A Year-Long Exploration of the Sermon on the Mount: Week 18

Chapter 18 – Sexual Purity

 

I’ve been kind of avoiding writing this week’s reflection. Sexual purity is an awkward topic, one that has been used to try and keep teenagers from having sex, used to make people feel bad about having sexual desires, and used to promote chastity as the golden rule of sexual encounters. But should sexual purity be the ultimate goal?

 

Well, I guess that depends on what you believe sexual purity to mean. There is no denying that most humans are sexual beings. Hormones being raging through our bodies during puberty. There is a natural instinct to be with other humans and often an instinct for procreation. Being a sexual person does not equate being a sinful person. It’s all about how you treat the other person.

 

Rather that looking for perfection in our sexuality, what if sexual purity means that when you engage in sexual relationships you do so with respect and honour? And treat each other with dignity and compassion? If sexual purity in the sense of abstinence and monogamy is the baseline of getting into heaven or being close to God, then humanity is a lost cause, full of temptation and sin and failure to maintain our suppose purity.

 

I think this puts too much pressure on us and takes the fun out of life. We are meant to enjoy each to the fullest of our capacities. Sexual intimacy falls into the package that is being human, and we have no reason to deny this part of ourselves. God will not reject a person for listening to their body and embracing all its needs and wants. What God wants is for us to love and honour each other with respect and compassion. That is the type of sexual purity that I can get behind.