The "S" Word

Jess: A few weeks ago in Confirmation, we talked about the sixth commandment. For those of you who have lost track--and trust me, I just checked to make sure I hadn't messed up--that's the one that says, "You shall not commit adultery." As one of the students pointed out, it's about sex and it's number six. Just in case you needed a good memory trick. 

I was pretty impressed with the students and their willingness to have a discussion about this commandment. Luther says that this commandment means, "We should fear and love God that we may lead a chaste and decent life in words and deeds, and each love and honor his spouse." We talked a lot about this and its practical applications for our lives. But what struck me the most was when we started talking about what the church tells us about sex. Linda and I talked a little about it when we met the next week, but it has been bothering me ever since. 

Why don't we talk about sex in the church? I'm not saying that the Sunday sermon is necessarily the best place to discuss the pros and cons of sex, sexuality, etc. Yet it's not as if sex doesn't exist in the Bible. God told Adam and Eve to "Be fruitful and multiply." Abraham and Sarah had fertility issues. Jacob had two wives, two concubines, and thirteen children! David, the great king, slept with his friend's wife. Jesus talks with prostitutes and those who have committed adultery. And there's no lack of discussion on circumcision in the Bible. But this was one of the first--if not THE first--time that I've discussed sex in a church setting. We didn't even do that in campus ministry at college. 

What are we so afraid of? Look at the traditional ways the church has dealt with the issue of sex. Either we ignore it completely, or we convince everyone that sex is somehow dirty and wrong, or we declare that having sex before marriage somehow makes you less perfect. None of these is the right way to talk about something that God obviously intended for us. Surely if God thought sex was dirty, God would have created us in another way. And in Bible times, sex WAS marriage, so how can we declare something like that? There's no way that never talking about sex ever ever ever in the church is the right answer. It's part of God's creation, and God declared the whole of creation good. 
 
If we don't talk about sex with the adolescents in our congregations, where are they going to learn? Sure, they'll learn the mechanics, some scary results, and possibly some options for contraception in school. Parents can talk to them, but is that enough? Can that combat everything they're going to hear from their friends, all the dirty jokes and bragging? What if we took the time in church to teach them that sex is a gift from God, and what that means? What if we taught them about how to deal with the hormones and emotions they experience on a daily basis right now? What if we taught them how to be friends with other boys and girls without feeling the pressure to use their sexuality inappropriately?

I'm definitely not claiming to have the answers. This is one of those situations where all I know is that what we're doing now isn't working. I'm not sure how to fix it, but I know we should. 


Wes: Here are some of my thoughts on sex:


Why is it called the birds and the bees? I've always wondered that...


I read somewhere (maybe in Rob Bell's "Sex God" but I'm not promising anything) that throughout history, curse words have developed around the thing that each culture holds as the most important thing. This is why so many older curse words, such as the use of the Lord's name in vain, focus around God. It's also why, during the Black Plague, the word "bloody" became a strong curse word in Europe--blood was extremely important, especially if it was healthy and still running in someone's veins. I think it is interesting that a number of our "worst" curse words all deal with either the act of copulation or the body parts that are used for said activity. 


I think the most I have ever heard about sex in church--in any setting, be it youth group, confirmation, adult Bible study, or anything else within the confines of the local church--is when someone read the Scripture that includes "so-and-so begetting so-and-so" (please keep in mind that this is not a direct quotation; the Bible does not actually contain the phrase "so-and-so" in Hebrew or Greek). The Lutherans might have the Methodists beat on this point... But only on this point.


I can vividly remember, though, being in settings with other denominations, such as a youth camp and FCA and even a See You At The Pole, where sex was not only brought up, but extra-marital sex was openly condemned and portrayed as the absolute worst thing that any God-fearing man or woman could ever do. I always felt like this was an unhelpful way to approach the problem. It was like telling someone not to eat that cake or not to press the red button. Of course they are going to have icing around their lips, and the alarms will be going off because the doomsday device is now working at full power. Tell someone--let's say, for instance, a teenage boy--that he is absolutely not allowed under any circumstances to do something--let's say, for instance, sex--and most of the time that one activity will pervade the majority of his waking thoughts. There has to be a better way to teach abstinence, and I don't mean by doing what my church obviously did, which was ignore the subject completely.


I will say that I was able to have wonderful one-on-one conversations with my good friends within the church about sex and through these conversations I learned a lot about my views, what Scripture said, and how the church could better portray this. I also am very grateful to have had the opportunity to participate in Chrysalis, a Walk to Emmaus style retreat for high schoolers. They break the groups up for the weekend into a guy's retreat and girl's retreat and then go through different topics. Two of these topics were sex in marriage and celibacy in singleness. These talks, given by lay leaders from the area, were real and very influential for both my own growth as well as the growth of who knows how many other guys. 


I was also very lucky to be a part of a Men's Spirituality Group at TLU that dealt with a number of hard issues, and even though I don't remember a specific one about sex, we did speak quite a lot about the needs, responsibilities, and roles that men play in their different relationships throughout life. In the myriad of conversations that we had, I am sure that even if the subject of sex was not broached, it was the one place that I would have felt absolutely comfortable in speaking about it with others. 


So. I guess in summary: Sex is a good, God-given thing that the church needs to find a better way of addressing. This does not include trying to scare the sex out of adolescents. It also does not include completely shying away from the subject. Open, frank discussions about sex are good things. Finally, why is it called the birds and bees?


I really want to know... Someone google it for me. 


Well, TTFN: Ta Ta For Now. You stay classy, World Wide Web.




Love, Jess and Wes

Stewardship

Jess: Alright, it’s finally here: the long-neglected, long-awaited post on stewardship. I promised Andrew that we would write this over a month ago, but all the holiday stuff got in the way, and here we are…finally fulfilling a pretty simple promise.

Stewardship is a word that the church likes to throw around a lot, and generally neglects to actually explain. I don’t know if this is based on an assumption that everyone already knows what it means, or because we just don’t have a good grasp on it. In the Lutheran church (and maybe others), we like to bring out “stewardship,” talk about it for a few weeks, hope people give us some money, and then put it away till the next fall.

Before I get too deep into my argument about how I think we abuse the concept of stewardship, I’ll give a couple of definitions of it. The term comes from the occupation of “steward,” someone who was in charge of property or certain tasks. Wikipedia says stewardship, “is an ethic that embodies responsible planning and management of resources.” The church frequently only talks about stewardship in the sense of “making sure you pledge a good amount of money to the church so we can make our budget.” And therein lies my problem.

I don’t know any pastors who like talking about money, and I think that’s where some of the problems develop. Pastors, who benefit from the (monetary) stewardship of parishoners and who are dependent upon the generosity or obligation of said parishoners, have a hard time saying, “we need your money.” I don’t know anyone who likes listening to sermons about money, either. It’s kind of like how no one likes to talk about sex in the church—it just seems dirty.

I am convinced, however, that a real, lasting effort toward a holistic approach to stewardship would change this attitude drastically. If we spent the whole year talking about stewardship as a way of life, as something that we do with each passing day, people will start to understand its scope. Yes, we will still have to have the “money talk” each year. Yet it will be in the context of a long-term discussion of our stewardship of all aspects of our life: financial, environmental, emotional, our talents, our time, physical, etc.

Stewardship is a way of living. We are called to be good stewards of the earth. God told Adam and Eve, “‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ God said, ‘See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.’ And it was so.” If we have dominion over all the earth, we have a duty to care for it all. This is environmental stewardship. Although we talk about his at the seminary, it is not usually a topic of importance within the church.

All that we have is from the Lord. Stewardship is about caring for all that God has entrusted to us with love and respect for the One who created the earth and all that is in it. Yes, this includes our money, but financial stewardship is not all-encompassing. Perhaps if we started emphasizing this in our churches, people would recognize that coming and painting the halls of the church, spending time with shut-ins, teaching the children, limiting our use of natural resources, and offering some of our financial resources to the church are all parts of our stewardship, our care and thankfulness for all that God has created.

Wes: First off, ditto to everything that Jess said up there. She's one smart double-chocolate chip cookie. The following are small portions of a sermon I gave on stewardship. I promise I'm not (just) being lazy. I worked hard to formulate my thoughts on this, and want to put forth my best work for you, our loyal blog reader.

Stewardship is the practice of right utilization of the gifts and resources that our generous God has given to our care. For those in the church, it means giving to God--in some form and fashion--all that God has given to us so that it might truly bring glory to the Almighty. Our offerings of our resources and money are ways that we tell God how much we love him. They are acts of worship. Our offering is very dear to God because it shows that we are willing to give of our resources and ourselves to show our love to God. Our tithes and offerings are a tangible sign of our desire to live wholly for God. It is a spiritual discipline, an act of faith.

Now, when most people think of spiritual disciplines, they think of things like prayer, or fasting, or reading the Bible. They are good practices for the faithful Christian, and are usually acts that, like learning to play a musical instrument, take time and practice to master. So what can we mean when we say that tithing, giving of our resources to God, is a spiritual discipline? Well, just like how praying (especially out loud in public) is something most people have to work on before they are accomplished at it and comfortable with it, giving is something that we might not be particularly comfortable with at first. Giving, especially when we cannot immediately see how we benefit from it, is something that goes against worldly understanding. Giving our tithe and offering to God is not something that can be understood by the world. It takes a fair measure of faith to be able to give to God in this way, especially in financially troubling times such as this.

But this is something that we are called to do. In fact, from the earliest biblical times, the primary way that people worshipped God was not by the singing of praise songs or listening to sermons. The primary act of worship was building an altar and offering the fruit of one’s labors upon it to God. Scripture tells us that from as early as Adam’s children, Cain and Abel, God’s people were giving their best from crop and herd to God.  Abraham and Jacob were the first to build altars and sacrifice their best to the Lord to show obedience and honor to God. Moses recorded God’s words on tithing in Leviticus: “A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD; it is holy to the LORD.”

Now, as Christians, we are not bound by the Law of Moses, but we do see it as a guideline for how to live a holy life. That is why we still practice tithing and many other acts as described in the Torah. We should give God God’s tithe first (tithe actually means “first-fruits”) and then use the rest of our money and resources as we see fit.

So why is it that today we have people saying things like, “I give of my time and energy so I don’t need to give God my money”? This should be like saying, “I give a lot of money to the church so I don’t really need to pray or go to worship.” It is unacceptable. We as faithful disciples of Christ need to answer his call to engage in all forms of spiritual disciplines, not just the ones that tend to come easier to us. It might not be easy at first, but the more that we give, the more we will want to give. Working on giving is an act of discipleship. The more we work at it, the better we are at it.

Reverend Virjilio Vasquez-Garza was my District Superintendent when I declared my intent to enter the ministry. He is a wonderful person and a very wise man of God. I learned from another pastor friend that while growing up in Mexico, Virjilio, from his first pay day on, always gave a portion of his earnings to God. He would wake up early on Sunday mornings, take out his offering, and iron the bills so that they would be as crisp and clean as possible. He was proud of his offering, and would place it each week in the offering plate with great reverence, knowing that he was helping, in some small way, to fund the work of the Lord in his community.

Virjilio understood that discipleship is more about the need of the disciple to give than it is about the need of the church to receive. He was able to engage in worship through his financial faithfulness to God, giving joyfully even when he did not have any extra. He answered God’s call to be a good steward of God’s world and its resources.

That is what stewardship means. It is much, much more than giving a regular offering to the church. As Christians, we are stewards here on earth of God’s resources. Stewardship is giving back to God what is God’s and taking care of what God has entrusted us with. Our goal is to determine what God wants us to go with the resources we have at our disposal.

A good friend and colleague of mine, Ryan, went to visit a church in Rwanda and was greeted by the pastor and the congregation in the same manner. Everyone came up to him and grasped his hand while placing one arm over the other. After he had met everyone and shaken everyone’s hands, Ryan asked the pastor, Nathan Amoede, about this handshake, for he had noticed they did not shake each others hands in this way. Pastor Nathan told him that they had shaken his hand using the sign of highest respect, acknowledging him as a holy person. Soon after this conversation, the service started. When it came time for the offering, the plates were not passed row by row. Instead, Nathan placed a basket at the front of the church and the people, after they had prayed and spent some time hearing from God, walked up to the front of the church and placed their offering in the basket while placing one hand over the other arm, the same exact way that they had greeted Ryan.

When they gave their offering, they were not simply giving money to the church, they were grasping hands with the Almighty, partnering with God in the work of the Kingdom. What an amazing way to understand the offering time!

Well, that is plenty from us today! So what are your thoughts on stewardship and tithing? How do you understand your giving to God?


We look forward to hearing from you, and until then, you stay classy, World Wide Web!




-wes and jess

New Year's--Cain Style

Jess: This should be the last in a long series of blogs about holidays. Those things just creep up on you and keep coming, don't they? And now we're in that awkward/awful stretch where there's really nothing to look forward to until spring break--and that's only for the lucky few of us who are in school. 


The point is, the Christmas/New Year's time is an interesting mess for us because we're--well--crazy. We decided many moons ago (like, three years), that we would get married on January first. Originally, we were going to get married on January 23 (get it? 1/23?), but then we realized that we would have slightly over a week between wedding and classes starting for Wes. Although this was feasible, we didn't really want to have a honeymoon that consisted of driving cross-country. Not exactly the relaxing vacation we were thinking of. So we decided to bump the wedding earlier, and it worked out great. Now we have Christmas, New Year's/anniversary, and Wes' birthday all within two weeks of each other. 


So with all of that madness PLUS the fact that we had family here until the first, I didn't even write New Year's resolutions this year. I always write resolutions, and then I put them into a Word document that I look at periodically throughout the year. I try to do one or two goals in a bunch of categories, so I don't end up with something like "lose weight," "eat better," "read more." That's never going to happen, and I'll probably never looks at that again anyway. 


Last year, Wes and I wrote up a list of the things we learned over our first year of marriage. I think this year I'll talk a little about what my goals for this coming year are--including in our marriage. That's not to say we didn't learn anything in 2011. Goodness knows I learn something about Wes almost every day. And most of it scares me. (Just kidding, Wes). 


So here's a short list of my "resolutions" or "goals" or "things I want to do" for the upcoming year:


1. Really start focusing on my health. Rather than thinking about eating well and working out for awhile and then just giving up, I want to achieve consistency. 
2. Learn how to give myself some Sabbath time. I know that I'm good at accomplishing things. I'm also good at doing completely pointless, time-wasting things. I want to be intentional about taking some time to rest and talk with God. 
3. Save up some money for some really fun stuff. We spent a good chunk of 2011 saving up money for a car, and then paying back what we had borrowed from our savings for the rest of the down payment. I know we can save money when we put our minds to it--I want to save money for a fun trip, or something like that. 
4. Be more generous with my time and money. Last year, I made a resolution to do some sort of service project every month. I didn't do so well on that, and I feel like that makes me a hypocrite. Part of being a Christian is being Christ-like, and Christ helped people with all that he had. 
5. Make the most of the time Wes and I have together. We spend a lot of time in class and at work, away from each other, and that's been tough on us this last semester. Part of what made it worse was not taking the time to have a fun date night or just hang out and talk when we did have some time together. I want to work on doing a better job of that. 


I never try to make too many goals, but I like to do enough that I have some things to think about as the New Year begins and throughout the year. I'm pretty excited about what 2012 will bring for us. We're pretty settled in our marriage, we're pretty settled in New Jersey, and we're pretty settled in school--and there's a very good chance that change will come and we'll have to adapt. Gasp!


Wes: So here are my goals/resolutions for the year:


1. Make it to my 24th birthday.
2. Finish seminary.
3. Continue to work leading a healthier life. I've been working out much more than I have in the past, and I've felt better than I have in a long time, but I have a long ways to go before I am where I want to be. I realize that I am very overweight--I won't use the WiiFit because I'm tired of it yelling at me--and I don't want to maintain the lifestyle I am living now. 
4. Read 40 books for funsies.
5. Read all of my books for my classes.
6. Manage my time better. I need a Sabbath time.
7. Take Jess out on more dates. 
8. Build something cool with my hands. 


What are your resolutions/goals for the new year?


We want to hear from you!


You stay classy, World Wide Web!




-wes and jess