September 22, 2012
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God’s gift of passion
“I don’t know how to love him.” I cannot tell you how much Jesus Christ Superstar” influenced myrelationship with Jesus and consequently with God. I had a friend who managed a movie theaterwhen the movie came out and he let me in to see it about eight times before itleft the theater. I own the video. The movie came out at a time when I wasstruggling with what faith meant and who Jesus was. I have been a regular church attender all mylife and the Gospel narrative spoke to me but in a bland, other worldly sort ofway. This movie made Jesus real to me,an earthy, interesting person, a man I could love. Of course, at the time of its release theplay and movie were criticized by the majority of church leaders, precisely forthe reasons that it so profoundly affected me. Jesus became all too human, and much too sensual to be God in humanform. This despite the fact that we aretold that Jesus was fully human and tempted in every way that we aretempted. I expect it will be the samewith the recent announcement of a scrap of papyrus has been found with areference to Jesus speaking of his wife and suggesting she was a disciple. The Catholic Church has already made thestatement that Jesus was a bachelor.
What is the fear religious leaders have about Jesus being asexual person and possibly married? Itdoesn’t change the gospel message. Itdoesn’t change the acts of teaching and healing. The possibility that Jesus was married onlychanges what we have been taught about sexuality and about gender, particularlythe place of women in the divine plan. The church has spent centuries teaching us about shame and the evils ofpassion and the need to hide our bodies. We speak derisively about the Taliban and its requirements that women becovered from head to toe but our fundamental beliefs are not that far fromtheirs. We have people in our legalsystem that suggest that what a person is wearing can be a justification forothers to sexually assault them. I haveheard preachers speak about what is appropriate attire to be worn inpublic. I heard one preacher say shewanted to use a Lady Gaga video as a part of her sermon but the clothing LadyGaga was wearing was inappropriate for church. I heard another preacher bemoan the fact that our Pride parade here inLouisville was marred by the fact that some people participated wearing minimalclothing. Since when did the beauty ofour bodies as God created them become evil?
The Genesis story tells us God first knew the humans haddisobeyed when God came to the garden and the humans hid themselves becausethey were naked. It is when we ate ofthe fruit of the knowledge of good and evil that we began judging others andjudging ourselves. God intended for thejudging to be done by God but we took it over and we did so with avengeance. The reading from the Song ofSolomon is clearly about two people, maybe more, who are excited at theappearance of another. Their passions arearoused by the beauty and grace of the other, and God thought this was importantenogh to include in our sacred scriptures. God gave us passion as a gift, not as a temptation. Seeing beauty in another, seeing beauty inourselves is to glorify our God who created such beauty. The strength of passion for another is whatbrings us together into family units, we are told to cleave to one another asone body. This may refer to a uniting ofour spirits but it most certainly refers to the uniting of our physical bodies. This is good, this is God’s plan for us.
Am I saying then that Jesus was mistaken when he warned usagainst lust? I am not. Attraction is to lust what appetite is togluttony. Just because we have anappetite for food does not mean we consume everything we see. Lust is an uncontrollable desire that doesnot give a thought to the consequences of taking what is desired. Lust for money, power, or a person is never ahealthy response. Many fundamentalreligions teach that women must be completely covered from head to foot becausemen cannot be expected to control their lust and therefore the woman must notincite physical attraction. This is avery sad commentary on men. It isfoundationally the same argument that has kept same gender attractedindividuals out of our military. It wasbelieved they would not be able to control their lust when they were insituations where same gender persons would be naked. It is understandable why the militaryleadership would believe this to be true when we consider the prevalence ofrape within the military. The truth,however isn’t the gender attraction of the individual, the problem is a culturethat not only tolerates soldier on soldier aggression but actually encouragesas a way of developing a fighting machine.
God and Jesus teach us the gift of passion, of attraction isa beautiful thing and we should celebrate it. They also teach us that uncontrolled desire to dominate another, to takewhat is not ours, to treat others as mere objects for our satisfaction is eviland we must reject it in others and in ourselves. God knows how difficult it is for us to loveand treat others as God loves and treats us, but God also has given us thesource of strength and wisdom to do and be better. Controlling our passions does not require usto deny them or to shame them, controlling our passions requires us to expressthem in the mutually affirming way that is found in our Golden Rule, do untoothers as you would have them to do unto you. Amen.
