Men only?

A pretty young woman passes and, even at my age, I notice her figure. I can understand why the fourth century monks in the Egyptian desert stressed the need to keep away from women and why, so I am told, a 21st monastery somewhere won’t even have hens on the premises. What do they do for eggs, I wonder?! I also wonder if the Sermon on the Mount was intended only for men? “If a man looks on a woman with a lustful eye, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” And: “If a man divorces his wife for any cause other than unchastity he involves her in adultery.” There are no injunctions intended specifically for women in this chapter of Matthew’s Gospel.

With, I hope, great respect to those 4th century desert fathers (and any egg-less 21st century monks) I think they got it wrong. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian, defined chastity as “the total orientation of one’s life towards a goal.” The goal is what Jesus called the Kingdom of God: that state of being in which the presence of God is discovered in everything and everyone. With practice one learns to discern that Presence in the most unlikely places and people. I learn to see that black hoodie, that begging homeless person, that raucous half drunk teenager as a bearer of the Presence, part of the kingdom of God. I do so in spite of my instinctive reaction. I may not like their mode of dress or their behaviour but I have the capacity to see beyond what is being presented to my eyes.

Human biology being what it is I have an instinctive male reaction to a pretty woman. But beauty must be a problem for the bearer of it because, like being drunk or homeless or behaving outrageously, it can hide the real person inside. To enter the kingdom is to find myself in that realm where the Presence is discernable. The Gospels record several occasions when Jesus asks, “Do you see this woman?” Do I see the real person, a bearer (just like me) of the Presence? Thank goodness I don’t need to find a desert place miles from the nearest female.