2nd Place Winner
Bodies of KnowledgeNathan Meckley - New Spirit Community Church, Berkeley, CA USA
Bodies of Knowledge
Preached: Sunday, 25 April 1999 (St. Jude’s MCC, Wilmington, North Carolina, USA)
Revised for submission: July 2004
Text references: Genesis 3:7-11 & John 1:14
I don’t know about you and your family, but my family likes to tell stories about one another. This trait turns out to be useful – even though sometimes slightly dangerous -- for a preacher and their family! I’ll share one of the stories my mother tells on me. I grew up in a very rural area: no sidewalks, no streetlights. We could see our neighbors, but they were fairly far away. A dairy farm was up the road and another farm was directly across the unpaved road on which we lived. The driveway to our house was loose, gray limestone gravel. Especially in summer, large patches of dust would open up in the gravel driveway. Almost like dry, dirt puddles. They were pools of very fine, powdery brown dust and the birds loved to take dust baths in them. One afternoon, my mother looked out of the dining room window that overlooked the driveway. Much to her surprise, in one of the dust pools she saw not a bird taking a dust bath – but me! I had peeled off all my clothes and was sitting in the middle of the driveway happily dusting myself with this fine, brown powder. I would have been no more than 3 or 4 at the time, and although I have no memory of it myself, it makes perfect sense that, as a child, I would have observed the birds and thought they had a perfectly good idea – so I decided to try it too!
A few weeks ago I was spending the evening with my two goddaughters. They are 3 and 4 years old now – beautiful little girls. After dinner and playtime, it was time for them to get ready for bed. So their moms trundled them off to their bedroom. Only moments later, back out they ran, squealing gleefully, running naked through the whole house, romping and laughing. Free and blissfully un-self-conscious about their bodies.
Bodies are good! And they’re fun! Kids know that. And because children demonstrate that so well it touches and amuses us. Often we see it as charming or cute. Sometimes, it makes us uncomfortable, too.
In the context of these two innocent -- even sweet -- childhood anecdotes, the question we heard in the Genesis reading is a haunting one: “Who told you you were naked?” Who told you first? When did you first learn you were naked? It’s a message most of us learn so early we may even have no memory of it. We are taught to conceal our nakedness. And we so often learn messages to distrust or even to be ashamed of the revelation of our bodies.
The other reading we heard -- the passage from John -- points us in another direction, towards an ultimate endorsement of the goodness of bodies. The eternal Divine – the Word of God became flesh. The holy became a human body. Bodies are good.
Not only are bodies good -- sex is good! Does that sound odd in church? Today, I would paraphrase God’s question in Genesis for us: “Who told you sex was bad?”
The sermon title, “Bodies of Knowledge,” is a play on words. In the Hebrew Bible the word yadah literally means, “to know,” but it is a frequent euphemism for sexual intercourse – hence the expression “to know someone in the Biblical sense.” And also, because of the experiences we all have living in our bodies, each of us has accumulated a great deal of knowledge -- much of which we are often unaware. Each of you is a volume in an encyclopedic collection of knowledge here at St. Jude’s MCC. And while we may be more knowledgeable than we think, not everything we know is healthy or healing. Our bodies have both helpful and hurtful knowledge – memories and learnings that are both joyful and painful.
So, what are some of the things we may know?
Many of us know that talking and sharing about our bodies and our sexuality can be hard and it can bring up different, sometimes difficult feelings – perhaps especially in church. Now, I want you to know I am not of the opinion that everything is appropriate to be shared in any forum! There is a wise expression, however, that “we are as sick as our secrets.” I would like you to consider today, that if you find yourself feeling uncomfortable hearing or talking about this, take a moment to examine your feelings and thoughts. Consider if your response comes from a place of shame or secrecy – perhaps from an outer message that communicates sexuality is bad or dirty. Or does it come from another place? Perhaps you carry an inner sense of modesty or privacy – that sexuality is to be honored or treasured and not to be openly shared. Maybe you carry some of both – perhaps conflicted feelings about your body and your sexuality.
Another thing we may know is that sexuality connects us quite directly to our bodies. Unlike almost anything else, sexuality has a way of immediately reminding us that we are always in our bodies. It’s a persistent sign that we live in the world in an embodied way. As much as we may try to deny or repress or control it – there it is -- popping back up, reminding us we are bodies!
Most of us also somehow feel that our sexuality seems quite separate from our spirituality. Our body as being separated from our spirit. That is not good news. But the more consciously we acknowledge those divisions and the more clearly we see their sources, we become able to recognize our woundedness and brokenness for what it is. You cannot help but recognize the manifestations of some of that woundedness in our community and our world. The confusion and schizophrenia of the US Congress moralizing over Bill Clinton’s relationship with Monica Lewinski[1] – yet salaciously pouring over each detail. Simultaneously we’re disgusted and obsessed. You also, cannot ignore the painful stories of child sexual abuse and the stories of adults numbing themselves with alcohol or drugs to have sex. Difficult stories that are part of the lives of individuals in this community even.
We live in a culture with a deep and painful wound. By splitting apart, both through teaching and example, the integral parts of what is to be a whole person -- mind, body, soul, emotion, sexuality, spirituality – into fragmented parts, into discreet, separate pieces; we vivisect ourselves. Cut apart, these essential components of humanness cannot communicate or inform each other. Elements of humanity designed to interrelate to each other are isolated and evolve in peculiar ways. Sounds like a B-rated horror movie, doesn’t it? By splitting spirituality from sexuality we cut them loose from each other. Divorced from our sexuality, our spirituality no longer benefits from the deep grounding in the realities of our bodies and our senses – sensitively shaped by the ways we touch one another and the world. Jettisoned from our spirituality, our sexuality expresses itself in ways that are not harmonious with or guided by the framework and values of what we believe is ultimately meaningful. How could it be otherwise? We have been torn asunder at our deepest core! Unlike God in Jesus, as described in the passage from John, most of us have yet to experience incarnation! Our spirit and our flesh often remain strangers – or are even considered enemies.
That’s difficult knowledge.
So, if we know our woundedness, what’s the good news?
The good news is that re-uniting and reconciling them is healing. And healing is the job of the church. The church has always been in the healing business – or it is supposed to be, isn’t it? What a tragedy that the Church has been feeding this woundedness rather than healing it!
It’s here that MCC has an unavoidable task and mission -- a unique position and opportunity – and even a prophetic role.
While the schism between sexuality and spirituality is not at all unique to GLBT people, like it or not, GLBT folks carry uniquely “sexualized baggage.” We may resist it as “others” projecting upon us or fear that talking like this will play into a stereotype that gays are “sex-obsessed.” Or we may carry it grudging, perhaps feeling it is a cross to bear. Or we may celebrate it and welcome queer sexuality as a gift. Whatever your place on that continuum, GLBT identity – rightly or wrongly -- carries with it sexual baggage.
Likewise, the church carries – we might say – “spiritualized baggage.” The tradition has become; quite literally, “out of touch” with people’s lived realities. Its message is often seen as archaic or irrelevant to the way people live their lives – especially how they express their sexuality.
But by being MCC, you are proclaiming a message that is still radical – even at the cusp of the 21st century. The message that GLBT people and the church belong together. And that springs from an even deeper message: human sexuality – in ALL its varied forms – and spirituality belong together. Whether you have known it or not, by being here, you have undertaken a healing journey. Not just a journey that can heal you, but a journey that can help heal a deep and painful wound that plagues our world.
I believe healing the ongoing division between sexuality and spirituality remains the deep and abiding underlying call of MCC. There are centuries of brokenness to bind up – and we’ve only just begun!
Do we have what we need to do the job? What do we know? What is our body of knowledge?
We can know that bodies are good and sexuality is good.
That splitting our sexuality from our spirituality – our bodies from our souls -- is wounding.
Re-uniting them is healing -- and church should be in the healing business.
This MCC and every MCC has a particular gift and calling to be in this kind of healing business.
What if we tried to fully live with this kind of knowledge? What might it look like or feel like? In some ways it may seem so different than what we’ve know before. What can guide us into this kind of healing?
Yesterday we talked about the power of stories to transform our lives,[2] so I’d like to share a couple of stories with you. The first one is intimate and deeply personal. I’m not sharing it to make you uncomfortable. I want to assure you it doesn’t come from a place of secrecy or shame in myself, but from an honored place. So as I do so, if you experience some discomfort, I’d like to remind you to please take a moment to explore where that feeling may be coming from in you.
About seven years ago two friends of mine approached me, a lesbian couple I had known for several years. They were in the process of trying to get pregnant and had been inseminating with frozen sperm for quite a while with no success. They wanted to inseminate using live sperm, but they didn’t want to use an anonymous donor. They asked me if I would consider being the donor. I had never before entertained the thought. Since I have known I was gay since a very early age, the notion of fathering a child that would somehow be in my life wasn’t even on my radar screen. But I told them I would seriously consider it. After a great deal of contemplation, I ultimately agreed.
At the same time I had a friend who was a counselor who specialized in pre and perinatal psychology. I was talking with her about this new situation and was telling her how I was thinking and talking with my friends about what my relationship with a future child might be like. In agreeing to go ahead, I had imagined a future relationship something like being a “close uncle.” She listened nicely (as counselors know how to do) and then she startled me by saying with amusement, “You’re in denial. It doesn’t matter what you call yourself and what your ultimate relationship with the child or the mothers will be, you will still be the father of a child. You will have helped create a life. That means something more than you’re allowing yourself to feel.” After she so successfully shattered the tidy boundaries I had created, I had to reflect much more deeply and talk much more intentionally with my friends.
And we began the process of insemination. Because of an anomaly in the angle of the cervix of the mother who would carry the baby, we didn’t expect a quick or easy success. Over the course of 2 years, we inseminated about 12 times. Because it was such a long process, we became very close. I came to learn the rhythms of her body. She would “warn me” a few days in advance that we were getting ready to try again. (I would have to “save up,” you know…) Then, when the right time arrived, they would come to my apartment in the morning – plastic cup in hand – and wait anxiously in the living room as I went into the bedroom to do my part.
Not only did I learn a lot (perhaps more than I even wanted to..!) about ovulation, cycles and insemination, I ended up having my own personal epiphany during the process. It started the first time I went into my bedroom with the plastic cup and shut the door. Fueled by the wisdom of my counselor friend, I was aware that the motivation for what I was about to do was quite different that it had ever had before. I was confronted with a real quandary. I needed to be sexually aroused and I wanted to be truly present in a loving and giving way. The motivation, the context, the intention and the end were all quite different. After more than 20 years (and a lot of practice..!) I had to find a new way to do this! I needed to discover an inner balancing act: a way I could maintain the necessary sexual arousal and be spiritually aware at the same time. To balance my personal inventory of arousing memories and images with earnest, prayerful attention. What ultimately emerged for me was a brief mantra-like prayer. Something that could easily be summoned back and forth, could ebb and flow, like the arousing thoughts. I ended up with this brief prayer: “May the good things in me be carried on in this holy child of yours; this holy child of ours.”
The only words for what this was are too clinical, negative or inadequate. We don’t have a rich enough vocabulary for masturbation to capture what I was trying to do. Most of our slang expressions are really violent words like “jerk,” “beat,” “choke.” Even the best one’s such as “self-pleasuring” or “self-loving” – as wonderful as those things are -- didn’t fit what was going on. Even though I was alone, that was not even half of what I was doing. In searching for descriptive words and images the only expression that has felt close is one that’s used to describe what nursing mothers can do: express milk. I like to think of what I was doing as expressing semen. Even as the words seem to say in my short prayer, I was hoping to express a part of my very essence. I was expressing myself.
Let me share another story. This one is a story about two sisters.
There were two young sisters who were very close. They were close in age and looked so much alike, they were sometimes thought to be twins. Very much alike in almost every respect. Not only sisters, they were the closest and best of friends, playing together constantly. They were virtually inseparable. But sadly, as so often happens, the family ended up broken. The parents underwent an angry, painful and bitter divorce and the sisters were tragically torn apart. One parent took one girl -- the other parent took the other. The parents, struggling to cope with their own pain, had decided visits were even impossible. Each could barely even speak to their daughter of the other sister. At first, each girl was bereft, confused, angry and deeply grieved. As time went on though, memories of the other sister dimmed and were almost forgotten. Almost.
After the divorce, one sister ended up being raised in a very prosperous new life. The new family was attentive and wealthy. She seemed never to lack for anything. She grew up attending the best schools, having the most popular friends, and embarking on a very successful, lucrative career. The other sister was not so lucky. After the divorce, things got worse. She eventually ended up being a ward of the state, bounced from one foster home to another. Some were awful. Others were better. None felt like home. School became an ordeal. A fulfilling career was beyond reach -- keeping a job was enough. But she still possessed the deep inner strength to persevere and had learned to take care of herself.
But for both sisters even as they became adults, in the midst of their moments of struggle or ease, they would be visited by a dull emptiness, a dim, nagging memory, and a silent longing for a nearly forgotten sister.
One day, the richer sister decided that longing wasn’t enough. She had to find her sister. So she began to search. She used every resource available, including private investigators. At long last, she learned where her sister was and with great excitement -- and genuine fear -- they arranged to meet. She flew to the city where her sister was. As they met at the airport, when they saw each other, their fears dissolved and they ran and flew into an embrace. As they held each other sobbing, it seemed as though the years themselves rolled away. It was the best embrace they had ever felt.
They stayed up all night and spent the next days catching up on their years apart. As they shared, one sister glowed in admiration of the other’s accomplishments. The other was awed by the sheer strength and creativity her sister possessed. Both felt the deep grief of so much lost – and the utter joy of being together again. With their memories refreshed, they noticed how much they were still like each other. And how deeply they still loved one another. Now that their bond was re-forged, they knew how much they had needed and wanted each other. And they knew they would never lose one another again.
The story of these two sisters is a parable. One of them is our spirituality. The other is our sexuality. They have been torn apart. Perhaps one has received greater attention and the other neglect. But they cannot and have not forgotten each other. They yearn to be brought back together. And they need your help. Where are you on their journey of reconciliation?
You -- and we -- can help make that re-introduction
We can experience and witness that happy reunion
Reforging that bond of communication and communion can strengthen your life and the lives of those around you.
We know that our bodies and souls must live together as one.
We know that our sexuality and spirituality are not strangers or enemies, but must be re-united and reconciled.
And we know that we are in that healing business.
Our bodies of knowledge are healing.
Your body of knowledge is healing.