I expect we’ve all got cringy memories from our teenage years. One of mine comes from my church youth group. It was a Friday evening. I think it was a social evening in which we went for a walk along the seafront, encouraged along by the prospect of a visit to McDonald’s at the end. That week, someone in the youth group had come across one of the Apostle Paul’s commands to greet fellow believers ‘with a holy kiss’ (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:26). As we walked along, they told a few of the youth about it, who in turn told others, and after not very long, the fact that the Bible tells us to kiss each other had spread through the whole group. As you can imagine, we all thought it was hilarious.
I joined in with the joking, but inside there was more going on. ‘I’d quite like to exchange a holy kiss with a nice guy’, I thought. ‘Others will get that. Will I?’. This was in the days when I had told only a handful of people about my experience of sexuality, and I was still processing what following Jesus would mean for the rest of my life. Obviously some of what was driving those thoughts was wrong and sinful, but I think there was also something good in it: I recognised my need for physical affection, and I was wondering how that need would ever be met if I wasn’t going to be able to get married.
The principle that we should be deliberate in expressing affection for one another is still very relevant.
Now, I look back and realise that Paul’s instruction is actually part of God’s answer for how my need for physical affection can be met. The practice of exchanging kisses may not always be how we apply the instruction today, but the principle that we should be deliberate in expressing affection for one another is still very relevant. Sometimes that might be through a kiss. Some of my older female friends greet me with a kiss and I love it. It’s a beautiful expression of their sisterly love for me. For many of us, a hug will be the way we greet brothers and sisters in Christ and express the affection we have for each other.
If Paul was here today, I don’t think he’d be insisting that we all go around kissing each other. But I think he would insist that we are deliberate about cultivating and expressing affection for each other. That affection should be ‘holy’ – flowing from our identity as God’s ‘saints’ or ‘holy ones’ (Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:2; Ephesians 1:1) and reflecting God’s holiness (1 Peter 1:16). And, I reckon, it should be expressed in physical ways. I think it’s probably significant that Paul’s instruction is to express affection through a physical act. We are embodied beings, and so we should relate to each other, in part, through our embodiment.
This means the Church has a role to play in reclaiming non-sexual physical affection. One risk in our culture is that any physical affection (particularly between men) gets construed as romantic and sexual. Paul’s instruction reminds us of the need to reclaim non-sexual physical affection. That physical affection is something that should characterise communities of Jesus-followers, just one expression of the love that should characterise those communities and mark us out as disciples of Jesus (John 13:34-35).
The Church has a role to play in reclaiming non-sexual physical affection.
Doing this will, of course, require wisdom. There are risks in prioritising non-sexual physical affection. Risks in two directions – fear can lead us to reject it completely, and folly can allow us to embrace it in ways that are unhealthy and ungodly. We need instead to apply wisdom, as I've reflected before. But we shouldn’t let the risks stop us finding the right ways of expressing affection to one another.
I wish that when I was a teenager, I’d been helped to see that a life of singleness wouldn’t have to mean a life without physical affection. I hope my life now helps the teenagers (and others) in my life to see that doesn’t have to be the case.
What about you? How are you applying Paul’s instruction to greet one another with an act of physical affection? (Or maybe I should just ask: Who are you going to hug today?)