David and Bathsheba in the News

At the Cabinet meeting on Saturday, I encouraged those in attendance to think about the specific sermons that they remembered from the previous year. Lots of sermons were remembered (which suggests many positive things), but one was assumed to be remembered by all, even by those who had not been in the sanctuary to hear it. I remember it as the sermon on David and Bathsheba, but it is generally referred to as "the sex sermon."

I was reminded of this sermon again on Monday reading my email. Every week I receive "Sightings," which is an email essay by the well known (and ultra-well published) church historian Martin Marty (retired from the University of Chicago Divinity School). This week he writes about a report co-released by the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing and Union Theological Seminary encouraging theological schools to require students to take courses dealing with religion and sexuality.

Marty quite rightly recognizes that many socially active groups wish that seminaries would teach more courses that deal with their pet issues and the impossibility of teaching resources stretching far enough to cover all the current curriculum fads.

But then he goes on to suggest that it would benefit students who would be pastors, rabbis, educators and other religious professional to study sexuality in relationship to ethics, scripture, theology, and culture. Unlike the institute, he is not merely interested in LGBT issues and sexual violence, but the whole gamut of issues that face religious people despite a large groups fervent wish that such divisive (or repugnant) issues would just go away. As he writes, "It is hard to get around the observation that, overall, sexual issues -- be they biological, theological, or moral -- are the most controversial subjects in religion today."

And Marty concludes his essay with this comment:

In this half-century, like it or not, understandings of human sexuality combined with issues of authority -- who decides about practices? -- concern every body from Mennonites to Greek Orthodox. Clerical abuse scandals have undercut trust relations in parishes and denominations. The press, understandably, "eats this up," knowing how little anyone knows about how to handle sexual themes and incidents and how hungry elements in the public are for stories about ethical lapses in matters sexual. The Institute's report may not please everyone, but it is an important wake-up call.

This is not the only wake-up call I have heard in the past months. At the Pastor's Conference I attended in September, a discussion of the challenge of the multiple generations in congregations quickly morphed into a lengthy discussion of the need to talk about sexual issues in churches and the significant challenges to doing so. The discussion was frank and probing, though not (sadly) decisive.

Matters of sexuality will need to be discussed in the context of faith, which means in the churches. Some people remember "the sex sermon" because they were appalled; some because they were challenged; some just because it seemed so controversial. I believed at the time that it was a very real step in figuring out how to incorporate this difficult and uncomfortable matter into the discussions of the church. (I would say "the life of the church," but the issue is already a central issue in the lives of those in the church, whether we admit to it or not.) Nothing has really shaken my belief that it was a faithful step in that direction. Perhaps this blog entry is another faithful step.