Sex and Its Future | A Prayer of Contemplation
Inspired by the style of prayerful theological writings of St. Augustine in the Confessions and other Church Fathers who humbly brought their thoughts and questions before God.
Who am I, oh God, that you are mindful of me?1 That every hair on my head, every nerve in my body, all the fragility of my mortality are known to you? And yet you promise that I will not perish, but have everlasting life. And yet, Father, is this everlasting life? I no longer believe it will be a merely spiritual existence floating in the clouds, because Jesus trailblazed for us a bodily resurrection, and St. Paul tells us that if there is no resurrection, then we are above all most to be pitied.2 For why would we willingly endure the bodily sufferings of this life if we didn’t have real joy ahead.3 A joy like that of a wedding feast, as St. John sees in his apocalyptic vision, a wedding where you Father give your son, Jesus, to us as our bridegroom.4 Oh haste the day for this wedding, for the resurrection, but here and now, what joys have you given us to delight in? What foretastes of the future are embedded in today? Jesus, you call us to pick up our crosses and follow you,5 but you also demonstrated for us a life of conviviality, drinking wine with neighbors (sinners that they may be),6 and eating fire-roasted fish with your friends.7
Oh good Jesus, hear my humble thoughts. May I ask my questions so boldly to you? For if in you I move and live and have my being, then surely in my search to understand my very life and sexual being, I should be successful in my search by coming to you. The world around me tells me that I come from a culture that is negative about our bodies and sex, and in part I do believe this, for I feel the shame and awkwardness in being forthright about such things, about my own body and sexual existence. Is this the same shame that Adam, my first father, experienced when he grasped for knowledge on his own terms, became enlightened just enough to hide in the shadows of the trees? But I find it hard to believe that the sex positivity of the 20th century is the most fitting solution you had in mind for the shame of our first parents.
Yet, surely, our bodies, our sexual differentiation, our erotic capacity, is not something inherently to be ashamed of… because why should Adam and Eve be ashamed of the design of the Great Father, the Creator of the stars and the seas and everything in between? So what did the fruit of knowledge reveal to them when they saw their nakedness?
But Jesus, you were present there already in the garden. Surely it is your blood symbolically shed when their fig leaves were replaced with animal skins. And surely you did not hide their genitals because they are evil. Because why would you, God, give the command to be fruitful and multiply,8 to uncloak the intimate parts of their bodies so that they, as your Scriptures often say, may “know” each other. There doesn’t seem to be anything negative about this—but already I tire of this vain binary of positive and negative. Even the world that rejects your Word accepts the wisdom of some limits. What the world knows as the limits of consent, your word describes as the standard of willful giving of conjugal rights, or a willing fulfillment of marital duty,9 none of which should ever be coerced. And what the world knows as self-acceptance, we recognize that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of lights,10 which we should receive with gratitude. So Holy Spirit, help us to walk in your truth. And show us what other wisdom you have stored up in your word for us to steward our fearfully and wonderfully made bodies.
When I think about the Scriptures you’ve given us, I wonder how it came to be that the Song of Songs was included as a book of Wisdom. While Proverbs gives warnings towards the lures of adultery,11 this other book delights in the dance of love, the beauty of the body, the joy of being one’s beloved, and the sorrow that always accompanies deep longing. Is this erotic literature sufficient evidence to give ourselves fully to this adventure of loving pursuit and erotic embrace? But why the three-time-mentioned warning to not kindle love before it is ready?12 This love, it is said to be as strong as death, and as jealous as the grave, not willing to let go of those within its grasp.13 How can anyone ever know if they’re ready for this love?
But, I’m not so convinced that this awesome tale of love should be mistaken merely as sex. I don’t believe the intensity of love is best understood to be the euphoria of orgasm. As erotic as the book may be, it is strangely unerotic, describing the breasts of the bride as towers14… I doubt even to ancient ears this was ever particularly raunchy, let alone pornographic, though I could imagine it with a playful and flirtatious air. And while this song above all songs was sexy in its own way, it seems like it's strangely anti-pornographic. It is an unfolding eros-filled love drama, yet interspersed with the dialogue of other maidens,15 whose presence make the whole affair feel less intimate and more public, and the sensual overtures seem to have their erotic tone subverted by imagery of creation.16 The beauty of creation is found in the beauty of the bride, and so the beauty of the bride draws the man to her, without fixating the reader upon her beauty in carnivorous lust.
Before this Jesus, you gave your Old Covenant people sexual restrictions in Leviticus to protect the integrity of the family,17 but I can’t help but wonder why you also marked any husband and wife who had marital sex as unclean until evening.18 Is the man’s seed impure in any context? I wonder, God, since you know our hearts’ inclination to idolatry, both now and then, that you wanted to help Israel avoid idolizing sexual intercourse, whether for pleasure or for reproduction, like their neighbors were doing. Fertility goddesses and sexual intercourse were par for the course in pagan worship;19 how many communities were undermined by these idols and sex-infused worship? But you, oh God, you who made the gift of erotic delight are still better than the gift. And maybe with the transcendent possibilities of sex, in bodily euphoria and generational creation, you protected us by marking it as ritually unclean, to keep your people set apart, worshiping you God in Spirit and Truth.20
And don’t your words, Jesus, point us this way? You tell the Sadducees that these present marriages will fade away in the life to come, that we’ll be like the angels, not reproducing, but wholly given to the will of our King.21 And the wonder is, our King will be our collective husband.22 And, good Lord, I find it embarrassing to even mention, but some may think this is some polygamous future where we’re all your wives and concubines. But this is not the image you give us of that day. But I think I have gained a little imagination of what the truth is, and what little I see of that truth, I love. I will have no grief for an eternity without sex. And, while I recognize that there is real sacrifice to forego the delight of sexual intercourse in this life, and even more so a sacrifice to not have those close kinship bonds of the flesh, children who share my very blood whom I can also call bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh… while these are sacrifices of this present moment, I trust in your promises that the faithful eunuch will be given an everlasting name.23 I trust that my legacy in Christ will be no less rewarding than natural offspring, and that my bonds with others in the Spirit will last longer than the vows of marriage.
Surely, Father, you do not despise sex. But I find it odd that, though I expect that we’ll continue as male and female in the resurrection, and that the birds and bees themselves will continue in the new heavens and new earth,24 our sex lives will come to an unexpected close. Yet I trust that every piece of longing and intimacy in us will not truly come to an end, but, instead, they will be transfigured and transcendentally completed as we are brought together as one humanity, in perfect unity with your Son, our Lord, our Beloved.
(See recent podcast episode #47 - Is the Bible Sex Positive? for a longer conversation on sex positivity and the Bible.)
cf. Psalm 8:4 “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” (ESV)
1 Corinthians 15:13-19 “(13)But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised… (17)And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins… (19)If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (ESV)
cf. Hebrews 12:2b “For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame”
Revelation 19:7, 9 “(7)Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready… (9)And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” (ESV)
Matthew 16:24 “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” (NIV)
Luke 7:34 “The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’” (NIV)
Luke 24:42-43 “They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.” (NIV)
Genesis 1:28 “God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (NIV)
1 Corinthians 7:3 “The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.” (NIV)
James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (ESV)
Proverbs 6:26b “…an adulteress hunts for a precious life.” (NASB)
Song of Songs 2:7, 3:5, 8:4 “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.” (NIV)
Song of Songs 8:6 “Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.” (NIV)
Song of Songs 8:10 “I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers; then I was in his eyes, as one who finds peace.” (ESV)
e.g., Song of Songs 6:1 “Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?“ (ESV)
e.g., Song of Songs 6:6a “Your teeth are like a flock of shorn ewes that have come up from the washing…” (ESV)
e.g. Leviticus 18:9a “ ‘Do not have sexual relations with your sister…” (NIV)
Leviticus 15:18 “When a man has sexual relations with a woman and there is an emission of semen, both of them must bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.” (NIV)
John 4:24 “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (NIV)
Matthew 22:30 “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” (NIV)
Revelation 21:2 “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” (ESV); Ephesians 5:31-32 “‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” (ESV)
Isaiah 56:4-5 “For this is what the LORD says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant—to them I will give within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever.” (ESV)
See Revelations 21:1-5. God is not making new things because he failed the first time, but rather he is “making all things new” through purification and renewal. While beyond our imagination, this is the new heaven and new earth that Jesus is bringing.