Preaching on sex by Bill Hybels, part 2:
BEING SENSITIVE TO PAIN
People are sensitive about their sexuality. For instance, try questioning my masculinity, and watch what I do! I’ll throw up emotional walls, if not my fists. We’re like that when our sexuality is impugned. So I try to be tender when I talk about these matters of the heart. Since people’s understanding of their sexuality — and their practice of it over the years – – touches so close to their personal core, they are particularly aware of their shortcomings and sin.
In the area of sexuality, the guilt is unbelievable. I simply cannot talk about “Sins against your bodies” or spout “thou shalt nots” without being sensitive to the depth of pain most people already feel concerning sex. If I cannot include a word of grace, I may do irreparable damage.
In addition, if the women in my church are typical, and I have no reason to believe they aren’t, as many as half of them have had a destructive or unwanted sexual experience forced on them. Several studies bear this out. That means whenever I speak about sex, as many as half the women must deal with the pain, guilt, and unresolved feelings brought by these episodes. Therefore, I dare not treat the subject lightly.
Early in my ministry, I was naive about this reality and rather oblivious to the heightened sensitivities. I would speak on how wonderful human sexuality is. I’d go on about what a pleasurable experience it is and why God designed us as sexual creatures.
Finally a few women were thoughtful enough to pull me aside and say, “Bill, that’s great for most people to hear, but the truth of the matter is, some of us have been scarred by this ‘wonderful gift of God.’ Frankly, we think sex was a rotten idea.”
That was hard to hear. Such attitudes were foreign to me. In the sheltered Dutch enclave in which I was raised, the men would have hanged anyone who laid a finger on a girl! But today we run across the ugly scars of misappropriated sex all the time.
I had to learn that whenever I talk about the beauty of human sexuality, I have to qualify my words: “But some of you have seen the other side of this good gift; you’ve been victimized by those displaying their depravity by the abuse of sex.” And I must speak many words of comfort and understanding.
PROVIDING A MEANS OF GRACE
Reassurances that God’s grace covers sexual sin are fine, as are other expressions of comfort. But I have another responsibility when I preach about sex: I need to offer tangible ways for people broken by adverse sexual experiences to find healing.
A while back I studied the problem of pornography prior to preaching on it. As I neared the end of a protracted preparation period, I realized how many people are addicted to porn. I had to look in the mirror and say, Am I going to handle this subject with integrity, or am I going to pontificate about it and leave a bunch of trapped and wounded people feeling even worse about what they’re doing?
Giving them the word of grace — telling of God’s forgiveness — was one thing, but actually dropping a rope to pull them out of the pit was something else.
I decided to ask a Christian counselor to put together an Alcoholics Anonymous-like support group for those who were ready to deal with their pornographic addiction. Such a group would need to function under close supervision because of the nature of the problem. When I preached on pornography, I announced the forming of the group “to hold one another accountable in breaking free of that harmful addiction.” More than fifty people gathered. The group has continued and has had an effective ministry.
Unless I give people something to grasp as they let go of sexual problems, they have only their disoriented equilibrium to keep them from returning to their problems. Marriage-enrichment groups, counseling programs, mutual- accountability groups, discipleship programs with mature leaders — these offer people a way to begin to remedy their denatured sexuality.
INJECTING HUMOR
I work hard at humor; it’s one of the toughest parts of sermon preparation. As long as it’s used appropriately, its importance when preaching can hardly be overemphasized. Some people come to church not expecting to find themselves enjoying the experience. If I can get them laughing, they relax and become more open to what I’m about to say.
Particularly in preaching about sex, humor is the perfect counterbalance to the weightiness of the topic. With all that pain and guilt and sin-talk floating in the air, with people feeling nervous or perhaps expecting to be offended, anything I can say that disarms them for a moment is precious.
In one sermon I wanted to communicate the idea that sometimes even the best- laid plans in marriage go awry. I told the story of one anniversary night when I took my wife, Lynn, to the honeymoon suite of a luxury hotel. I told how I bought her flowers, took her out to dinner, had a special treat brought up to the room — the works. Of course, I was looking forward to the romantic agenda I had in mind. When we finally turned off the light, Lynn noticed a crack in the curtains letting in light from the parking lot. She got up in the dark, crossed the room, closed the curtain, and returned across the even-darker room. But just as she got to the bed, she stumbled into the bedpost and gashed her forehead. The cut was so bad I had to take her to the emergency room for stitches, which sort of took the twinkle out of my eye that night.
Our people laughed, and I was able to reach into their lives at that time because I had touched a universal point of connection: humor.
Yet humor must be appropriate. Once in an attempt to communicate with nonchurched males in the congregation, I let slip a flippant remark. I was referring to an ostensibly successful man, who doesn’t think he needs Christ because “he’s got a big home, a high-paying job, a condominium in Florida, a nice wife and two kids, and a little thing going on the side.” I said it matter-of-factly and went on from there to make my point.
What I had neglected, and what I was reminded of by a number of women in our church, is that being the victim of an extramarital affair is a devastating experience. Many never get over it. My offhand remark about “a little thing going on the side” showed how drastically I had underestimated the impact of the words. We can’t wink and make light of something that painful. I would rather not use humor than use it at someone’s expense.
BEING TRANSPARENT
One sure-fire way to ruin my effectiveness when preaching about sex is to speak as if I’m not subject to sexual sin: “I’ve got this sexuality thing all figured out. It’s not much of a problem for me, and I’m going to straighten out you people in the next twenty minutes so you can get your passions under control as I have.” That’s pontificating, not communicating.
In the years before I started Willow Creek, I don’t recall once hearing a pastor make reference to his own sexuality. Does that mean pastors aren’t sexual beings? Is that an area of our lives we don’t want others to emulate? The longer we’re silent, the larger those question marks become.
When I preach about sex, generally I want to be able to say, “Friends, here’s who I am. I love you more than I value your impressions of me, and we’ve got to talk about some important things here.”
I include myself in the conversation, because as a pastor, I’m called not just to feed the flock, but also to model as best I can the kind of life Christ would have me lead. Since part of that life is my sexuality, I’ll occasionally make reference to personal subjects, like the fact that Lynn and I have had a physical relationship that sometimes is satisfying and sometimes is not so satisfying. Then I point out the factors behind a satisfying relationship.
People tell me such candor is appreciated. It says we don’t always have to have wonderful sexual experiences even if we’d like to brag that we do. I like to give people the sense that we can be men and women together who have cut the pretense and stopped pretending.
There remain, however, seasons in my marriage when, because of pressures and difficulties in our relationship, it would be destructive to me personally to try to address the subject of sex. When I am in turmoil about it, I don’t need the added pressure of speaking about it as if all were well.
That’s not to say I dare speak only out of my strength, because there are times when I speak out of my weaknesses, too. But I need to be fairly healthy before I preach, or I find I begin to launch into thunderous “thou shalt nots” only out of my own frustrations. I’ll be more pastoral and effective if I wait until I have cooled down a little and can be more balanced.
Perhaps one other caution is appropriate: Personal transparency is for a purpose — identification with the congregation — not for mere verbal exhibitionism. Before I use personal references, I obtain Lynn’s permission, because I would never share an illustration that would violate the intimacy and integrity of our marriage. I also pass questionable illustrations by our elders and ask them how they feel about them. They veto any personal anecdotes that are inappropriate.
But they encourage me to be open. They, along with me, want my messages to say authentically: “I need to hear this message as much as I need to give it, because I live where you live. I’m listening to myself as I preach.”
THE PAYOFF
Preaching on the subject of sex is one of the hardest things I do, so it would be much easier to dodge it. Then I’d have no personal soul searching, no controversy, no possibility of offending people.
On the other hand, there’d also be no rescuing people from the devastation of misused sexuality and no leading them to the joy of God’s intentions for this gift.
I’ve discovered when I preach on sex, invariably I go home encouraged. The last time I spoke about marriage, I talked afterward with numerous couples who echoed what one said: “We’re not going to settle anymore for less than a satisfactory sexual relationship. We’re going to work on this, with a counselor if necessary, until we flourish in our physical relationship. We don’t want to frustrate each other to the point that we have an affair we may never get over.”
When I preach about sexual purity, I often hear from people who have been convicted by the Holy Spirit and have determined to put impurity away. I spoke with a new Christian from our fellowship who had been living with a woman for three years. I told him that as painful as it would be, he really had no other choice but to separate. I listened to him and prayed with him and promised to help him walk through the experience.
As he left, he said, “I can’t thank you enough for forcing the issue, because there’s one side of me that’s screaming, I don’t want to cut this off! and the other side of me says, But I have to. I just needed someone to put the pressure on me. Thanks for doing that.”
That’s what happens when we preach — humbly, prayerfully, and lovingly — the truth about sex.
________
Bill Hybels is pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.
Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal lecurrmrw5L342b5426