dragging a woman with them. They tossed her in front of Him and demanded He join in her condemnation. “This woman was caught in the very act of adultery. The Law says she should be stoned—but what do you say?” St John, the only Gospel-writer to tell this story, adds an aside: “They said this, hoping to have something to bring up against Him later.” We can hear their righteous and indignant snarling across two thousand years. You remember His answer. Who could ever forget it? “The one of you who has not sinned, he should have the privilege of casting the first stone at her.” The snarling turned to silence; one by one, the men dropped their stones in the dust and drifted away. After a few minutes, only the Lord and the woman remained. “Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” She answered, “No one, Lord.” Jesus said “Neither do I condemn you: go, and sin no more.”

If you follow the old Missal and its daily readings through Lent, you’ll have noted a similar story read yesterday—the story of the Woman at Jacob’s well. St John recounts their encounter too. While she talked with Jesus, she mentioned to Him she had no husband. The Lord responded, no doubt with a wry smile, “Well, you’re right about that. Technically, you don’t have a husband: of course, you have had five so far, but the man you’re with right now isn’t your husband, so, okay, you’re telling the truth there.”

As I thought about these two stories, a couple of things struck me. Notice Jesus’ attitude towards these women. He forthrightly acknowledges their sins. He plays along with the woman’s word game at the well and then turns it on her to bring the truth to the fore. As the adulteress trembles before Him, expecting a deadly hail of stones, He doesn’t deny her sin. “You’ve got her dead to rights; the Law does allow you to kill her,” He acknowledges—“only remember the whole of the Law.” As He helps her from the dirt, Jesus tells her “I have no condemnation for you. Go, and stop sinning.”

In neither case does Jesus condemn. He puts the facts bluntly—humorously in one instance, tenderly in another—and assures the fallen women of God’s mercy.

Okay, okay, but what about the SEX you promised?

I do want to discuss sex, but in the context of yesterday’s meditation. Yesterday we talked about “false virtue,” that is, how our understanding of virtue is for the most part a misunderstanding about it. True humility isn’t for the faint-hearted, but for those with the courage to take it up. The really humble Christian doesn’t whine his way through a confession of sins, but insists on hiding none of his faults. His goal in confession isn’t a concern lest people realize he really is a sinner, but to lay his sins before God so they can be done away with.

As misunderstood as humility is, chastity, purity, is even moreso. If humility is for the person with an inferiority complex, chastity is for the person of repressed and timid sexuality. Nowadays members of both sexes are encouraged to fulfill their sexual destinies, to see themselves as energized, sexual creatures. Our culture is sex-soaked.

Now, as the matter of fact, our sexual natures are part of who we are. God made us that way (He also made us to think, too, but you don’t see a whole lot of that going on, do you?). Part of the struggle of our humanity is that we have many gifts—which we can use to make our lives and the lives of those around us happy—or we can distort them into vehicles of grief. Sex has a good use, dare I even say, a holy potential, but just as we’ve distorted humility, we’ve disfigured sex. That we think most sexual sins are “victimless” shows how blind we are to what sex is.

God has set us, you and me, men and women, at the crown of His creation. When we see, at the very beginning of Genesis, Adam naming the animals, this isn’t just some sort of explanation about why we call aardvarks “aardvarks.” What Scripture is telling us is that God has set us over creation—over the plants and animals and seas and mountains—as its Kings and Queens. Naming the animals tells us that you and I are answerable to God, responsible for His creation. He has set us over it (I know this is an unpopular idea today, but it’s nonetheless a very important truth—and we deny it to our peril) so we can give it meaning.

For the animals, sex means reproducing. For us, it means that and much more. God has given sexuality to human beings as a way for us to discover who we are in relation to others. Are we lovers or users of each other? Do I exercise restraint in my sexuality out of charity for my fellow man and love of God, or do I live as if the fact that I am sexual means I have the license to do whatever it takes to attain my sexual fulfillment?

Chastity is the offering of our sexuality to God. For some, that requires a complete offering of “ourselves, our souls and bodies.” Others are called to make that offering through the bonds of marriage, to another person. We offer ourselves to God by offering ourselves to our beloved. In both cases, it is giving, we focus on: the sacrifice of ourselves.

That’s why chastity is so scary and seems so strange. The Church teaches us that our sexuality is a gift we give, not a right we insist on. “You are no longer your own,” says St Paul. “You were bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.”

Hard words to hear, certainly not words for our indulgent, spoiled generation. But they’re words that promise to open up whole new vistas to those who have the guts to make them their own. We’ll fail in this as we do in so much else. Remember when you do, if you grasp His words of mercy, you’ll find no condemnation. We fall, and still He calls.

God summons all His sons and daughters, “as many as have been baptized into Christ,” to chastity—it’s not for the timid and squeamish, but it’s a high calling for those robust enough to follow Jesus into the desert, and take on His yoke.