"I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well. " Psalm 139:14
My experience of High School was a hugely positive one. I was surrounded by great role models in addition to my parents: teachers, adult advisors, youth leaders, and fellow church members who were nothing but supportive. Still, what I remember most about being a teenager was the increasing sense that when it came to some pretty important stuff, I was being lied to. Well, maybe not flat-out lied to, but certainly given only the "approved version" of any of the big issues: drugs, alcohol, and of course, sex.
Mind you, even then I understood their need to state the case in its strongest terms, because heaven only knew MTV, Hollywood, and this "new internet thing" were not exactly giving us a "fair, balanced" account. But honestly...I remember stories in health class about a girl taking her first drag on a joint, and having such violent hallucinations that she jumped out of a second-story window and broke both her legs. This was, apparently, a fairly common occurrence. I remember a special assembly where a guy from the sheriff's department addressed our Junior class in advance of spring break, and made sure to warn us that "some of those states down south have a less lenient justice system, and they still have capital punishment." (So if any of us teens were thinking about doing some mass-murdering, we'd best do it here in good ol' Michigan.)
The effect of these scare tactics on me, and others, was the exact opposite of the intent: rather than a serious discussion, the whole thing felt like a huge joke. They obviously were not being straight with us, but had decided on a string of terrifying worst-case scenarios. Fortunately for me, I was able to largely stay on the straight-and-narrow more owing to an honest, trusting relationship with my folks, and to the sense that drugs, alcohol and the pursuit of sex made people behave like total idiots, and awkward as I was, I had enough trouble not behaving like an idiot stone-cold sober.
I feel the church can sometimes be complicit, and even take a lead role, in this conversation of half-truths, especially when it comes to sex. We go over the very legitimate moral and societal reasons why abstaining from sex before marriage is ideal--it's the only effective way to avoid STD's and unplanned pregnancies--but we go a step further, speaking to kids in terms of purity, idolizing the image of virginity (of course, often to a much greater degree with girls than with boys) and creating a culture where adult sexuality is something to be feared and viewed as evil. We do this armed with the notion that the Bible clearly lays out the sinfulness of pre-marital sex or intimacy of any kind. Well, about that...it seems Isaac and Rebekah, among others, did not get that memo.
Mind you, I do come at this from the perspective that the covenant of marriage and the trust it offers is, in fact, the best context for adult sexuality. That's what I believe, it's the moral standard I pledged to as a minister of Word and Sacrament (see "On Holy Living", section III of Visions and Expectations) and it's the standard our national church agreed to uphold (See our much-maligned, yet faithful and thoughtful 2009 Social Statement). But it's not because of any Pharisaical notion of purity. It's because I believe we are fearfully and wonderfully made, and that, though a GOOD gift from God, our sexuality is only one aspect of a much wider personhood that takes our whole lifetime to discover.
I affirm marriage as the best context for sex because the self that God created for each of us is a vast, cross-country freeway that can yield thousands of miles of new discoveries, and the temptation of sexual promiscuity is to spend a huge chunk of your life--a tenth? a quarter? more than half?--just doing donuts in your own front yard. Same exact thing with drug and alcohol abuse. It IS about the dangers, and those dangers are real, but among them is the danger of never getting to know yourself. Jesus wants to show us what real abundant life looks like. What friendships and romantic relationships based on trust, rather than what people can "do" for you, are all about. What self-giving love and service for the sake of a greater good are all about. What continually testing yourself to respond bravely, truthfully, lovingly, in any life situation, what committing to actually growing and bearing fruit, are all about. And compared to that, it just seems like getting drunk, getting high, randomly hooking up every night is kind of...I don't know...boring?
Mind you, the worst case scenarios are still there, and it's hugely important that they remain part of the conversation. I've known teenage parents whose lives were forced onto a radically different track than they might have chosen for themselves. I've known recovering alcoholics who tear up every time they remember the person they were and the way they behaved when they were drinking. I've known people killed and maimed by drunk drivers. I've known one or two bright, smart people who overdosed. But for every one of those worst-cases, I've known four or five people who never got officially "burned", but whose lives are just kind of repetitive, monotonous, and shallow, because they were derailed by drugs or sex.
Let's have an honest discussion with adolescents. Let's level with them about what types of relationships we're lifting up as ideal, and why. Let's talk about abundant life in Christ, and our infinite potential as children of God. And let's talk openly about the very real allure of sex and drugs. Let's include the tragedies that "might" happen, as well as the malaise and captivity that's much more likely to happen. But as Christians, let's please, please also do this in the context of sharing the Good News: that we will mess up and fall short of these ideals, all of us, but that neither that nor anything else will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
