I had planned a really long blog today on the Bible and homosexuality. I am, after all, thinking quite a bit lately about sexuality as a Christian theologian in light of a possible upcoming dialogue on homosexuality. I had planned to point out all the ways in which the Bible has nothing to say about modern homosexuality as a sin. I had planned to talk about why "sin" isn't even a good biblical category for dealing with human sexuality. I had planned to develop my notion of a "tragic" theology of sin, instead. But all that will have to wait for another day.
Instead, this morning, I've been thinking about what consequences Jesus has for thinking about sex.
I don't mean what Jesus says about sex (shocking as what he actually says may be). No, I mean thinking about who Jesus is, what he reveals about being human, may mean for thinking Christianly about sex.
First, let's be honest. Sex -- whether homosexual or heterosexual -- seems to define what it means to be human. We focus, like a red-hot laser, on sex. And Freud did us no favors here. Our society is so Freudian that we don't even realize it. We just accept that sex is so wound up in being human, that if you aren't expressing said sexuality in healthy ways, you're "sick".
So follow me on this for a second. What if we Christians are going about this all wrong?
Within the Christian tradition, I think its fairly uncontroversial that Jesus Christ is the archetype, the ultimate definition, the mesoform of what it means to be human. I suppose this could be disputed, but within Christian theology this is pretty axiomatic. Jesus' own historical, contingent, particular human life defines what it means to be human in a way that is more significant than any other determinate factor of human existence. He is, after all, "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 3.15ff). We are made in that image (Genesis 1.26-27; 5.1).
If that's true, what are the implications for thinking about sex?
Karl Barth famously articulated the position that "the image of God" is defined by sexual differentiation. It's an old idea, tracing back even to Plato's Symposium. To be human means to be created male and female. To be human means to be related to an other in sexual terms.
It's a great place to start. But I think ultimately it's the wrong place. To understand God's definition of being human, don't look to Adam. Start with Jesus.
If we take Christology as our starting point, recognizing that (unless Dan Brown turns out to be right) Jesus was unmarried, not sexually active, and produced no children, we come to some very different conclusions. If the One who, in his life, crucifixion, and resurrection defined and actualized for us the very definition of humanness, what does that say about humanness? Clearly it says that marriage, sexual activity, and bearing children don't have any central place in the definition thereof.
Let me be clear here: Start with Jesus, and sex isn't an interesting topic. If Christ is truly the fullness and definition of authentic humanity, we must say categorically that marriage, sex, and parenthood tell us nothing whatsoever of ultimate significance about humanness. If marriage, sex, and parenthood are somehow the fullness of humanity we are forced to say that Christ, far from being the true human as the Christian tradition proclaims, was in fact, sub-human. To grant sexuality any sort of ultimacy with respect to the definition of humanness is to deny that Jesus is the true human being.
If Freud was right, Jesus was unhealthy.
If we take a Christological definition of being human, sexuality tells us nothing. Zilch. Nada. Nein. It's just not something that's essential to being human.
In this view, sexuality has more, for Christians, to do with discipleship, with vocation, than it does with being human.
It may, through the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit be comandeered and become in many and sundry ways a parable of the kingdom, just as many of the trivial aspects of human life are open to God's interruption and transfiguration. But, insofar as the meaning of authentic human existence, sexuality tells us nothing. Not if we really believe that Jesus defines for us what it means to be be human. And, further to this point, only when we allow sex to be truly and wonderfully insignificant, to be trivial, will it be able to be recived as a gift rather than gulpingly grasped in an idolatrous fit of fetishizing.
This points toward the tragic nature I wanted to develop, but I'll leave that for another day.