An Intimate Celibacy
Presented by Michelle Ferguson, MA
Exodus International Freedom Conference
June 10, 2011
We are here today to talk about celibacy. In a culture that surrounds us with sex, celibacy may seem one of the most ridiculous choices one could make. So why do we?
Maybe we choose to forgo sexual relationships because we aren’t that interested in sex. Or, probably, for many of us in this room, that choice carries great loss, anguish or frustration. It isn’t an easy choice. Yes, we all know that as Christians, we are called to abstain from sex until we’re married. So, why don’t we all get married? Then everything would be easy, right?
Honestly, though we can all laugh a bit when I say it like that, we live in a context where marriage is assumed to be the goal for human sexuality. Even here we feel it. The stories of “success” that stand out most are those that end in marriage, and even better, with children. Somehow we hear the message, “This is what it looks like to overcome your same-sex struggle and live out a healthy sexuality.” Of course, Exodus has increasingly tried to nuance its message so that those who are not married don’t feel like second class citizens. However, whatever is intended to be communicated is not always what we internalize. We hear messages through the filter of our worldview, and the dominant worldview assumes that singleness and especially sex-lessness is ridiculous. On your handout, you’ll see a few resources. One of those is Real Sex, written by Lauren Winner. Winner, writes, “Chastity is one of the many Christian principles that are at odds with the dictates of our surrounding, secular culture. It challenges the movies we watch, the magazines we read, the songs we listen to. It runs counter to the way many of our non-Christian friends organize their lives. It strikes most secular folk as curious (at best), strange, backwards, repressed” (9). In fact, I think it strikes most Christian folk as unrealistic or impractical (at best) or unjust.
Within the Christian conversation about homosexuality, the issue of justice arises when celibacy gets put on the table. When we engage in biblical interpretation, in the back of our minds, we are aware that the ethical conclusion of celibacy will be necessary if we come to a theological conclusion that homosexuality is outside of God’s design for human sexuality. Knowing that, many steer their interpretation in alternative theological directions. And this isn’t because of a selfish desire to have sex. It’s more complicated than that.
At our core we experience that we are sexual beings. We have been created as bodied, gendered people. In this conversation, I hear Genesis 2:18 quoted a lot: “Then the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner’” (NRSV). We affirm that by design, we are relational beings that require intimacy. But the subsequent conclusion that same-sex sexual partnerships must be part of God’s creative design does not take into account the many ways in which we, as relational creatures, experience intimacy.
The argument goes:
1) God created us to experience partnership
2) I am gay
3) My same-sex sexual partnership must be God’s will for me
This argument tries to make sense of one’s experience while affirming God as Creator. This foundational assumption then filters one’s interpretation of texts that include some mention of homosexual practice. In an effort to reconcile the conclusion based on Genesis 2 with the other texts, the other texts get ruled out as unclear or irrelevant. Again, for many, this isn’t primarily a move to justify oneself. This can be an honest conclusion for someone trying to reconcile their sexual identity with their faith. It isn’t the conclusion I came to.
When I first seriously started wrestling with my sexual identity in light of my faith, I began with a gut feeling that homosexuality is a sin. That gut feeling was more from cultural attitudes ingrained in me than from any serious study of the Bible. My struggle was one of the things that prompted me in college to add a biblical studies major, and then after college to go into graduate theological studies. Early on I really was searching for a way to deem my sexuality “ok” – partly because at the time I was in love and in a relationship, and partly because I desperately wanted a way out of my own shame and fear that I was unacceptable to God. I wanted to know that I was “ok.”
If this were a workshop on interpreting the biblical texts related to homosexuality, I would take you with me on the theological path I travelled to get where I am today. However, it is not (but I’m available if any of you want to have that conversation), and so we’ll continue with the question at hand in this workshop: “When a person comes to understand homosexuality as a distortion of God’s creative design, thus not a viable moral choice, as I [have], the question of discipleship becomes this: how do I re-imagine my identity according to God’s intent for human relationships, and how do I live from that identity?” (Ferguson)
I assume that in this room we represent a range of sexuality – some may only experience same-sex attraction, and some may experience a range of heterosexual capacity. Some may be single and wrestling with the issue of celibacy because heterosexual sexual partnership is undesirable or because an appropriate partner has not yet been found. I have heterosexual friends who have never struggled with same-sex attractions who are wrestling with a celibate life because they haven’t found a marriage partner. And, if you listen to the lecture by Mark Regnerus (see handout), you’ll become more in touch with the sociological reality that Christian women especially are at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to finding a marriage partner. So, gay or straight, we ask the same question I just posed; I’ll reword it slightly: How do I live out my sexuality as an unmarried and so celibate person according to God’s creative design?
In my own life and in the stories I have listened to from others’ lives, I have found that choosing to abstain from sex, to be celibate, is a whole-self choice. It isn’t like giving up chocolate for Lent. It doesn’t just affect our bellies, or our will power. It is a choice that affects and engages every part of us – physical, emotional, mental, spiritual. And guess what – such is the life of a disciple of Jesus. In our struggle to be faithful, our entire self is brought into the struggle. Some of us, because of particular issues like same-sex attraction or celibacy, are more in touch with that reality of discipleship. I think that’s a gift, and I think it is one gift we uniquely have to offer the Church. Lauren Winner, in speaking about sexuality as a communal issue, says:
God did not give marriage to two individual lone people. God gave marriage to us as the Church [to witness to the reality of God’s love and what radical faithfulness looks like]. And similarly, God did not give singleness to individual atomized people, who are practicing a chaste single life; rather, God gave singleness to the whole community… What does singleness witness to us as a community? And why do we need singleness in our Church? We do need singleness: singleness isn’t just something you bide your time with until you finally get married, and it is not some second best option. It is part of God’s economy, and the Church needs it. (Winner "Communal Sex")
She goes on to talk about how unmarried people witness radical dependence on God. Every believer is called to cultivate a vacany or space for God, and people who are not married remind those who are that spouses do not fill us completely. Unmarried people are aware of the need for God in ways that married people may not be readily aware, and our lives in the community call everyone to remember that need and to make space for God in deep ways. Also, Winner brings up the story in Matthew 22 where the Sadducees ask Jesus about whose wife the woman who survives multiple husbands will be in the resurrection. Jesus answers, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Mt 22:29). She understands this as pointing to the end when “all relationships will pass away except for the relationship of being siblings in Christ” (Winner "Communal Sex"). Single people remind us of this as well – that we are connected not just to spouses and immediate family, but that we are part of a larger family of God and should find intimate connection in our interdependence as one body.
Great. So we have a gift to offer the Church. That gives us a better understanding of why our faithfulness in celibacy is important. But how do we live this life? Anyone who knows me very well knows that I am not one to answer “how” questions with “6 steps to success” kind of answers. This may be frustrating to some. I think that most of the time when we are looking for “6 steps” we are hoping for tricks or tips to “survive” our celibacy. For me, that’s not enough. It is not enough to use external forces to meet whole-self challenges. If all we have to go on is “6 steps” and willpower, I don’t think our journey will be sustainable. Any method for a faithful journey must be one that embraces our sexuality – by that I mean our bodied-gendered-relational selves – in ways that empower healthy expressions of that sexuality. In other words, we won’t sustain a journey of celibacy if we try to squelch, deny or repress ourselves. We will find our journey sustainable if we are able to cultivate authentic intimacy.
The fundamental thing that sustains me is the transformation of my worldview. As I said before, we filter everything through our worldview, even when we are not aware of what that worldview is and that it is acting as a filter. Our worldview includes how we understand God, ourselves, creation, sin, the world around us, the solution to our human predicament, and so on. The Bible needs to shape our worldview. The Bible isn’t primarily a collection of rules we have to follow, though many of us turn to it as such. It is a story, a narrative of God and his relationship with creation, including humanity. That story can powerfully shape our worldview in ways that transform us. Stories do that.
So, what’s the biblical story? Let me offer a telling:
Once upon a time when all there was was nothing, when all there was was chaos like an endless ocean churning its destructive forces, our God was present and gave birth to creation. He carved out space for life, putting sky and sea and land in its place so that birds and fish and wild animals could thrive. One day our God imagined a creature that would join him in relationship and participate in his creative mission. So our God scooped up some earth and formed an earth-creature like none other: ha-adam from the adamah. Human: and they were male and female, partners able to join God in the mission of ordering creation – by giving birth and extending the human family, and as a family by lovingly and generously caring for the rest of creation so that it might also continuously bring forth new life. This partnership was characterized by perfect trust and love; it knew no fear or shame.
But there was another character present in the land – one who questions the goodness of the design of God’s creation. The humans encounter this character, listen to his questions and entertain his view of the world, and finally face what they hadn’t known before: doubt. With this new story ringing in their ears, they decided to step into it and live out its plot. All of a sudden they experienced something else they hadn’t experienced before: the fear and shame of vulnerability that comes from suspicion, broken trust, and disconnection. So when God came for their regular time of fellowship, he came to find them hiding, trying to cover up their new identities as people of this new story. They were playing their parts: the deceptive character wrote God in this plot as one who should not be trusted and wrote them as self-determining, and so they acted out their suspicion, insecurity, and attempted autonomy with God.
What was God to do? When he asked them what had happened, they turned on each other! They weren’t able to be honest anymore. The relationship was now distorted, the partners alienated. God knew that the story they had been told ends in death, the chaos of creation being undone. This story had now crashed into God’s story, and so God told them where this plot they had entered would take them – into painful toil, at odds with the very purposes for which they were designed, and finally ending in their own undoing, back to the dirt from which they came.
But, this story is the story of the God who brought life out of the chaos of the empty void. The competing narrative is no match for God’s imagination. He envisioned a way for the undone creation to be restored, for the distorted relationship to be refashioned, for the alienated partners to be reconciled. God loved the human family so much that he refused to give them up to the story in which they had fallen and to which they had become slaves.
Thus, God’s rescue mission launched, and the clashing stories went to war. God carved out space for a few people he selected to join him in his mission. Abraham faithfully left the deceptive story and entered into God’s story, becoming the trailblazer. Moses fought for and liberated Abraham’s family generations after they had been enslaved as prisoners of this narrative war. Joshua brought them into the land God had set aside for them so that they could extend their missionary family and establish a community of rescue. David represented God’s power and promise to gain victory in this battle. But the presence and the lure of the deceptive story was powerful, even in the midst of demonstration after demonstration of God’s story unfolding. When the people trusted the deceptive story, prophets cried out the truth of God’s story. Eventually it seemed all was lost: God’s people sat in seeming defeat – exiled from the place where God’s story was supposed to win. And the tellers of the deceptive story mocked them, and enticed them to give up on their ridiculous story and accept the deceptive story.
All along the way God had come to them in various ways. And now, at the climax of the conflict, God decided to come in a way that would reveal the true story and offer the people their true parts once and for all. So God was born a human, into the missionary human family that had lost their way. As Jesus, the saving one, God showed the humans how to be truly and fully human. God reminded them of the time when they partnered in perfect trust and love. Of course, the deceptive story tellers sensed that God as Jesus was a great threat to their story, and so they planned their attack. God as Jesus did something very odd: in order to decisively unmask the deceptive story and expose it for the fraud it was, Jesus remained faithful to God’s story even though it meant he was put to death as an enemy of the deceptive story. But, after he died, God demonstrated the ultimate power of the true story: God brought life out of death and proved that the deceptive story would never be the final story. This demonstration provided the hope and strength God’s missionary family needed to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, learning his way of living out God’s story so that they too could participate in the life that overcomes the chaos and void of death. As participants in God’s mission of life, of new creation, God’s people demonstrate the power and truth of God’s story so that everyone who recognizes it can break free from the deceptive story and enter into God’s story, thus learning a new life of trust and love and also becoming partners in the mission.
This story is not over yet. It is still unfolding, and God continues to invite us into it, and God won’t quit until the mission is fulfilled.
Let’s focus on a few ways that this story might transform our worldviews:
1. This plot shows us that there is a design.
* We affirm that God’s imagination for humanity sees partnership characterized by cooperation and trust that comes from deep intimacy. We are relational beings, and it is not good to be alone.
* We affirm that God’s imagination for sexual partnership sees a covenant relationship between a man and a woman. This is the partnership where two become one flesh capable of producing new life. We are communal beings, called into family.
* We affirm that God’s imagination for those outside the covenant of marriage sees intimate partnerships of a non-genital nature. We are interdependent beings, made for friendship.
* We affirm that God’s imagination for the Church sees a family network of all God’s people, married and unmarried, forming one body that joins God in giving birth to new creation. We are missional beings, called into new patterns of relationship that witness to God’s inbreaking Kingdom.
2. There is a deceptive story at work.
* We recognize that the world in which we live is fallen, that we are fallen. We wrestle with a distorted understanding of God, the world, others, and ourselves; we are tempted to assert our independence from God and others because we struggle to trust.
* We recognize that we must be honest about our limitations, hopeful that God’s story prevails. We are on a journey toward wholeness, and our journeys will be marked by struggle – not because we are abandoned by God in any way, but because we join with God against the power of the deceptive story.
These affirmations and recognitions can be summarized by a couple of principles:
1. God is creator; we are creature. This means that God’s design is not optional. The wisdom literature in the Bible paints the picture of two paths that can be journeyed in this life: The path that follows God’s design leads to life; the path that departs from God’s design leads to death. Life and death are symbols for human flourishing and human failing. This principle pushes us to admit that “God knows best.”
2. God is savior; we are being saved. This means that God is with and for us. The Psalms demonstrate a relationship between God and his people that is honest, marked by deep trust, and often raw and what we might consider irreverent. God does not “lay down the law” and then sit back and watch us stumble through it. God is open to our protest, to our demands for his help. And he responds, even to the point of entering into the human community as Jesus – both modeling faithful life and overcoming the forces that work against us in that life.
These principles then point to ways in which we might live out the biblical story.
We must cultivate intimacy as an embrace of our sexuality. Theologian Marva Dawn distinguishes between genital sexuality (what we most often or exclusively think about when we say “sexuality”), and social sexuality. Social sexuality is all the ways we engage our whole-selves in relationship with others. I call this friendship (though I think our culture, including the Church, has an anemic understanding and practice of friendship). Dawn writes:
If we could truly be the Church, a Christian community in which we care for each other deeply and support each other’s gifts and personhood, then we would offer to the world models of deep friendships built on the character, the faithfulness of God. It is especially important that we ask in our churches what kind of persons we need to be, what virtues must be nurtured, and what we can do to foster and model all kinds of friendships – nongenital and honorable friendships across age, gender, social class, and racial lines. (85)
Richard Hays, in his book, echoes Dawn’s assessment:
The church must be a community whose life together provides true friendship, emotional support, and spiritual formation for everyone who comes within its circle of fellowship. The need for such support is perhaps particularly felt by unmarried people, regardless of their sexual orientation. In this respect, as in so many others, the church can fulfill its vocation only by living as a countercommunity in the world. (402)
The biblical story shows us what real or true intimacy looks like, especially in the person and life of Jesus. In Genesis it describes this intimacy as “naked and without shame” (2:25). This is literal when it comes to genital sexuality, but it is also symbolic of all human partnerships, including friendship. Nakedness symbolizes openness and vulnerability, honesty and allowing oneself to be known. Shame is what we feel in our fear of being rejected; it is the accusation we hear in our minds that we are not good enough, we are unworthy, we are damaged goods. Shame is an alienating force. It pulls us out of connection, causing us to “cover ourselves.” When we are “without shame,” we engage relationship fully ourselves, ready to give and receive. Of course, I realize that this description of the first human partnership happens before sin enters the picture. We live on the other side of that story.
However, when we look at Jesus’ life we see a perfect model of social sexuality, or, what I’m calling friendship. Jesus’ personhood is marked by dependence on God. From that connection, he is able to offer himself to others.
* The disciples (including those beyond the 12 – even women!)
* The crowds
* The “enemies”
His relationships are characterized by mutuality, but are not dependent on it. He gives to others, but he also places himself in the position of needing others. He risks vulnerability. He gives and receives tenderness (think about the story of Mary anointing him before the passion week). However, when he is rejected or betrayed, he continues to give himself. I am NOT advocating for unhealthy patterns of relationship where one party allows abuse or mistreatment. I am saying that Jesus shows us even how to “love” our “enemies.” His relationship with God is such that it sustains him even in the face of opposition or rejection. His personhood (or social sexuality) is firmly rooted in his identity as a child of God, and that allows him to continue giving himself in relationship, even when some of those relationships fall apart.
Jesus’ relationships are also characterized by mission. He enjoys friendship in part because friendship in and of itself is a good thing, a gift from God. However, he also invests in friendship because it is a partnership that opens the possibility for fulfilling our human mission to “be fruitful” (for marriage partnerships this primarily refers to having children; however, there is a reason why this agricultural metaphor is used so much in reference to discipleship – we all recognize that “good trees bear good fruit,” and that our lives are meant to “be fruitful”). We are meant, in so many ways, to join with each other in God’s mission of bringing forth life – by having children, or serving the poor, or pastoring a church, or working for justice, or encouraging those who suffer, or celebrating God’s goodness. Jesus never had children, but he spent his whole life “bearing the fruit” of new life, calling forth new creation. And there is a reason why the apostle Paul urges churches to understand themselves as “the body of Christ.” As Christians, we are called to extend Christ’s life, his mission together.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many… [and each member needs the others]. (NRSV, 1 Cor. 12:12-14)
In the years immediately after breaking off the relationship I was in and committing myself to living according to God’s design, I was really scared of getting too close to anyone. I didn’t want to face a possible attraction. That would feel like failure, and end the friendship. But, I found that I needed to build close friendships in order to engage my whole-self, my social sexuality, in order to cultivate greater health and potential for deep connection in friendship. Isolating oneself is a surefire way to increase the struggle of celibacy. And, as I just mentioned, we need each other, not just to “feel better” or “avoid loneliness” but to engage our full selves in the mission God invites us to participate in as partners with him.
Real, authentic, robust friendship is the justice I hold out to those who tell me that celibacy is fundamentally unjust because it relegates people to “being alone,” cutting them off from engaging their sexuality in relationship. I agree that trying to live a life disconnected from one’s sexuality is unhealthy, and not God’s desire for us; however, I disagree that genital sexuality is the only meaningful expression of one’s sexuality.
I had lunch a few months ago with a lesbian friend of mine who married her partner last summer. She had been browsing some photo albums on my Facebook page and commented on some photos of me and a friend of mine – mostly camping trips we’ve taken. She said, “I wondered if she was your partner.” I smiled and said, “Well, in a way she is. She’s my friend, and as friends we partner in living out God’s mission.” She looked at me like I was crazy. She couldn’t quite wrap her mind around a relationship that looked intimate yet didn’t involve sex. I think her inability to do so is a witness against the Church because the Church hasn’t had much imagination when it comes to non-genital intimate relationships. It just doesn’t model a very robust friendship. In fact, it tends to elevate marriage as the only appropriate relationship in which to experience intimacy. That may be one of the reasons why the divorce rate is so high: we expect marriage to fulfill all of our relational needs when it was never designed to do so. It was designed alongside other kinds of intimate partnership – each relationship meant to engage us differently. Friendship engages us in ways that marriage doesn’t, and is a vital aspect of our sexuality.
It may be difficult for some of you to rethink your concept of sexuality in the terms I’ve proposed. One of the most important things I learned early on in my journey of building healthy friendships was that not all attraction is sexual attraction. When I began to feel close and connected to a female friend, I would pull away because I interpreted the desire for closeness as sexual attraction. Intimacy equals sex, right? A small bible study/accountability group I was part of helped me stumble through that learning curve. I was able to be honest about what I was feeling.
“I feel drawn to you.”
“Yeah? Me too.”
“No, you don’t get it. I want you.”
“No, you don’t get it. I want you too.
“You want to have sex with me?”
“No! We’re friends. And we’re becoming close friends. I’m drawn to who you are. Your faith. Your honesty. I want to know you. And I want to allow you to know me. I want us to support each other. I want us to be real with each other. You know, I want your friendship.”
“Well, that’s how I feel. But I thought my feelings were lesbian feelings.”
“I think your feelings are human feelings.”
“You mean straight people feel attracted to their friends?”
“You may be defining attraction differently, but yeah… how could you have close friends without being drawn to them? Friendship includes some pretty strong emotional connection. That’s good!”
And the light went on: not all attraction is sexual attraction. The whole of my sexuality is not about sex. Our desire to be close, to experience intimacy in relationships is part of God’s design for humanity. Listen to some expressions of this kind of social sexuality (friendship) in the Bible:
“First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world. For God, whom I serve with my spirit by announcing the gospel of his Son, is my witness that without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers, asking that by God’s will I may somehow at last succeed in coming to you. For I am longing to see you so that I may share some spiritual gift to strengthen you – or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine” (NRSV, Rom. 1:8-12).
“Jonathan said to David, ‘By the LORD, the God of Israel! When I have sounded out my father, about this time tomorrow, or on the third day, if he is well disposed toward David, shall I not then send and disclose it to you? But if my father intends to do you harm, the LORD do so to Jonathan, and more also, if I do not disclose it to you, and send you away, so that you may go in safety. May the LORD be with you, as he has been with my father. If I am still alive, show me the faithful love of the LORD; but if I die, never cut off your faithful love from my house, even if the LORD were to cut off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.’ Thus Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, ‘May the LORD seek out enemies of David.’ Jonathan made David swear again by his love for him; for he loved him as he loved his own life” (NRSV, 1 Sam. 20:12-17).
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another… No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (NRSV, John 13:34-35, 15:13).
“I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced. Perhaps this is the reason he has separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother – especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord” (NRSV, Philemon 10-16).
“Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, ‘Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the LORD deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. The LORD grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your father.’ Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. They said to her, ‘No, we will return with you to your people.’ But Naomi said, ‘Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband…’ Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. So she said, ‘See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.’ But Ruth said, ‘Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die – there will I be buried. May the LORD do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!’ When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her” (NRSV, Ruth 1:8-18).
We could also read the way Paul speaks of Timothy, see the relationship between Mary and Martha and Jesus, and so on. The point is, that these are expressions of intimacy that have nothing to do with having sex. They are real and deep and engage our whole selves, our bodied, gendered, relational selves. These expressions, thus, are expressions of our sexuality.
Let me share with you two examples from my life. One I already mentioned: my friend from the Facebook photos – Sarah. Sarah and I have been friends since college, and since graduate school we have lived together. We’ve become family to each other. When she visits my family, my dad tells people that she is one of his “daughters,” and when I visit her family, her dad says the same thing. We’ve walked alongside each other through illness, getting used to a new city, new jobs, lost jobs, a broken engagement, becoming aunts, and so much more. My friendship with Sarah is core to who I am, and it has provided a safe space to learn how to love, and it empowers me to extend that love to every other relationship I invest in. She’s there when I need to talk, when I need a hug, when I need to rant, when I need to just be in the room with someone. I trust her deeply. She challenges me to pursue greater faithfulness to God, and she demonstrates God’s faithfulness to me.
A more recent friendship that has been important to me is with a man named Peter (name changed). I met Peter and his wife through the seminary where I worked, and the three of us really hit it off. We loved wrestling with theology, playing games, and exploring new places to hike and camp. I could tell you about my friendship with Peter's wife, Louise (name changed), which has been a closer friendship, but I want to express the importance of being friends with a man. A lot of times it can be awkward to begin a friendship with a single man, because there is always the lingering “what if” – What if he thinks I’m interested in him? What if I am interested in him? What if he is interested in me? The friendship can be complicated when there is a possibility of a romantic relationship. But with Peter, as with my other married male friends, there is no question. It is clear that we are friends. This friendship has been a blessing because it has allowed me to engage my “social sexuality” across the gender line. It is one thing to hang out with Sarah and be “girlfriends.” It is another to connect as a woman with a man. He has shown me respect and thoughtfulness in ways that have affirmed me as a woman. And, as I’ve witnessed his marriage, I have gained respect for him as a man in the way that he treats his wife. Remember the quote I read from Lauren Winner about marriage and singleness witnessing different things to the Church? I see and experience God’s faithfulness through their marriage. It isn’t perfect, but it has been a good picture.
Both of these friendships have engaged me in different ways. They shape me differently. They teach me different things. And, as I connect in these and other intimate relationships, I am able to partner with the body of Christ in more meaningful ways. And I am in no way “alone” in my singleness.
As my understanding of the connection between friendship and sexuality has developed, my experience of intimacy has grown. And the intimacy I’ve enjoyed in friendship has been an experience of awesome justice – the justice of God that carves out space for new life, restores humanity to a fullness of partnership, and brings peace to those who long for God’s new creation.
I said it before; I’ll say it again. Please remember this: as single people, when we are faithful with our sexuality, both by being celibate (abstaining from sex) and by investing intimately in friendship, we witness to the Church a radical dependence on God and his design for a radical interdependence within Christ’s body. It is amazing that Paul uses so much “oneness” language about the Church. The same terms that get used about marriage (“and the two became one flesh”), Paul uses about the Church. We are called to partnership, to friendship.
In the time we have left, let’s talk about how this might apply to your concerns and questions. What would you like to ask?
Resources (from handout)
* Dawn, Marva J. Sexual Character: Beyond Technique to Intimacy. Grand Rapids: William B. Erdmans Publishing Co., 1993.
* Ferguson, Michelle. “Something Better.” www.somethingbetter.blogspot.com.
* Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation; A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. New York: HarperOne, 1996.
* Hill, Wesley. Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2010.
* Regnerus, Mark. “Forbidden Fruit? Sex and Christianity in the Lives of Young Americans.” Fuller Theological Seminary. Pasadena, CA. May 6, 2008. (free download from iTunes)
* Winner, Lauren F. Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2005.
* Winner, Laruen F. “Communal Sex: Why Your Neighbor Has Any Business Asking You What You Did Last Night.” Gordon College. Wenham, MA. June 8, 2007. (free download from iTunes)