Bishop Barron on Sexuality, Sacrifice, and Love

one of the communist complaints about Catholicism is that it's the religion of no especially in the area of sexuality it appears as though when the rest of the culture is moving in a much more progressive direction in that regard the church seems to be kind of a crabbed old-fashioned puritanical finger-wagging no religion well I first want to make a distinction between two types of no there's no pure and simple by which I mean a no to something positive think of someone who's jealous and someone success appears to them and they say no to it they simply try to undermine it or think of a racist who sees the object of his irrational hatred and he says no to him and tries to undermine him well those are just negations pure and simple but there's another kind of know what you might say is a note to a know something negative is going on and you say no to it in fact you're in service of a higher yes think of it as a no to a no which is sort of a double negative it constitutes actually a great yes your example of this any golf coach worth is salt will say no far more often than he says yes that's because there are a thousand ways to swing the golf club improperly so you say no to all of those but it's in service of the great yes which is the right way to swing the golf club well can I suggest that the churches know in regard to sexuality is a no of the second type it's not a Puritanism it's not a negation of the body or pleasure or sexuality it's a no to a no it's a no to a distortion of what sexuality ought to be now what is the great yes I mean what is the church's view of what sex ought to be what can I suggest looking at it perhaps surprising plays namely Paul's letter to the Romans chapter 12 and we find this line which is fascinating Paul says I urge you therefore by the mercies of God to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God your spiritual worship now here's Paul talking to a first century audience that was well aware of this practice of sacrifice or an ancient Israelite do well he bring to the Temple in Jerusalem an unblemished animal lamb or a sheep or Bowl or something and he would sacrifice the animal to Yahweh as a sign of a forgiveness of reparation or of of communion or a Thanksgiving what was he doing he was aligning himself thereby to God he was bringing his mind his will his whole person onto line with Yahweh no ancient Israelite ever thought for a second that God needed these sacrifices think of some of the pagan gods and goddesses who seemed to need our worship that's not true in the Bible but the ancient Israelite knew he needed sacrifice because in the very act of sacrifice he was becoming conformed unto God okay so Paul says I urge you to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God to construe your whole life as an offering by which you become conformed to God that's what he means now take one more step who is this God that Paul is urging the Romans here to sacrifice to it's the god who's disclosed in Jesus Christ as love look in first John and we find that famous line god is love therefore when we live in God we live in love right now put the logic together to sacrifice the whole of yourself to God is to become conformed to God but God is love therefore to sacrifice the whole of your life and that means mind will passions emotions body sexuality that means everything in you is being transformed into love okay what's the Church's teaching on sexuality that your sexuality is meant to become love it's meant to become a vehicle of love it's meant to be conformed unto love and when it slides off of that conformity that's when the church says no when it becomes what it's not supposed to be then the church says no to that no it's in service of the great yes now we make it just a little more specific so does the church for example say no to rape and to sexual abuse and to manipulation well sure those are obvious betrayals of love so of course the church says no to those but does it also say no to sex outside of that total mutual commitment in love that we call marriage yeah because sex is meant to be a vehicle of love within that context push it further the church also say no to a conscious and deliberate blocking of the procreative function of sex yeah because that's meant to be another way of expressing love it says no to egregious violations of love sure rape and sexual abuse and so on but it also says no to these more subtle betrayals of love now I know a lot of people would balk today and they'd say well look I'm sure we should condemn rape and sexual abuse but when it comes to other expression shouldn't we allow people much more personal flexibility well forgive me again for these golf examples but they can't help me someone's working with a good golf teacher he will correct his egregious fault here's that did really basic things you're doing wrong but anyone who really wants to have an excellent swing wants that coach to press it further press beyond just the egregious problems and say well no here's some more subtle from finer points that you need work on he'll want him to keep saying no to these inadequate expressions of the golf swing furthermore he'd want his teacher seems to me to hold up to him the highest ideals you know don't just hold up some junior player don't hold up some decent weekend golfer no no hold up to me Fred Couples and Jack Nicklaus and Rory McIlroy hold up the best golfers you can think of I want them to be the high ideals see the point is we would never tolerate such leniency and mediocrity when it comes to areas of life that we take seriously you know or just correct you know the major problems then do whatever you want would you accept it if you were trying to learn a musical instrument would you accept it if you're trying to swing the golf club would you accept it in any area of life that you take seriously that well just serious stuff you know get rid of bad but then the rest is do what you want no no when people are serious by something they want that very refined that steady correction so that they might come to excellence so the church is trying to bring us into conformity with the love that God is at all levels including the level of sexuality and that's why the church corrects us and cajoles us and encourages us and holds up to us very high ideals should the church dial down its ideals because we often fail well no of course we often fail just as we often fail to hit the golf ball properly it doesn't mean you dial down the high ideals the church holds those up to us continually see the bottom line is the churches many knows are so strong because it's yes to what sex on a bee is so ringing

Channel: Bishop Robert Barron

Views: 156,870

Keywords: Fr. Robert Barron, Word On Fire, Catholic, catholicism, ministry, christianity, Jesus, Christ, God, Holy Spirit, Church, bible, faith, spirituality, Lord, gospel, St. Paul, sacrifice, sex, sexuality, marriage, atheism, atheist

Id: iOK0q4XX1YM

Length: 8min 56sec (536 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 09 2011