Wednesday, Oct. 16
Matthew 19:1 – 21:22 Read it here
One of the great truisms of the marketing world is “sex sells.” Almost any product, it seems, can become more profitable if somehow its seller can convince potential customers that it will make them more physically appealing, no matter how unrealistic the claim.
Beyond selling products, sex is used to promote ideas and ideals. Generation after generation, young people embrace one notion or another they hope will scandalize and shock their elders. And elders, without remembering how their generation did the same thing, fall into the trap of being scandalized and shocked by claims and actions that are merely sad in their distraction from real joyful living.
Even in religious matters the provocativeness of sexuality becomes a headline-grabbing flash point for deeper issues.
Many of us have experienced that in the recent breakup in the Methodist family. Homosexuality, gender identity and other salacious subjects got all the attention, but beneath them were more fundamental issues: does God free us from sin, or just from the consequences of sin? Do we show love by showing the opportunity for new life, or by celebrating the old life, no matter how destructive? Does the Christian faith challenge us to be better than we are, or excuse us from honest self-reflection? Do we measure ourselves by God’s standards shown in scripture, or by our immediate comfort level?
One of the arguments often heard in favor of moral relativism is that Jesus himself never mentions homosexuality or gender-reassignment or any of dozens of other things.
But in 19:1-12, he does endorse two ways of living out life in a sexual sense: a radical lifelong commitment of a man and a woman that reshapes them into one being, or a life of abstinence, whether by circumstance or by choice.
On Monday we read from Matthew 15:19 a list of things that result from an impure heart: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.”
Without expanding on the existing laws, Jesus makes it clear that sexual immorality is one of the actions that reflects a heart that is not focused on him. It is not greater or less than the other sins; all of them matter.
It’s never our role to condemn or belittle anyone for the situation they are in now or what they have experienced. It is always our role to lift up the freedom and release that Jesus offers as a free gift to be re-shaped into a life of joy and fullness.