Intimacy. It's one of those words that provokes different images in different people. I would venture to say that most often, we look at it in individualistic terms, as in our intimacy with someone else. This could be a physical intimacy, it could be an emotional intimacy, it could be an intellectual intimacy...the list can go on for a little while. It's a loaded term to be sure, but one that I think that we should spend more time thinking and praying about. Intimacy issues dominate so many areas of our lives, and yet it's one of the areas that we display our dysfunction the most. False images and ideas of intimacy corrupt our relationships with ourselves, our families, significant others, our church, and our God, causing us more grief and pain than we could ever imagine.
The Lord our God is extremely concerned about our intimacy, and cares so much about it that in the holy scriptures he lays out guidelines for the boundaries of intimacy in our lives. The most common vision that comes to many people's mind when you use the term intimacy is in a physical sense, and this is an area in which God addresses us very bluntly (and far too often, people who claim God bluntly violate this). We are reminded that physical intimacy is to be shared only with one other, and that intimacy is to be shared only within the bounds of marriage, AND that we are not even to harbor thoughts of being intimate with anyone other than our spouse (Christ was very specific about this.)
However, to leave the discussion of intimacy from a Christian perspective only in the physical realm is to shortchange ourselves and our God. I love Mirriam-Webster's definition of intimate (adj): "1. Belonging to or characterizing one's deepest nature." The folks at m-w.com have got a much better grasp on intimacy that we in the church do, I am afraid to say. Whether we like it or not, the lives we live are a showing of our deepest nature. The lengthy discussions that Paul has about the necessity of the community of faith known as the body of Christ leave us with the reality that when we have but a superficial relationship with those whom we gather for worship, fellowship, and mission as the church we have missed the point of why God calls us together. When we fail to truly know one another, and fail to allow others to truly know us, we have put ourselves in position to miss out on what all we have been given by the Divine in one another.
However, I think that to put the discussion of intimacy from a Christian perspective only in the physical realm or the realm of fellow Christians gathering together in the church is also to shortchange ourselves and our God. During this season of life where I am your pastor, my routine has developed to where I spend a great deal of Tuesday each week reading, studying, praying, writing - allowing others to feed and nourish my soul. This week, I spent some time listening to the podcast of a well-known United Methodist Bishop who made the statement (when talking about how much God wants to work in our lives), "Many of you sitting here are living off of spiritual capital you accrued when you were 12." My man hit it dead on - we get to the point where we allow ourselves to think that we do not have to do much more with God than go through the motions, since, after all, we attended Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, religion classes, or whatever formal training we were given/forced to endure as a child. Don't believe me? Take a good look at the Sunday School & Bible Study attendance numbers. Take a look at where our minds wander during worship, if they even entered worship with our bodies.
When will we get it through our thick heads that one of the main points of this whole 'God thing' that we are a part of is that God desires for us to be in an intimate relationship with him, where he, to use the definition above, characterizes our deepest nature? When will we stop playing all the games about our relationship with God and finally allow our deepest nature to be that which God has put into us? When will we realize that this is not just a discussion about you as an individual but also about the congregation as the body of Christ?
I will make a promise to you; an iron-clad, 100% guarantee. When you allow God to get you to that point where your most intimate relationship is with Him, it will put all of the other intimacy discussions in perspective. As Paul reminds us in his beautiful way, when it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me. Until we get to that point, or when we get content enough where we are in our journey with Christ that we feel we don't need to invest anymore of ourselves, quite bluntly my friends, we are just going through the motions. Then we will knock off the false intimacy that we engage in, be it of a physical, emotional, or other form. We will knock off and quit making excuses for ourselves and others who engage in acts of intimacy that are not engaged in according to the guidelines God gave us and by which we profess to live (wink, wink).
Easy? No. Then again, if it was easy, why would Christ have sent the Holy Spirit to be with us? If it were easy, why would God have sent Christ to show us that yes, indeed, even a human being can do this. If it were easy, we wouldn't be called to live by faith. (See Hebrews 11:1).
See you Sunday!
Lamar
The Lord our God is extremely concerned about our intimacy, and cares so much about it that in the holy scriptures he lays out guidelines for the boundaries of intimacy in our lives. The most common vision that comes to many people's mind when you use the term intimacy is in a physical sense, and this is an area in which God addresses us very bluntly (and far too often, people who claim God bluntly violate this). We are reminded that physical intimacy is to be shared only with one other, and that intimacy is to be shared only within the bounds of marriage, AND that we are not even to harbor thoughts of being intimate with anyone other than our spouse (Christ was very specific about this.)
However, to leave the discussion of intimacy from a Christian perspective only in the physical realm is to shortchange ourselves and our God. I love Mirriam-Webster's definition of intimate (adj): "1. Belonging to or characterizing one's deepest nature." The folks at m-w.com have got a much better grasp on intimacy that we in the church do, I am afraid to say. Whether we like it or not, the lives we live are a showing of our deepest nature. The lengthy discussions that Paul has about the necessity of the community of faith known as the body of Christ leave us with the reality that when we have but a superficial relationship with those whom we gather for worship, fellowship, and mission as the church we have missed the point of why God calls us together. When we fail to truly know one another, and fail to allow others to truly know us, we have put ourselves in position to miss out on what all we have been given by the Divine in one another.
However, I think that to put the discussion of intimacy from a Christian perspective only in the physical realm or the realm of fellow Christians gathering together in the church is also to shortchange ourselves and our God. During this season of life where I am your pastor, my routine has developed to where I spend a great deal of Tuesday each week reading, studying, praying, writing - allowing others to feed and nourish my soul. This week, I spent some time listening to the podcast of a well-known United Methodist Bishop who made the statement (when talking about how much God wants to work in our lives), "Many of you sitting here are living off of spiritual capital you accrued when you were 12." My man hit it dead on - we get to the point where we allow ourselves to think that we do not have to do much more with God than go through the motions, since, after all, we attended Sunday School, Vacation Bible School, religion classes, or whatever formal training we were given/forced to endure as a child. Don't believe me? Take a good look at the Sunday School & Bible Study attendance numbers. Take a look at where our minds wander during worship, if they even entered worship with our bodies.
When will we get it through our thick heads that one of the main points of this whole 'God thing' that we are a part of is that God desires for us to be in an intimate relationship with him, where he, to use the definition above, characterizes our deepest nature? When will we stop playing all the games about our relationship with God and finally allow our deepest nature to be that which God has put into us? When will we realize that this is not just a discussion about you as an individual but also about the congregation as the body of Christ?
I will make a promise to you; an iron-clad, 100% guarantee. When you allow God to get you to that point where your most intimate relationship is with Him, it will put all of the other intimacy discussions in perspective. As Paul reminds us in his beautiful way, when it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me. Until we get to that point, or when we get content enough where we are in our journey with Christ that we feel we don't need to invest anymore of ourselves, quite bluntly my friends, we are just going through the motions. Then we will knock off the false intimacy that we engage in, be it of a physical, emotional, or other form. We will knock off and quit making excuses for ourselves and others who engage in acts of intimacy that are not engaged in according to the guidelines God gave us and by which we profess to live (wink, wink).
Easy? No. Then again, if it was easy, why would Christ have sent the Holy Spirit to be with us? If it were easy, why would God have sent Christ to show us that yes, indeed, even a human being can do this. If it were easy, we wouldn't be called to live by faith. (See Hebrews 11:1).
See you Sunday!
Lamar
No comments:
Post a Comment