17 min
I’m not sure about that… Sex and Grace – June 9, 2024 Raleigh Mennonite Church
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- Cristianismo
Matthew 19:1-12 and John 1:14-16
Melissa wraps up the series about questions the congregation has asked this Sunday, focusing on the question of sex, and intertwines it with the need for grace.
Just before his conversion to Christianity the saint and theologian of the church, Augustine of Hippo, is in a garden and he prays a prayer. "God, give me chastity and countenance. But not yet." What does God have to say to us who are living, breathing bodies? One place we can begin is to acknowledge that our sexual lives are accommodations of grace; even those of us who are married.
For most of our religious history in the church, the church has placed a huge emphasis on getting sex right. Rowan Williams rightly says that this is always a doomed task. But the fact that it's a doomed task is also the key to understanding why sex matters to Christians at all, and it surely does.
We exist within a wide range of relationships that affirm to us that the bodies that we are, are desired and delighted in. Ethics is never a matter of just abstract rules. For Christians, it is a matter of living the mind of Christ. Sex is one area in which we order our lives in a way that tells the world the story that animates our being. We are created to be incorporated into God's love because we are loved.
Matthew 19:1-12 and John 1:14-16
Melissa wraps up the series about questions the congregation has asked this Sunday, focusing on the question of sex, and intertwines it with the need for grace.
Just before his conversion to Christianity the saint and theologian of the church, Augustine of Hippo, is in a garden and he prays a prayer. "God, give me chastity and countenance. But not yet." What does God have to say to us who are living, breathing bodies? One place we can begin is to acknowledge that our sexual lives are accommodations of grace; even those of us who are married.
For most of our religious history in the church, the church has placed a huge emphasis on getting sex right. Rowan Williams rightly says that this is always a doomed task. But the fact that it's a doomed task is also the key to understanding why sex matters to Christians at all, and it surely does.
We exist within a wide range of relationships that affirm to us that the bodies that we are, are desired and delighted in. Ethics is never a matter of just abstract rules. For Christians, it is a matter of living the mind of Christ. Sex is one area in which we order our lives in a way that tells the world the story that animates our being. We are created to be incorporated into God's love because we are loved.
17 min