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Pleasure without Conscience
A Sermon by Jim Ketcham
Based on II Samuel 11:1 --12:7a
First Preached at University Baptist Church
March 17, 2002
Arun Gandhi, writing about his grandfather's "seven blunders of the world" says that pleasure without conscience is connected to wealth without work. He says "People find imaginative and dangerous ways of bringing excitement to their otherwise dull lives. Their search for pleasure and excitement often ends up costing society very heavily… The United States spends more than $250 billion dollars on leisure activities while 25 million children die each year because of hunger, malnutrition and lack of medical facilities."
It is true we live in a society infected with "affluenza." Just look at our giant "recreational" vehicles guzzling gas, and polluting our air. These beasts are causing some national leaders to consider raping and pillaging the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to feed the insatiable thirst of those who would like to commute from the suburbs in vehicles designed originally for wilderness travel. That's pleasure without conscience.
Another example is in recent local headlines. How about the new found "right" to drive all-terrain vehicles cross country in state forests, destroying entire eco-systems that are supposed to belong to all Minnesotans?
We live in a throw away society where air pollution is measured in tons, and we have run out of places to put all the garbage we so readily produce with hardly a thought.
But the biggest bit of litter in our throw-away society may be our throw-away relationships. Conservatives have a field day with the state of our sexual standards, rightly criticizing our divorce rate, the casual affairs, the all-too-early experimentation with sex long before marriage.
Please note I said the conservatives are right to criticize these things. I think they have no idea of how to solve these problems.
As long as humans have had language, I imagine more conservative parents have been telling their children "just say no." It has rarely worked. And for just as long, more liberal parents have been mouthing moldy platitudes like "you'll know when you're ready." And it has rarely helped.
This reminds me of the days when John and I went to the local playground at least once every day and I was astounded at the number of parents who would yell "be careful" as if their children would know that they meant slow down or duck or stand up or move or stop. As soon as he could walk, John was learning about hand holds and foot holds and friction and gravity. I'm not sure if the other children were learning anything except by trial and error.
Remember the TV show "Hill Street Blues?" The tough but lovable old Sergeant used to end each roll call meeting with "Let's be careful out there." Its one thing when such a remark is addressed to adults who have been trained to do a dangerous job. Its another thing entirely when such a remark is addressed to inexperienced children, whether they are learning to hang from the monkey bars or facing their first sexual longings.
Sometimes even grown ups can't listen to "Be careful out there" and know what it means. Take David, for example. Would it have made any difference if Nathan had seen David ogling Bathsheeba and said "Be careful out there?" Probably not.
Lets take a look at David's story and play "What's wrong with this picture?" To Nathan, the answer is simple. David has stolen another man's property. Bathsheeba's feelings don’t seem to matter. Neither does the fact that David killed Uriah to ensure David could get what he wanted without interference from the "owner" of the property in question.
David took Bathsheeba first to his bedchamber and then as his wife not because he was in love, not because Bathsheeba wanted any such thing, not because of peer pressure, ("Aw, God, all the kings are doin' it") but simply because he could. As King Jesse himself put it, "Its good to be king."
The relationship, if we can grace it with such a term, was also coercive. Bathsheeba had no say in the matter. She had to do what the king said. They were not equal partners reaching a mutual conclusion. Their coming together was a violation of David's relationship with his other wives, as well as a violation of Bathsheeba and Uriah's relationship. It was a union that had no public face until David could "dispose" of Uriah, his brave and faithful servant and ally,
There are some clues here to what we might be saying to teens and singles as a liberal church and as "liberal" parents. Maybe we could title it "What to say when you're done saying no," or "How to know when you'll know you're ready."
And before I go any further, let me hasten to add that whatever wisdom I have in this area is the result of both good and bad choices of my own. I'm not approaching this as one who's never been tempted or never acted on those temptations, sometimes to my later regret.
A useful sexual morality policy would acknowledge that our children (and we!) are sexual beings and that we are all tempted, even if some of us have learned not to act on every temptation that comes along. And a good morality would apply both to heterosexual and homosexual relationships. It should also apply both to married and unmarried couples.
Tops on my list is a reminder that while we can't decide when we will fall in love, we can decide when we have sex. You can fall in love, but don't "fall" into bed! While abstinence training has shown some success in delaying the first sexual experience, it is not particularly successful in denying that first sexual experience outside marriage.
Teaching abstinence properly makes good use of positive peer pressure, but leaves kids with no vocabulary, no guidelines, no intellectual, emotional or moral framework for dealing with that first serious relationship that comes along after one is away from that original peer group. Once you leave abstinence rules behind, what rules can you follow?
This has lead to innumerable tragedies, including unwanted pregnancies and abortions and risk of sexually transmitted diseases. Why? Because if you believe that sex outside of marriage is bad, you won't plan ahead and discuss or use birth control. That would be to acknowledge that you "planned" to commit a sin. Better to wake up the next morning and claim to have been out of control, to have been unable to foresee such an outcome.
I still feel sad when I remember the 16 year old I spoke to almost 30 years ago who had only been told that "a baby grows in the mommy's tummy." She honestly had no idea how she had gotten pregnant, since she had never had oral sex with her boyfriend. I wonder if her parents and her school and her church ever understood that it was not she who let them down, but they who let her down and left her wallowing in ignorance and guilt.
A relationship that's ready for sex will involve no coercion, physical or mental. It should be a peer relationship, with a mutual commitment. This eliminates sexual relationships between professors and students, pastors and parishioners, supervisors and employees.
Any sexual relationship should be part of an emotional relationship with a past and a future. This eliminates one night stands, anonymous sex, and multiple partners. As a sign of its sacred nature and the bond between sexual partners, sexual relationships need to be exclusive. No one should be starting a new relationship without ending any prior sexual relationships.
A relationship that's ready for sex is also a relationship that can be lived in public - at least to other "significant others." While it is not always possible for homosexual partners to be completely public about their relationship, the relationship should be known at least among their closest peers.
Several of my closest gay friends have told me that since their unions cannot produce children, they feel little or no need to follow the "normal" rules for choosing a partner or making a commitment. I feel this is a significant shortcoming in their moral reasoning. Sexuality is a gift from God and its expression is a sacred act, one that creates potentially lifelong bonds through shared experiences and mutual emotional vulnerability, even if children are not a possibility.
Speaking of children, no heterosexual relationship can be considered ready for sex if the couple have not already discussed birth control and what they will do if the birth control fails. The time to consider abortion, adoption, marriage or child support is before "my place or yours," not weeks later.
Several years ago when I was discussing these principles with a young man in his early 20s he said to me "Dude, nobody who's getting ready to hop in bed ever talks like that!" I said, "That's my point."
To close with Arun Gandhi's words again: "Irresponsible and unconscionable acts of sexual pleasure and indulgence also cost the people and the country very heavily. Not only do young people lose their childhood but innocent babies are brought into the world and often left to the care of the society. The emotional, financial and moral price is heavy on everyone. Gandhi believed pleasure must come from within the soul and excitement from serving the needy, from caring for the family, the children, and relatives. Building sound human relationships can be an exciting and adventurous activity. Unfortunately, we ignore the spiritual pleasures of life and indulge in the physical pleasures which is 'pleasure without conscience."
These are the principles and the priorities we must provide our teens and our singles with, the things we must model in our own relationships whether we are married, divorced, single, widowed, gay or straight. We will have failed if we cannot say more than "just say no," more than "you'll know when you're ready."
No coercion, a mutual, exclusive and public commitment. It won't fit on a bumper sticker, but it might fit our lives and the real choices we face. That is my prayer. And I hope it is yours, too.
Amen.