PERSPECTIVES  | 

CLERGY FOR CHOICE NEWSLETTER
April 2010

Preaching and Praying about Sexuality
-Rev Elizabeth Dilley

A Prayer For Our Bodies (feel free to use part or all of this in your own congregations and communities of faith)

We thank you, God, for the gift of our bodies and all that they can do.
Our hands reach out in love,

caressing the other with compassion
releasing our tight hold on possessions
touching the earth you have made
nurturing new life into being

            Our lips press against the things of this world,

kissing our beloved gently
tasting the food before us
offering up words of affirmation and love

            Our hearts beat a rhythm of life into the universe,

donating blood that others may live
swelling in love and joy
propelling us to action

In Christ, our bodies have been renewed in love and you bless all that we do in love and compassion and mutuality. Sexuality is a good gift you call us to share – from the tender caress of a loving partner to the ecstasy of orgasm which opens up new vistas of passionate life. Help us to love extravagantly, to live fully, and to embrace the bodies of all your people upon the earth, that their needs – arising from hunger to pleasure, leading to loneliness and overstimulation, the result of resistance and exploitation – may be met in Christ and in the community to which Christ calls us, which is [the church,] the embodiment of your love on earth. Amen.

Two Sermon Seeds

In John 21: 1-19 (third Sunday of Easter), the resurrected Jesus shares a simple meal of fish with the disciples. Few things are more sensual than sharing a meal together. How does the meeting of one bodily need (hunger) relate to other bodily needs (such as sexual fulfillment)? What texts does your own faith tradition hold about the sacredness of shared eating? Can we be complete human beings if our bodily needs are not met? What are some healthy ways that all individuals in various stages of life – young, old, single, married or partnered, separated, and so forth – can find their needs met within the redeemed community of the church (or beyond its borders but nonetheless with its blessing)?

Eastertide has a wealth of texts involving bodies (if not sex specifically). In John 20: 19-31 (second Sunday of Easter), Jesus offers his body to Thomas the Twin (also known as Doubting Thomas) so that he can touch for himself the wounds of Christ. How are we called to love and redeem the wounds of our bodies and the bodies of those we love? How can a healthy, embodied sexuality respect and honor the wounds of others and at the same time proclaim the new life Christ offers in the resurrection? What is your community of faith’s response to the unhealthy expressions of sexuality our culture peddles, and how does your faith community proclaim an embodied, Resurrection Sexuality of Life and Love?

Again, in an explicitly Christian context, one may choose to locate the church as an embodiment of God’s loving and redeemed compassionate community; however, the church is not THE sole embodiment of such a community.