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He Knows the Secrets of our Intimate Lives

Lent 3 : 23 March 2014  : John 4: 5-42

Amongst the stand out figures of 20th century Christianity Thomas Merton has achieved iconic status. By the mid 1960’s he had become a kind of universal human being, deeply at home in the western spiritual tradition, but equally able to hold his own with Zen masters, Taoist priests and Hindu mystics. If ever a man lived in words it was him. In a flood of brilliant talk, and in a stream of perceptive books, his insatiable intellectual curiosity and spiritual insight opened doors of understanding for people across the world. From that small hermitage in the woods around the monastery in Kentucky there flowed a stream of communicating energy in which he both deeply revealed and concealed who he really was.

What has only come to light in recent years is that the final spiritual breakthrough of his life occurred as a result of an affair he had with a nurse. Admitted to hospital for a routine operation to clear up a long-standing health problem, he had frequent cordial conversations with a young catholic nurse who was assigned to look after him. On returning to the monastery he found from the well of bereft feelings he fell into that he was in love with her. Using all his limited opportunities for contact he initiated a series of meetings. Despite living in an enclosed order he had privileges relating to the fame he had bought the monastery as an internationally known writer. Friends were embarrassed to find that the picnics they had been asked to set up were in fact opportunities for him to be alone with the nurse. The evidence suggests that he broke his vow of celibacy.

Of course, in a highly controlled environment such as his community it was not long before he was found out, in this case by the brother who ran the telephone switchboard. As he had done before Merton’s Abbot showed a sure touch in handling their high maintenance star. Over a series of volatile meetings he gently but firmly brought Merton back into contact with the moorings of his vocational fidelity. At the time one of the brothers was puzzled by a scene he witnessed in which Merton slammed the Abbot’s door and shouted, "If there is a child, we will name him after you."

Later, coming to terms with his grieving, Merton recognised that as a result of this episode a wound had healed within him. The early death of his American mother and New Zealand father had left him feeling like a lonely, abandoned little boy. He had spent most of his life in all male institutional living in boarding schools and a monastery. His gift for friendship had an uncertain, doubting question mark behind it. Had he beguiled people into liking him with the brilliant talk, the wide interests, and the intellectual firepower? Was he a stunted, maimed human being who had run away into a monastery because he was incapable of loving? Finally, some one from outside his professional and admiration circle had looked deep inside him, had considered his vulnerability, and had loved him. He was now free to accept himself as a worthwhile child of God.

If the greats of the Christian world get themselves into tangles like this in matters of sexual desire and human loving then what hope is there for us? Why has God thrown this stick of dynamite into humankind’s affairs, with all its capacity to raise us to the heights of delight and to cast us down into the depths of misery?

Amongst all the animals on the face of this planet we have the unusual feature that our offspring take a long time to grow to maturity to the point where they are capable of looking after themselves. They need long years of looking after in their vulnerable emerging stage. A strong sexual bond is evolutionary biology’s way of motivating the parents to put in the long hard years of slog to do this well. Stability, predictability and reliability - that is what children need above all. If the parents delight in each other that is more likely to be provided, even if babies who cry through the night are powerful anti aphrodisiacal agents.

Beyond the business of throwing our DNA into the future, eros affects each one of us as a powerful inner impulse that drives us to be involved in the lives of others. Caution, self interest, the instinct for self preservation-there is every reason why we should stay locked up in ourselves pursuing a keep it simple agenda. But God has planted this outward radiating energy within us that makes us cast caution aside and take risks as we are drawn to other people we are attracted too. The dynamics of attraction are far wider than just the people we go to bed with, and function within just about every significant relationship we are involved in. But they also lead us into the complicated messes we often end up in as a result of the search for love.

"You are right to say, "I have no husband"; for although you have had five, the one you have now is not your husband. You spoke the truth there."

Prophets were expected to be able to read the secrets of people’s hearts - it was a mark of their authenticity. Jesus presents himself this morning as the one who knows the secrets of our intimate lives.

At one level he is making a point about one of God’s wise rules that protect us from folly and heartbreak. I put it more directly in a pamphlet that was sent to couples in my last parish who were thinking of getting married at the parish Church:

Holy Trinity marries couples that have been living together. However, the Anglican Church remains unimpressed by the argument that you can find out if someone is good marriage material by taking them for a road test. Longitudinal studies in Britain have shown that couples who live together are more likely to experience later marriage failure.

But, at a deeper level, Jesus has an invitation for every one of us this morning, no matter what our state of life, married, single by choice, or by circumstances not of our choosing, to get real and honest with God about the secrets of our intimate lives, reviewing the past with unflinching candour and discerning insight. Here is a Lenten task that the people we are close to will thank us for undertaking. Perhaps our prayer might be, "Jesus, I want to be healed of everything in me that holds me back from loving people well."

And we might like to use some of the lines from one of this morning’s hymns to help us get close to the mind of God in these matters: