The God of the Orgasm (please read on...)

This past weekend we launched into a new series: "The Vineyard". It's a delicate treatment of the laws of attraction, the vibes between the sexes, the institution and the unfortunate institutionalization of marriage, the delicacies of sex, the longings of the feminine heart and the masculine heart, and the undeniable and unmistakable distance that lies between where we are and the Vineyard of Eden.

I do quite a bit of preaching within the cycle of an average year. 40 weeks of teaching three services each weekend, retreats, conferences, training groups, college classes, chapels, etc. . . . and without a doubt the most captive audience is the one who is listening to any and all thoughts on the intriguing and fatiguing mystery of romance between the sexes. You can cut the atmosphere with a knife. You can hear a pin drop. You can see wincing faces. Longing eyes. Hurting hearts. Pursed lips mimicking your words when you're speaking a cultural belief like "Beauty is skin deep" or the addendum that my dad used piggyback on that little limerick, "...but ugly goes clear to the bone." (Hahaha)

They are poised, fixated, transfixed. It matters very little what you say, anything that comes out of your mouth is like water on the parched lips of a thirsty beggar. This was the first weekend in a long time that I didn't see one person slipping into a deep sleep while I was pontificating. People were all ears. Teens were all ears. The elderly were all ears...that's right...the elderly!

Even menopause is no match for the power of romance. You can take the uterus out of woman, but you cannot surgically remove her heart that pines for romance. You can struggle with E.D. and yet simultaneously be obsessed with being desired by a woman or desiring a woman. No one is immune . . . romance is no respecter of persons. It will chase you. It will find you. You can run, but you cannot hide. People know this. Even when they don't acknowledge it, they still know it. I could see it written all over everyone's faces this last weekend.

They are starving for God's thoughts on sex, gender, romance, attraction, and marriage. They love to hear the verses that are replete throughout the Scriptures that emphasize God's passionate and, shall I say, graphic feelings about this reverent issue of sexuality. It's sad that most people feel like any commentary or dialogue on this topic is irreverent and inappropriate. It's like we think God blushes like a 6 year old when the topic of sex comes up. But he created it, he created us.

He created an orgasm. It feels even weird to write that down to be read out loud because there's something inside of me that feels like that word came post-fall. Like there's something sinful about it or something. But he was the one who hard wired us to have those euphoric little experiences. He delicately placed the veins close to the skin and created the nerve endings to function just so. He is the one who, humorously in my opinion, created us with an insatiable desire for each other's most disgusting body parts. The very parts of our bodies that excrete waste are the same ones that we long for. I would have loved to be in the Holy Trinity on that day of creation . . .

The Father - "I want to make man in our image."

The Son - "I've got an idea."

The Father - "What's that?"

The Son - "Let's make two sexes who are attracted to each other."

The Father - "I like it."

The Son - "Let's call it sex and gives them both hormones that rage and course through their veins to make it almost irresistible."

The Father - "Ok, and you're thinking this is how they will multiply themselves?"

The Son - "For sure...it will be beautiful."

The Spirit - "That sounds really cool, but I have an idea that could really be funny...so funny that they will never doubt that someone created them."

The Son - "What's that?"

The Spirit - "What if we created them to be attracted to the most unattractive parts of each other? Like what if they knew intellectually that it was absurd, but physiologically it didn't matter? That would be a trip!"

The Father - "Oh, that's brilliant! It's like leaving behind a calling card. They will know that there's a God if for no other reason than how unreasonable the world of sex is!"

The Son - "bwahahahaha! This is gonna be sweet."

The Spirit - "Just think about it...the places where urine, feces, milk, and bad breath originate will be unexplainably irresistible."

The Father - "Let's do it. Let's stack hands and on the count of three say "Sex" . . . "One", "Two", "Three" . . . "SEX!"

Can't you just imagine the sacred fellowship of hearts called the Trinity just belly-laughing with the shot-gun giggles of a group of toddlers in the nursery? I can. It's absurd. It's brilliant. It's deep. It's disturbing. It's mysterious.

Mystery. Yeah, that's it. That's why people can't get enough of this subject matter. That's why as I looked at people's faces this weekend I saw an almost otherworldly fascination in their eyes. There are few things we as human beings are more interested in that the enigma of romance. We hate it because it has eluded us. We love it because it has enveloped us. Either way, we can't stop thinking about it. It is an inescapable longing of the human heart.

I look forward to the next 5 weeks as we take away the "fig leaf" that has covered the naked reality of this issue for too long. "Naked and unashamed" . . . that is what our hearts are longing for again. And unfortunately, the church for too long has been "Clothed and ashamed" as it relates to sexuality.

May God speak into our longings...