SEX AS A SACRAMENT

SEX AS A SACRAMENT

By. J.B Nyamunga

The most important task of the church is to emphasize the sacramental character of sex. As a symbol of spiritual reality, sexuality takes on the sacred character. A spiritual gift emerges through this physical act.

This concept is probably an intuitive conclusion rising out of the essentially sacramental character of life. In a more modern times sexuality has been divorced form the whole man and delegated or derogated, to the biological and psychological dimension.

Heretical and pagan religious movements have often observed the sacredness of sex. Unfortunately it has not been considered as the divine-human encounter of Biblical sexuality, but has been made explicitly in religious activities. 

In the First letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians, Paul urges his readers to “Glorify God in your body.” They would be well aware of sexual orgies at the nearby temple of Aphrodite, where pagan Corinthians visited temple prostitutes in the name of worship.

By way of contrast to this blasphemous violation of God’s gift, Paul encouraged the Christians to see their sexuality as sacramental, a means of glorifying God.

This reminds us of the essential awfulness of pornographic literature which makes the sacred profane. It tempts one to consider his sexuality as an end in itself and to express it in a way that will deny its inherent spiritual character. Reacting by denying sexuality, as many Christians seem to have done, only makes a difficult situation worse.

Denial of sexuality is in effect to accept the secular view of sex. It is to consider it base, fleshly and in opposition to the spiritual life.

Unbelievers hold a similar view of the biological essence of sex while denying God. Christian’s have tended to regard the privacy of the sexual act as the means of hiding from view of stigma of his expression of lust, in sort of vain hope of being secluded from God and neighbor. However, the privacy of conjugal act is not in order to conceal one’s participation in an earthy, demeaning act, but rather to respect its holiness. Just as significant worship is essentially private, so is the exercise of this divine gift to be cloistered communion.

In a guarded way, we would say that there is a significant parallel with the entering of the high priest into the holy of holies on the day of Atonement. His act was neither sinful nor loathsome, but rather a high and holy response to God’s instructions. It was kept from the public eye because of its sacramental character.

Sexuality is a unique function whereby the Christian may grow in grace and in the knowledge of the lord. Its nature as a sacrament ought to be taught early and forthrightly in the context of Christian education. We should be convinced that this would strengthen the church and support a proper psychosexual development of Christian youth.

© J. B. Nyamunga’20