The summer months are technically the final months of the previous church year.  We haven’t begun the new year yet, which will begin with our Ingathering service on September 8.

But it feels like the old year is already done.  Doesn’t it?  Can anybody even remember what we did last year?  Oh yeah, we hosted District Assembly.  That was fun.  Oh yeah we had a flood in the church office.  That was not fun.

Though the 52-week church year continues (we’re currently on week 47) there is an ending feeling that arrives each June.  June brings the summing up services of Music Sunday, RE Sunday, and the Bridging Ceremony.  The annual General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association always feels like the final event of the year.  Schools close.  Young folks graduate from high school and college.  Families start their vacations.  Ministers, too, often leave from General Assembly for their vacation.

But isn’t it odd for a church to consider itself closed in June and not re-open until September?  Isn’t there just as much need for church in July and August as in October or March?  Couldn’t some July Sunday or August Sunday be the first day that someone decides to finally visit that Unitarian church and might it not make all the difference to their spiritual life, and maybe even to the life of our church, if when they arrive at 5450 Atherton they find the doors locked and a sign on the door that says, “Gone Fishin’”?

Aren’t folks looking for church in the summer?  You’re here.  Aren’t folks going through the same life issues and anxieties and celebrations and asking the same spiritual questions?  Does our search for wisdom and meaning end because it’s too darn hot for theology?  Does our need for comfort and understanding take a break?  “Comfort yourself,” we might say, “We’ll see you in September.”  Do people not lose jobs in July, or loved ones die, or innocent young men get run down by electric scooters in June and limp into July and August?  Must we all pretend that nothing important happens over the summer so there’s no need for fellowship or discussion or organized response?

I have heard that many of our churches used to close entirely over the summer.  I never actually knew a church that did that so maybe that was a tradition from before my time, or maybe only east coast churches did that.  Even our Palm Springs “church of the desert” is open for worship this morning.

So the church must be here.  And we are.  But there is something different about the summer months.  I admit.  We must be here.  But the summer months are an opportunity to be church differently.  And we are.

In my preaching I always try to honor the summer feeling by ending whatever theme I had running September through June and doing something different over the summer.  I’ll start another long theme in September.  But for the summer months something different.  Maybe something that wouldn’t come up in the standard order of the church year.  Something important, but a little off center.

This summer I thought I’d talk about a couple of those big issues of our lives and society that we usually avoid talking about.  Themes that are a little too sensitive.  A little too controversial.  A little too hard to address within the bounds of propriety.  But still, some of the most crucial aspects of our lives, and therefore completely appropriate for a church that strives to be a reality based religion embracing all of human experience.  Three weeks ago the topic was Politics.  Last week, Religion itself.  Those two sermons are posted on my website if you were on vacation and want to find out what I said.  Still to come, next month, Death and Taxes.  And for today, the topic is:  Sex.

Now don’t worry.  I’m not going to talk about my sex life.  Nothing revealing or embarrassing.  This will be a PG-13 sermon, nothing more.  So a little parental guidance suggested, if your parent happens to be in the room, but if you’re over 13 you’ll be OK.  If you’re under 13 you’ll likely just be bored.  And whatever age you are you always have the option of going outside to join the RE program in their water fun activities.

But here’s why and how I want to talk about sex this morning.

Like religion, and politics, too, sex is an incredibly important, formative, even controlling aspect of our lives.  Not just the sex that we have, when we’re having it, if we’re having it, but the way that our thoughts and feelings about sex, like our thoughts and feelings about religion, spread into everything that we do.  Our relationship to sex, if we’re having it, who we’re having it with, what we feel about it, what we believe about it, touches the guideposts of our lives everywhere, everywhere we turn.

Who should have sex?  How should they have sex?  Should I care?  Is it my business?  When?  Where?  How often?  Is everybody OK?  Is it consensual?  Is it good?  Is it holy or vulgar?  Sacred or profane?  Beautiful or shameful?  Is it protected?  Is it responsible or foolish?  And what about the consequences?

Sex touches on issues of power and vulnerability.  Sex is intimacy, of course.  Sex is a glue for relationships.  Sex is deeply serious.  But sex is also fun.  Sex is light and easy and freeing and exhilarating.  And sex is life-changing.  Some sex is great and forgettable, or bad and forgettable, and some sex creates a permanent memory of a landmark moment in your life.

And, as with religion, and politics, too, depending on your answers, we tend to break up into tribes.  I and my people, are the kinds or people who think about sex this way.  And them and those people, are the people who think about sex some other way.

One of the fault lines that separate the tribes might be defined as sex-positive, or sex-negative.  But I think that’s too reductive.  Although it’s nice to think of oneself being sex-positive, I don’t think anyone really thinks of themselves as sex-negative. I think there’s a better way to draw that line.  A way to draw that line that says something truthful about the complexity of sex.  And a dividing line that when understood might actually help us bridge the divide.

The character of sex that makes sex so life-defining is that sex is a private act with a social dimension.  Sex is both an individual choice and a social concern.  And in that aspect, too, sex is like religion and politics.  Private and social.

Sex is something that you and a partner can choose to do, on your own, in our own space, on your own time. You don’t need permission.  You don’t need a license.  As long as the participants give true consent, including aspects of consent like being adults and not being in a dual relationship where one person has some kind of potentially coercive power over the other, to engage in sex is your individual choice.  It’s none of our business.

But your private sex also has (potentially) a large social impact.  It is my business, or it might be my business, if your sex act results in a pregnancy, especially if the pregnancy is not one you desired or prepared for.  If you won’t be able to care for the baby and social support structures have to step in, then your sex decision becomes my business.  It is my business if your sex act potentially spreads a serious disease like HIV/AIDS that is incurable and expensive to treat.  It is my business if your private sex act is a betrayal of a primary relationship with some other person and then the person you’re betraying suffers emotional consequences and has to seek support from friends and family or a therapist or minister.  And if a marriage ends dues to your individual choice of sex we all have to deal with the social consequences of divorce:  financial hardship and the effects on children.

Any single sex act might be free of social consequences.  But people don’t have just one sex act, they have sex lives, and over the course of our sex lives our individual choices start to have social consequences.  Most sex strictly is private.  It really is none of our business.  I don’t need to know about it.  And I don’t want to hear about it.  And yet the consequences of private sex can occasionally, eventually, slip out into the social sphere in ways that the participants didn’t expect but now we all, as a society must respond to.

So sex has this complicated position of being both private and social at the same time.  Sex happens both in your bedroom and also in the town square, as it were.  And this dual nature then creates the circumstances for a divided cultural perspective on how best to manage sex in our private lives, and our social lives.

On one side, you have the people who begin from the idea that sex is primarily a private act.  They like it that way, and want to keep it that way.  For this tribe, the potential negative social consequences of sex are remote and avoidable.  And so, this tribe seeks to manage sex by liberating sex in the private sphere and minimizing the social impact.  This tribe advocates for comprehensive sex education appropriate for all age groups, to help individuals make good, individual decisions about their private sex.  This tribe advocates for easy and affordable access to birth control, a help-yourself condom bowl on the bar, and a discrete conversation with your pharmacist.  This tribe advocates for access to abortion services:  legal, safe, and sensitive.  This tribe advocates for availability of testing and treatment for sexually transmitted disease, and supports funding for research to make treatment more affordable and effective.  And in all things, this tribe seeks to minimize the destructive shame and stigma society attaches to the negative consequences of private sex.

The other tribe are the people who begin from the idea that sex is primarily a social act.  The first step, therefore, is to manage sex socially, which we’ve traditionally done through the institution of marriage.  Marriage is lifted up and defended as a social prize and social benefit.  Marriage requires a license, which makes marriage a social contract between the couple and the state.  Marriage is sanctified by the social institution of the church.  Married couples are aware and proud of the social dimension so they get married with a party and invite their family and friends to witness and participate.

Sex, then, can be contained as the exclusive province of monogamous married partners. Sex serves social ends through marriage, rather than fulfilling personal desire.  Sex has the purpose of strengthening the emotional bonds that keep marriages intact.  Sex is a duty that a married partner gives to their partner for the purpose of preserving marital happiness.  Sex in marriage tames the sexual drive of the married partners so that sex energy isn’t released in inappropriate ways in the social sphere.  Sex has the natural purpose of producing children, so sex ultimately contributes to society in the largest way possible.

So beginning from this idea of sex as a social act, channeled through monogamous marriages, this Tribe then seeks to maximize the negative consequences of any other form of sexual expression.  A pregnancy outside of marriage should be as difficult and emotionally painful as possible.  That an unwanted child might be a lifelong burden, and that the mother and child both might suffer is precisely the point.  Let this be a lesson to you.  Or rather, let this be a lesson to the rest of society, your individual hardship serves a social purpose.  Sexually transmitted diseases are a natural danger sign and punishment for the sexually transgressive.  Individual suffering is the point, so money spent on research for treatments and cures is misspent.

Many have noticed the hypocrisy of the pro-life movement.  It’s not “pro-life” to be concerned about the life of a fetus, but not concerned for the life of the mother, or the life of the baby born into poverty, or the unwanted child raised in difficult circumstances.  And framing the abortion issue as one of sanctity of life then leads to unsolvable arguments about when life begins or judging the relative value of life at different stages of development.  Neither is “pro-choice” really the opposite of “pro-life.” Most people value both life and freedom.  The asymmetry of those two labels makes bridging the divide impossible.  

A more coherent divide is to define the sides as those who consider sex to be primarily a private act and those who consider sex as primarily a social act.  Then, quickly, it makes sense why the anti-abortion voices are usually also the voices speaking against sex-education, and contraception, and gay and lesbian rights, and accommodations for trans persons, why the anti-abortion states also have the least qualms about implementing the death penalty and so on.  It isn’t really about saving lives, that’s kind of a red herring.; it’s part of a collection of positions focused on controlling sex within one narrow permissible social definition and punishing those who stray.

But sex is in fact both a private act and a social act.  Both aspects contain important human values worthy of notice and respect.  The abortion debate has been intractable for decades because it feels like we’re talking past each other about different issues.  If we could instead agree that we are looking at two sides of the same spectrum, sex as both private and social, than we might be able to honor the other side and even begin to bridge the divide.

Is sex something fun and pleasurable that individuals can freely choose to enjoy?  Or is sex a way of ordering society through marriage, channeling powerful and potentially destructive impulses, while creating stable environments for supporting men and women and raising children?

Well, it’s both, right?

And perhaps that shouldn’t be surprising, because like everything human, and sex is very human, humans are in every important part of our lives individual and social.

We are individuals of inherent worth and dignity, and we are strivers toward a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all, and even an interdependent web of all existence.

“May we know once again that we are not isolated beings but connected, in mystery and miracle, to the universe, to this community and to each other.”

We are “body and spirit united” as we sang in the words of Jim Scott for our opening hymn.  We are animal bodies, including the biology of sex and sexuality.  We are emotional creatures, seeking love and companionship.  Seeking intimacy, affirmation, fun, pleasure.  We are compassionate creatures caring for others, expressing our affection, giving our gifts, including the gifts of our own persons in an atmosphere of mutual respect and nurturing.  We are social beings, understanding, and navigating the interpersonal systems of generosity, cooperation, reciprocity, that make for stable social structures including friendships, marriage, family, and community.  And we are spiritual beings, who live along the larger arcs of meaning and purpose and evolving sense of self-identity that mold the decisions and actions of each moment of life into the shape of a life entire.

Through our sexual lives we live into all of those dimensions of our humanity.  The free individual.  The responsible member of society.  The actions the express our unique and glorious selves.  The actions that shape the world we create together.

The sex we choose, if we choose, when we choose, we then make through our responsible shaping:  sacred, holy, beautiful.  Deeply serious and fun.  Morally good, and good fun, too.  Sometimes great.  Hopefully not too often bad.  Entirely your own business.  But, with respect, the business of all of us, as well.