I recently discovered that the Deaconess has resigned from rostered ministry in our denomination and is “no longer eligible to receive a call.” I haven’t been in contact with her since we broke off our entanglement, so I have no way of knowing what prompted her decision. Part of me wonders if her struggles with chastity and fidelity drove her from ministry.
After one steamy encounter with the Deaconess, in a surge of post-coital guilt, she awkwardly confessed to having fervently prayed for “deliverance” from her “bondage” to sexual disobedience. She struggled with her unanswered prayers.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity (Rom 1:24).
Paul uses the word paradidonai (“handed them over to”) to describe God’s act of judgement on those who “took pleasure in wickedness” (2 Thess 2:12 KJV). Another way of putting it is that they have been “abandoned” by God.
It’s a frightful passage. Right now I’m under no illusions about being capable of seriously pursuing a life of purity. The lust (epithumia) that grips my heart craves that sin which is forbidden. “The heart is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked. Who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9). The extent of my impurity (fornication, soliciting prostitutes, adultery) indicates a downward spiral into sensuality. I know I am without excuse. I’ve prayed, fasted, memorized Scripture, committed myself to ministry. My craving to indulge my fleshly desires, however, has only intensified. Have I passed the point of no return?
I think back on those furtive couplings with the Deaconess. Despite our positions in ministry and grounding in Christian morality, we couldn’t seem to resist our “degrading passions” (Rom 1:26). Had we, too, been abandoned?
Lutheran Guilt 