The Second Sunday in Lent (March 13, 2022)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

In the book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas C. Foster makes the argument that, in literature sex is never about sex, it’s always about something else; but everything else is about sex. That’s probably reductionistic but I think it’s helpful for our epistle reading today which has a lot to do with the issue of sex. The topic Paul addresses is based on sexual ethics but the reading is not just about sex.

Being in a culture that promotes individualism, we’re told, implicitly and sometimes explicitly that selfishness is good. We might remember how, in the move Wall Street, Gordon Gekko gives a monologue about how “Greed is good.” Sex is one of those areas this mentality has become increasingly prominent, especially since the sexual revolution. Hook up culture has caused many to see their sexual partners as merely means to the end of self-gratification. Birth control as a pervasive technology has contributed to this mentality by severing the natural connection between sex and reproduction. And the abortion industrial complex has led us culturally to sacrifice invaluable human life on the altar of convenience and contributed to a culture of disposability in the pursuit of action without consequences.

Today in our Epistle reading, Paul uses the issue of sexual ethics to point us to the larger process of sanctification which is our cooperation with grace to become conformed to the image of Christ, where our baptismal vows are lived out, where we grow into who we are to be, or as St. Paul says, it’s about how to live and please God. To explain that, the issue of sexuality is his springboard.

Paul open the readings our reading this morning with both a commendation and exhortation, a stark contrast to the Corinthian community who needed constant rebuke and chastisement. He exhorts the Thessalonians to, in effect, keep doing what they had been doing which was “walking and pleasing God.” To continue in that process of sanctification. Sanctification, becoming holy, expresses itself in two ways. In a positive sense, it means living in holiness and honor. In a negative sense, it means avoiding the passion of lust. While sanctification is a process in each Christian person, it’s not a purely individual phenomena. This is particularly true on the topic of sexuality which is, by definition, an act that has communal ramifications. Transgressing in this area wrongs many people. An affair, for example, wrongs spouses and children. Sexual activity outside of marriage also risks negatively impacting the other person involved because of objectification. Further, we can say that sexual immorality hurts the self. So the alternative given to us by Paul is to live in holiness and honor. To live in holiness is to live as one set apart. It’s to live knowing that we are to emulate Our Lord. To live honorably is to act in ways that are fitting to one’s various vocations, in ways that are appropriate. Both living in holiness and acting honorably require self-control of the body, which points us to the larger goal or underlying principle of the passage: God did not call us to uncleanness, but to holiness. And there is a consequence to this: disobedience isn’t just directed at others but primarily at God.

So the first point in the reading is that behavior that is opposed to peace is not directed towards God. The human body is good and beautiful. But it’s a tool and a tool can be used for bad or good. Because the body was created by God, it should be used for good. But, according to Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Sexual immorality is “self-centered existence which disregards the rights of the Creator or of others, or which uses others as instruments for its own gratification.” Sexual immorality, insofar as it is based on lust and includes unfitting behaviors outside of God’s design, disrupts peace. It disrupts the peace of a community (think about all the pastors who have sent their churches into tailspins because of affairs). And it disrupts the internal peace we have because it’s a sin not only against others but also against God.

Sexual immorality is not, however, the only kind of sin that disrupts God’s design for human flourishing. In fact, all our sin is a replication of the first sin in the Garden of Eden. What made the first sin sin? It wasn’t an act of eating fruit in general. After all, the Garden of Eden contained many trees with fruit. The sin was in the first couple doing what God forbade them from doing. Sin was in wanting to be like God in that the primal man and woman wanted to be the masters of their own fates and to play by their own rules. So the specific topic Paul addresses in 1 Thessalonians 4 is sexual sin, there’s certainly plenty of that (and there always has been). But his exhortation to walk in honor and holiness, to avoid selfish indulgence of the passions in ways that don’t please God leads to a more general reminder for us in all areas of our life, including but not limited to sex. It is a reminder that above all other concerns and in all circumstances, our main concern should be to walk and please God.

Scholar Michael Gorman, in discussing this passage, reminds us that “The Church is called not merely to believe the gospel but also to become the gospel and thereby to advance the gospel; the Church is a living exegesis of the gospel.” Jesus became human and died for us, even while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. But he doesn’t leave us the way he found us: “pick up your cross and follow me” is an invitation to imitate him, to become like him. That’s what sanctification is: by the grace of the Holy Ghost, we answer the call of our Lord. As we become more like him, we begin facing outward so that we treat others as him and invite them to heed that same call.

Lent isn’t a time for us to give up sin. All times are times for us to give up sin. But Lent is a time for us to fast and to give up good things as a way to recognize our dependence on God and focus more intently on him. In other words, we first increase in holiness. In the baptismal rite, we pray that the person or child will “manfully fight under his banner, against sin, the world, and the devil; and to continue Christ’s faithful soldier and servant unto his life’s end.” Lenten disciplines of fasting, prayer, and almsgiving are the means by which we continue that baptismal charge and fight manfully because they help inculcate in us that self-control that we need in order to live in a holy and honorable way while conquering our disordered passions.

“We beseech you brethren and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.”

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.