The Sin and Virtue Series, #5 of 8

TPsalm 78:18 – ¹⁸ They tested God in their heart

by demanding the food they craved.

2 Timothy 4:3-4 – ³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;⁴ and they shall turn awaytheirears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV) (FOLLOW THE LINK TO SEE TWO OTHER VERSIONS OF THIS KEY VERSE)

Matthew 5:28 – But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

E pili mau na pomaika‘i ia ‘oe a me ke akua ho’omaika’i ‘oe, Omea! (May blessing always be with you and may God bless you, Beloved!) Today we look at the next set of words in our list of The 7 Deadly Sins and Their Corresponding Virtues. We have already looked at Pride and Humility, Envy and Kindness, the tough topics of Gluttony and Temperance, and lthe surprising topics of Sloth and Diligence. Today's paired topics are Lust and Chastity.

Once again, we can say we have a pretty good idea of what those are and how they affect our lives. Lust is a very strong desire, a predisposition to craving for something, an intense longing for personal gratification through the use or consumption of some object. More often than not, we associate Lust with a type of uninhibited, overpowering, intense and illicit sexual desire – and in all honesty, we usually associate that kind of preoccupation with sex to men. That kind of Lust actually objectifies women. Lust is also used to describe intense desire for other things such as food, liquor, money, fame, attention, pornography, drugs, or power. Do you notice a trend in that list? They are all worldly things. "I want what I want when I want it and I want it NOW" is the sound of Lust in action. We don't care what it costs us now or later; now is the time to feed that appetite and damn the consequences. Lust is one of the Devil's favorite party costumes, and when he gets the party going, we are – more often than not – plenty willing to par-TAY! For some reason it seems to us in that moment of decision that it is way too hard to say no. In fact, most of the time we don't miss half-a-heartbeat before we step into the mess that Lust creates. We totally forget what it means to be chaste in life because we'd rather be chased by life.

Chaste? What is that? It comes from an ancient Latin root word castus which means clean, pure, unadulterated (no pun intended). It means morally pure, decent, innocent, modest, uncorrupted, virtuous, and faithful (especially to one's spouse). This last idea – faithfulness – is usually expressed in another, similar word – chastity; same root word, and basically the same emphasis. Chastity is a description of specific sexual behaviors for men and/or women that are deemed acceptable by current societal, moral standards (which these days are pretty nebulous). We usually think of chastity in terms of cultural or religious standards – monogamy versus polygamy for example. It is also associated with abstaining from sexual activity before marriage. In several religious moral constructs, chastity is a commitment to remain unattached to members of the opposite (or even same) gender. The key to understanding chastity is knowing what is considered morally acceptable. For example, most of you know I'm an American Catholic Christian. I am married to a wonderful woman who is also an American Catholic Christian. Catholics' understanding of marriage includes exclusivity (sic) in that sexual relations within marriage are considered chaste, but wandering body-parts outside of marriage is not. We commit to chastity within our marriage because we consider it natural – the natural order for which God created Man and Woman; but, we consider artificial birth-control as unchaste because it defeats the natural chastity God prescribed in Genesis 1:28 – ²⁸ God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Now there are a lot of arguments about whether or not that's still a good idea, but we'll set those aside for the time being. Please don't chastise me about that.

And BOOM, we have another word from the same root. To chastise is to reprimand someone severely, to really criticize a person for something they have – or have not – done. In biblical language, it usually means a severe physical punishment like losing everything you have including your property and even your life. God frequently chastises his people about their lusts. Consider these examples:

Psalm 78:18 – ¹⁸ They tested God in their heart
by demanding [lusting for] the food they craved.

Psalm 81:12 – ¹² So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts [hearts' lust], to follow their own counsels.

Galatians 5:16 – ¹⁶ Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires [lusts] of the flesh.

1 John 2:16-17 – ¹⁶ for all that is in the world—the desire [lust] of the flesh, the desire [lust] of the eyes, the pride in [lust for] riches—comes not from the Father but from the world.¹⁷ And the world and its desire [lust] are passing away, but those who do the will of God live forever.

1 Timothy 6:9 – ⁹ But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires [lusts] that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 – You must understand this, that in the last days distressing times will come.² For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,³ inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good,⁴ treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,⁵ holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid them!

Romans 1:27 – ²⁷ and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion [lust] for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

And perhaps the most famous one of all: Matthew 5:28 – But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. (Yes, it's worth repeating.)

In these New Testament verses, the word used for Lust is πιθυμαν epithymian from πιθυμα (epithumia) {ep-ee-thoo-mee'-ah}: desire, passionate longing, lust.

We know enough about Lust to know it should be avoided – and really most of us usually try to avoid it (except when we can't and do it anyway). Chastity, however, is something we don't understand as well. It's more than just the absence of Lust. It is a presence of commitment to something greater, something eternal, something TRUE. Lust is none of those things. Chastity is commitment to a spouse (especially if the Spouse is Christ) and further it is a commitment that doesn't allow for any "fooling around," "hanky-panky," or drooling over some hunk of beefcake or cheesecake (or power, or money, or fame, or drugs, or any other unnatural union, or desire for even one's self). We have some historical evidence – and some outrageous myths – about "chastity belts" supposedly developed to prevent any form of sexual activity; but, as is often said, "where there's a will, there's a way" and the will almost always won out because the perceived incentive was much stronger than the perceived disincentive. Nonetheless, chastity is still closely associated with "waiting until marriage" as well as "being faithful in marriage" so as not to commit the sins of fornication or adultery. And yet we know that most – some say as high as 80% - young couples are not chaste, do not practice chastity, and that Purity Pledges are eventually abandoned when the urge to splurge becomes unstoppable.

Lust is a very powerful commitment to action. It is powerful because it incites so many emotions – pleasure chiefly, but also blissful joy, intense excitement, that "rush" of erotic arousal, and the ecstasy of rampaging hormones being released. Let's face it Belovéd, that torrent of pleasures rarely comes from Chastity. Along with that torrent we know we will also see certain lingering negative aftereffects – if we have anything resembling a conscience – and it isn't just the sexual lusts that produce that deluge of negative outcomes. Eventually we discover that – whatever the object of our cravings and lusts – indulging those cravings and lusts can be singularly unhealthy and counterproductive. We develop a satisfaction tolerance so that it take more and more of "it" to give us the same high, the same "oomph," that we got when we first let go and got hooked on "it." Being chaste means realizing that "it" doesn't make my life complete; in fact, spending all my energies and resources to get "it" and more of "it" just further impoverishes me mentally, physically and – especially – spiritually.

Chastity is a virtue of clean living, being pure for the goodness it brings into our lives. If you're a devout hedonist, that sounds insane. Goodness, in that world-view, is not pleasure – but actually it is. Whatever is right is good, whatever is good is pleasant, and whatever is pleasant – truly pleasant – is wholesome and eventually that leads us to be wholly holy. In the short run, Lust is one heck of a ride, but in the long run Chastity is the best ride of all because the destination for those who are chaste is one hell of a lot better than the destination for those who are not chaste.

If your ears, or other body parts, are itching to get away from Chastity, you should understand that "experimenting" with Lust is like putting out a fire with a bucket of kerosene. It's just never a good idea. That little crush on a coworker or infatuation with a classmate is dangerous. Stop it.

For some additional insights on Choosing Chastity, see this link.

Pray for and remember the loving spouses, the religious and ordained, and all the persons who daily rack up little victories against the Devil's Steamroller – Lust. Remember, the God-given power of procreation is not a gift for your personal use; it is a gift to be used for God in service to all humankind.

Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever — at your service, Belovéd!

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

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