Ruth 1: 16: Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” 18 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.
Romans 12: 9-16: Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn…. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.
Jesus’ prayer: Father, Just as you and I are one in deep unity and intimacy, may my people, who claim my name, know me through true unity and intimacy of spirit with myself and with each other.
What did you think when you saw that this message was going to be about Intimacy? Were you prepared to hear about sex, perhaps from the Song of Solomon? Well, that’s next Sunday. We’ll see if that empties out this sanctuary next week, or fills it to overflowing.
When I saw that the Mennonite Publishing materials, entitled “Body and Soul: Healthy Sexuality,” recommended that we consider intimacy from the testimony of Ruth, chapter 1, and Romans 12, I was struck by such a brilliant recommendation! Because both passages give us the necessary conditions and requirements for true and lasting intimacy of all kinds between people, and with God.
Which brings us to the first question in the outline: What do we mean by intimacy? By intimacy I mean the safe and mutually enriching baring and sharing of our true selves in honesty, vulnerability and transparency. It is when we are, as one children’s song put it, “Free to be you and me,” in spirit and soul, and, in a God-given calling and context, in body as well.
All such intimacy among humans is rooted in the relational nature of our Triune God, who is himself an intimate communion of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “I and the Father are one.” He told his disciples that, “What the Father has disclosed to me, I make known to you.” He came to restore the intimacy of Spirit that God has always sought with us, ever since God would come to the Garden of Eden in the cool of the afternoon to walk and talk with Adam and Eve. Part of what it means to bear God’s image is our need and desire for intimacy.
But however much we want intimate communion with God and others, God always desires it even more with us. God is already more intimate to us than we can imagine, or sometimes want to admit. God knows us better than we know ourselves. But that’s okay, because God also loves us better than we love ourselves.
In some passages of the Bible, God even takes the intimacy of human marriage for a parable of his relationship with his people. “I will betroth you to Me forever;” God said through the prophet Hosea. “Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, In lovingkindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the LORD.” The Bible describes our destiny as a marriage when the New Jerusalem descends from heaven, “as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband,” in Revelation 21.
As for the second question in my outline, “What kinds of intimacy are there?” of course, sexual relations are very intimate. The Creation account of Genesis calls that nothing less than a “one flesh” bond between two persons. “A man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh,” says Genesis 2: 24. But what they forget to tell us on TV and in the media, is that there are other kinds of intimacy between people that are at least as important, and at least as life-giving, as physical, sexual intimacy. In addition to physical intimacy, there are intimacy of soul, that is, emotional intimacy, and intimacy of spirit, spiritual intimacy.
As for intimacy of spirit between people, we used to call that “fellowship.” It’s what happens when we pray and praise God together, whether we feel it or not. Intimacy of soul we used to call “friendship.” But our market-driven culture has dumbed friendship down to simply mean, “having a friendly acquaintance.” That’s how we can have thousands of Facebook friends, and still be lonely.
But to our ancient ancestors in faith and culture, intimate, honest, dependable friendship of soul and spirit was an ideal that matched marriage in importance, often even surpassed it. Which brings us to the third question: Why is intimacy so important? It was long understood that one can live without marriage, sex and procreation, if necessary, as hard as that might be for most. But to live without true and deep friendship? Without knowing and being known to the depths of our souls? That is to be left without any way to cut our sorrows in half with the sharing. It is to be without a way to double our joys with the sharing. It is to be without the possibility of sharing the good, the bad and the ugly about ourselves without being mocked, rejected or abandoned. It is to be at the mercy of one’s own demons without an ally.
Though we cannot be equally open and vulnerable all the time, to everyone, hopefully all parts of our lives are an open book somewhere to someone. That’s why I have a spiritual director. Otherwise, all sorts of things start to fester and grow in the dark and hidden corners of our souls, where we are afraid to let shine the light of someone else’s gaze. These hidden things grow in power over us with the secrecy. Naming them to someone who won’t condemn and reject us, takes away half their power.
From some of our songs and sermons in church, we might get the impression that, “All I need is me and God.” But the Christian life is not a do-it-yourself project. Ours is a relational God, who works through human relationship, relationships of acceptance, accountability and, yes intimacy of soul and spirit. That’s why God put us together in the church and brings new folks along, to outfit each congregation with many and varied spiritual gifts for our many and varied needs for growing into the fullness of Christ.
Some may say, “I’m married, and with my spouse I can share everything.” Great! But if he or she is the only person to whom our fears, our struggles, our hopes and needs are known, that’s too big a burden for any one person. No one can be all things for anyone, 24/7.
Late past midnight, some twenty years ago in our home in suburban Detroit. I got out of bed, went into the family room and called up my best friend, Dean, knowing that I would very likely wake him up. I did. But I was alone and falling prey to some very angry, confused and shameful feelings about my failure to get a church plant off the ground. I could have awakened Becky for consolation, but she had to go to work early the next day, and had heard plenty of my belly-aching already. Dean was, and still is, the kind of friend I could call at any time of night or day, who could and did tell me, “I feel your frustration and embarrassment. But aren’t you being a bit melodramatic? If you throw in the towel now, nobody at Mennonite Headquarters is going to rip the insignia off your shoulders, break your sword over their knee and drum you out of the ministry. You’ll go on to something else and be happy.” And I did. That was the word of God to me, but God wasn’t going to say that except through a friend like Dean.
Two of the greatest theologians of the Church, Saint Gregory and St. Basil, in the fifth century AD, described themselves in their deep spiritual friendship as “one soul in two bodies.” Eight centuries later, whenever St. Francis of Assisi would return from a ministry trip, one of the first things he would do was to reconnect with Brother Bernard, the first convert to his order. They were so close spiritually and emotionally that they needed to talk very little; they often communed with God and each other often in friendly, peaceful silence. The same was true in Francis’ visits and consultations with St. Clare, who started the female order of Franciscans.
But as much as we need intimacy of soul and spirit, so also do we fear it and flee it. Gruff and angry people who project a hostile, impatient presence are likely protecting a tender, vulnerable spot within that has been wounded before. Their need for friendship is hiding in plain sight behind their unfriendliness. Or those very lively persons who not only are “The life of the party” but who always seem to bring the party along with them, so that, as they say in Texas, they are “the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral,” all the attention they attract to themselves may actually serve to deflect it away from something they desperately want to hide about themselves. Keeping everyone off balance, by being so over-the-top friendly with everyone, they are actually keeping true friends and true friendship at arm’s length.
To answer my fourth question, “What are some of the necessary conditions or requirements of true intimacy?” that’s where today’s two scriptures come in. Looking at Romans 12, where Paul describes what the new community in Christ between Jewish and Gentile believers looks like, we see that:
- The first requirement is simply Love. More than simply attraction to someone, love is our desire for God’s best, for someone, including ourselves, and our working for God’s best, according to Romans 12: 9 “Be devoted to one another in love.” Such love makes the sharing of our true selves an offering, not an attack, an invitation, not an assault.
- Romans 12 also says, “Love must be sincere.” Sincerity, or honesty, or transparency, are a second necessity of intimacy. An intimate friendship can live and grow only with the trust that we are sharing the truth with one another, and can hear it, however difficult. Which can be scary vulnerable.
- That’s why a third necessity of intimacy is some kind of a covenant commitment, a trust that we will be there for each other, regardless of the cost, like when Ruth said to Naomi: “Don’t urge me to leave youor to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay.” That was an informal, verbal covenant commitment, but Naomi understood it as binding nonetheless.
- That was probably because Ruth had previously demonstrated to Naomi a fourth requirement of true spiritual and emotional intimacy: character, virtue or integrity, such as when Romans 12: 11 tells us to “Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” For who would risk opening themselves and baring heart and soul to someone for whom lying, abuse, theft or gossip, for example, are no big things? Character counts.
- A fifth thing necessary for intimacy of soul and spirit would be humility, as when Paul says in Romans 12: 10, “Honor one another above yourselves,” and in verse 16, “Do not be conceited.” How can we share and receive true selves with someone who is just trying to entertain or impress us, trying to one-up or upstage us, who is more concerned with how good they look to us, than with well they see us? And if someone must say why they disagree with us, we can hear it best if we know that it’s not to humiliate us, but to help us, not to put us down but to lift us up.
- A sixth quality necessary for spiritual and emotional intimacy is compassion, or Empathy, as when Paul writes, “Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” The words, “compassion” and “empathy” simply mean the ability to feel with, or to suffer with, someone else. True intimacy of soul and spirit requires this ability to take into ourselves someone else’s feelings and experiences before we pass judgment on them, or give advice.
- Another way to describe this quality of receiving someone and their feelings, needs and experiences into ourselves is “hospitality,” as when Paul says in Romans 12: 13, “Practice hospitality.” Hospitality is not just about how we set the dinner table for guests. It is an orientation toward others, of openness and welcome toward persons, but it also requires the next requirement of spiritual and emotional intimacy:
- Practical expressions of our hospitality, as when Paul says in verse 13, “Share with the Lord’s people who are in need.”True friendship involves sharing and sacrificing at least time, space and attention for each other. But sharing stuff like food, clothing, tools, is often the proof of our loving attention and intention. All our practical expressions of love and hospitality show that we truly have let someone into ourselves spiritually and emotionally, so much so that we not only feel their need, we respond to it.
- But true and enduring intimacy always requires at least three persons: two people and God. Ruth grasped this when she insisted to her mother-in-law, that not only would Naomi’s home be her home, Naomi’s people her people, but also, that Naomi’s God would be her God. She even invoked God as witness and a participant in her commitment to her mother-in-law when she said, “May theLord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” That’s why Paul included the words, “Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” We love each other best when we love each other second. Second to God, that is.
Loving each other second does not mean we love anyone poorly, however. Putting God first means that we believe that we are answerable to God for how we treat each other, and that God takes personally how we treat each other. That alone should up the ante on our relationships. But it also means that when we love and trust God most, we don’t need anyone else to be God for us. We are not looking to friends to save us, fix us, and make us whole and happy. We’re free to be human with each other, and to let each other be human. True intimacy among humans requires the freedom to be human.
Which brings us to the third kind of intimacy, sexual, or physical. Whenever an engaged couple comes to me for pre-marriage counseling, we talk about sexual intimacy, and the wonderful gift that it is. But we focus first and most on developing emotional and spiritual intimacy, by cultivating the qualities, characteristics, and communication that Ruth demonstrated and that Romans 12 names.
That’s why I also advise strongly against intimate sexual activity before marriage. Physical intimacy before emotional and spiritual intimacy is not only putting the cart before the horse, its risking a painful tearing of the one-flesh bond should we discern that the marriage should not happen, or that it should wait. It makes it harder to hear the truth and speak it in that awkward, insecure time of courtship and engagement. Which then makes the development of other kinds of intimacy all the more complicated. Nor does it do anything for our trust in each other’s self-control, which we’ll need all throughout our marriages.
For a marriage is like a wedding ring, in which the safest, truest, freest one- flesh bond of physical intimacy is set like a diamond securely within a circle of emotional and spiritual intimacy, including the covenant commitment God, family and other witnesses heard us promise to each other.
That’s why almost all societies have rituals and systems of courtship and engagement before the bond of physical intimacy is blessed. Courtship and engagement are all about earning trust, showing honor, establishing and developing emotional and spiritual intimacy, sharing and baring souls and spirits before we risk sharing and baring bodies in a one-flesh physical bond. But today, we are left with little or no guidance on safe ways to express and explore interest, attraction or affection for someone, or to get to know someone respectfully, truthfully, while earning trust and maintaining boundaries.
But in the absence of courtship we now have “the hookup culture,” in which sex is expected, and experienced as something like a consumer commodity. We now have this crazy-making, self-contradictory situation in which, on one hand, sexual activity is considered a sacred, inalienable right without which no one could possibly live, and the very foundation of our identity, while on the other hand, it’s just casual, recreational.
But if that intimate cleaving of two bodies into one is ruptured by abandonment, betrayal or abuse, or neglect and indifference, if it was intended only to be casual, temporary and recreational, it leaves a painful wound in both persons, where the “one flesh” bond connected with the soul and the spirit. That’s why there finally is no such thing as “safe sex.”
The singer, Jann Arden, captured this in her hit song, twenty years ago, “Insensitive.” It was a hit song in more ways than one, for the words are hard-hitting:
How do you cool your lips, after a summer’s kiss?
How do you rid the sweat, after the body bliss?
How do you turn your eyes, from the romantic glare?
How do you block the sound of a voice You’d know anywhere?
Oh, I really should’ve known
By the time you drove me home
By the vagueness in your eyes, your casual goodbyes
By the chill in your embrace
The expression on your face that told me
Maybe you might have some advice to give
On how to be insensitive…..
…How do you numb your skin, after the warmest touch?
How do you slow your blood, after the body rush?
How do you free your soul, after you’ve found a friend?
How do you teach your heart it’s a crime to fall in love again?
Oh, you probably won’t remember me
It’s probably ancient history
I’m one of the chosen few
Who went ahead and fell for you
I’m out of vogue, I’m out of touch
I fell too fast, I feel too much
I thought that you might have some advice to give
On how to be insensitive
Likewise, from the movie “Vanilla Sky,” come the words, “When you sleep with someone, your body’s making a promise even if the rest of you isn’t.” That’s how powerful and sacred the force of physical one-flesh intimacy is.
All of us have failed and fallen short of this ideal in some ways, at some time, even if only in our heads and our hearts. The wounds of a one-flesh rupture, though, are not incurable. Nor are our failures irreversible, nor unforgivable. God is a God of second chances and fresh starts. Whenever we take a wrong turn while driving with our GPS on, never does it say, “Well, see if I ever bother to give you direction again; I’m through with you.” Not unless you got the really cheap brand. No, it says “Recalculating,” and presents us ways to get us back on track. Whenever we make a wrong turn in our relationships, God works like that voice on our spiritual GPS system, to get us back on track. And he will. If we let him.
To those who ask, “But don’t we need to find out if we are fully compatible before we get engaged?” I can guarantee you this: that you already are incompatible. At least in some ways. We don’t marry clones. Compatibility in any relationship is not something we just seek and discover. It’s also something we have to work at and learn, all throughout our marriages, in our friendships, and in our churches. Then, just when we think we have this compatibility thing down, things change, we change, and we have to communicate and work at it some more.
But that’s the adventure: growing toward ever greater levels of intimacy with God and others, in spirit and soul. For that to happen, in any relationship, we must cultivate the qualities that Paul writes about in Romans 12: the love, the compassion and the empathy, the truthfulness, the humility, the commitment, character, integrity and the zeal for God, the same traits that Ruth displayed toward her mother-in-law, Naomi.
So I will end this message with a few questions for us to consider:
- Are there any secret, hidden corners of ourselves that no one else has ever seen, but which need the light of loving understanding from a trusted someone, lest they overwhelm us?
- Who could we call after midnight, or could call us after midnight, in a crisis expecting a hospitality of heart and an empathetic response (as long as it’s not every night, of course)?
- How are we at having such a friend, and at being such a friend?
If such intimacy of soul and spirit at least sounds too risky or difficult in our market-driven world, remember that God never asks of us anything that he has not already done for us, and will empower us to do.