Last week I restated the church’s ordinary, everyday, perennial teaching on divorce and remarriage and holy Communion.
There are always people who get offended at this kind of thing. They’ve been around since the Acts of the Apostles.
No one likes hearing the hard stuff. Some people don’t like it because they’re squeamish about sex.
Some people don’t like it because the church’s teaching hits them on a sensitive spot.
Many good Catholics today have gotten the idea that love means never having to say you’re sorry.
Or rather, that God’s mercy is incompatible with straight talk about sin.
The idea is that to be truly merciful, we should never mention sin, because it will just make people feel bad.
(Unless, of course, we think that the person is being judgmental. Apparently, it’s always okay to tell people about that kind of sin).
Is this true? Is this what mercy really is? No, of course not.
If your best friend is ambling along staring at their phone and is about to walk out into a busy road, you tell them really sharply to stop.
You’ve shown your friend real love and care, even if they didn’t like your tone of voice.
If you read the Gospels, you’ll find that Jesus talked more about repentance than pretty much anything else.
That’s the Gospel in a nutshell—God’s love for us, and our need to repent and change our lives in response to this love.
Jesus was happy to leave it to St Paul to unpack it in greater detail, knowing that he didn’t mince words.
St Paul uses very grounded analogies for sexual sin like the human body itself and a loving marriage between a man and a woman.
He doesn’t go on about sexual sin all the time—but it’s clear that he had to keep articulating it.
Obviously, some early Christians didn’t like this teaching and found it difficult.
Especially the ones who hadn’t been Jews first and who weren’t used to practising any kind of sexual restraint.
The men weren’t used to treating women’s bodies as Christ’s property, and as every bit as redeemed as their own.
The women were enthralled, because at last someone offered them a way out of an arranged marriage to an unfaithful man and a likely death in childbirth.
Some of the coyer English translations of the Bible use the word “immorality” for sexual sin.
St Paul had no such inhibitions. He calls it porneia, which is a blanket term for unlawful sex (1 Corinthians 6:9-10).
That’s where we get the word “pornography”. A porne was a prostitute.
Throughout scripture, God talks about Israel as his bride. So naturally St Paul talks about Christians as spouses of Jesus.
Idolatry was as bad as sexual sin, because both broke that covenant relationship.
That’s why St Paul is clear that “unrighteous” people, including sexual sinners, idolaters, adulterers, the “effeminate” (malakoi) and “men who lie down with men” (arsenokoitai), will not enter the kingdom of Heaven.
Does St Paul lack mercy by saying this out loud? Of course not. He knew that God wanted to save everyone.
But he was also clear that our lack of repentance stood in the way of that. And if there’s one thing St Paul knew about, it was repentance.
(Just think of the expression “road to Damascus experience” for a moment).
St Paul’s word for repentance is metanoia, meaning a change of heart, will, mind, being. That’s what must happen—new wine must be poured into new skins.
St Paul doesn’t rejoice in the pain people feel when he gives them straight talk about sin.
But he’s so happy when that pain motivates someone to turn their life around. (2 Cor 7:9-10)
None of this is a licence to go around getting in people’s faces and being rude and abrupt all the time.
But it should stiffen your spine when you have a chance to tell someone—especially someone who loves and trusts you—the truth.
Sometimes it takes a simple but clear statement of what God really wants from each of us—and how we need to change, not him.
If you’re stuck in a sinful lifestyle, you usually don’t welcome this kind of thing.
You might snap back. But you might also then go away and think about it some more.
That’s where metanoia can begin, and everything can turn around.
Take those moments when they arise. Pray for wisdom, and then let God use you to speak to someone else’s heart.
And if he’s speaking to you through someone else: listen.
