Most mornings I find myself starting the day with a human/holy ritual: it is very earthy – but also celestial – in that it includes brewing a pot of tea, opening my computer to an Ignatian English prayer site and then reading a devotional word from the Eugene Peterson and/or Fredrick Buechner catalogue. Today, Peterson’s words touched my heart:
We who are made in the “image” of God have, as a consequence, imag-ination. Imagination is the capacity to make connections between the visible and the invisible, between heaven and earth, between present and past, between present and future. For Christians, whose largest invest is in the invisible, the imagination in indispensable, for it is only by means of the imagination that we can see reality whole and in context.
Today I’m go to ask you to use your head and your heart imaginatively – to consider the very image of the Lord our God made flesh within and among us in Jesus Christ – while I share with you something personal and theological: how I came to change my mind about homosexuality. As you may know, we will be discussing a simply crafted Open and Affirming statement for our congregation after worship this morning – something I fully endorse – so it seemed wise to share with you my take on this commitment. After all, the working definition of a “pastor” is clear: one who directs the spiritual care and nurture of a congregation through preaching, teaching and healing.
So this morning, in a quiet and careful way, I want to share with you something faithfully imaginative in my message. Something born of tradition, prayer, study and experience in the 21st century that encourages us to “make a connection between the visible and invisible” grace of God and move closer to the promise of the Lord’s extravagant welcome for everyone. In that spirit, let me ask your prayers as we begin:
Dear Father always near us: may your name be treasured and loved, may your rule be completed in us- may your will be done here on earth in just the way it is done in heaven. Give us today the things we need today, and forgive us our sins and impositions on you as we are forgiving all who in any way offend us. Please don’t put us through trials, but deliver us from everything bad. Because you are the one is charge, you have all the power, and the glory too is all yours-forever- which is just the way we want it! Dallas Willard
Over the years, our worship tradition has come up with periodic slogans that attempt to synthesize the essence of our spiritual practices in relationship to God’s love made flesh in Jesus Christ:
• Five hundred years ago, in the early days of Luther and Calvin, the rallying cry was – ecclesia semper reformans, semper reformanda – meaning the Church was always being reformed and always reforming. We were never to let the Word of God in scripture, practice or tradition become calcified, but rather we were called to seek the ever shining light of Christ in new ways. As one Congregational hymn writer put it: time makes ancient truth uncouth – hence “always reformed and always reforming.”
• In the early 1800s, another important Reformed slogan was: “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, diversity; and in all things, charity.” What humble and revolutionary wisdom – even for our generation – are found in those old words, yes? Unity, diversity and charity – simply brilliant.
Mission statements are slogans, too: a type of theological product branding, if you will, that tries to give distinct shape and form to God’s presence within and among a congregation in a sea of competing information. Nearly 250 years ago, we did this when we called this place FIRST Church; not only was this a statement of historical fact, it was also a way of telling the world how we understood our mission.
• Later, in the 1950s, when the United Church of Christ was born, our slogan became: THAT THEY MAY ALL BE ONE. Here were the ancient words of Jesus found in the gospel of St. John applied to the modern reality of post WWII America and our quest for building a world of ecumenism, cooperation and peace.
• And in the late 1990s, our slogan – and mission statement – in the United Church changed again to better capture the reality of our world: NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE – OR WHERE YOU ARE – ON LIFE’S JOURNEY, YOU ARE WELCOME HERE.
Do you see what I’m trying to say? The way we speak and think about doing church changes – imaginatively – over time. Today we’re being asked to add another clarifying layer of wisdom and truth to our identity by choosing to become an Open and Affirming congregation within the United Church of Christ. And what that means is simultaneously simple and profound:
• To the larger the public we are saying that we consciously seek to welcome ALL of God’s children into the life and ministry of this faith community – especially those who have historically been pushed away, shunned or denied the blessings of God’s grace in community.
• To ourselves we are saying that not only do we want to practice radical Christian hospitality for all people – especially welcoming those in the gay and lesbian world who have often been locked out of God’s love – but also that we want to do a better job at embracing all those who have been marginalized, forgotten or neglected by the status quo.
• And to the Lord our God we are saying that we shall continue to be reformed as we learn more and more about your grace, forgiveness and promise made flesh to us in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
To become an Open and Affirming congregation, therefore, is a confession of humility and hope not something trendy or politically correct. It is a way of making flesh in our generation our commitment to unity in essentials, diversity in non-essentials and in all things charity. And that brings me to a consideration of what the Scriptures really say about homosexuality – so let me share a precise summary – because the Bible is something we look to as an essential.
But let’s be clear, however, that what I am going to share is only a summary, ok? Last fall, we spent 7 weeks in study on this theme – and over the past 10 years you have explored it in a variety of ways, too – so I won’t be offering an exhaustive, graduate level discussion of what the Bible tells us about homosexuality. If you need that, I can provide for you bibliographies and suggestions as well as a host of other helpful resources and interpretive material.
Today I’m simply going to cut to the chase as I understand it – and here is how I will proceed: First, some biblical texts that have been used in the past that are simply irrelevant and ambiguous, so I’ll say a few words about them. Second, I will look at three key scriptures that are fiercely unambiguous. And third carefully tell you what I have come to do with all of this.
The irrelevant and ambiguous Biblical references are as follows:
• Genesis 19: 1-29 which tells the story of the “attempted gang rape of Sodom… (Where) ostensibly heterosexual males were intent on humiliating strangers by treating them ‘like women’ and emasculating them by rape.” This, of course, has nothing to do with love as expressed by “consenting adults of the same sex” and is all about the horrors of war, fear, sin and the corruption of power and greed. (Walter Wink, Homosexuality and the Bible, p. 1)
• In fact, the Sodom and Gomorrah story is much more about the unwillingness to welcome God’s messengers into community – a look at the consequences of greed and hospitality denied – than anything else. So let’s let this straw man go, ok?
• Scholar Walter Wink of Auburn Theological Seminary in NYC also suggests that the story of a “heterosexual prostitute involved in Canaanite fertility rites in Deuteronomy 23: 17-18 – and inaccurately referred to as a sodomite in the King James Version of the Bible” – is as unhelpful to this conversation as are the words of the apostle Paul in I Corinthians 6:9 and I Timothy 1:10 for what they condemn are the actions of strong male prostitutes preying upon the weak and inexperienced.
These texts do not advance our understanding of homosexuality and only muddy the water, so let them go. There are, however, three clear and unambiguous references in our Bible to same sex relationships; and we should not only be clear about them, but also consider what they mean within the totality of God’s revelation to us in Scripture. They are as follows:
• Leviticus 18: 22: A man shall not lie with a male as with a woman – it is an abomination.
• Leviticus 20: 13 adds clarity concerning the punishment for such an abomination against the Lord: they shall be put to death.
Not a lot of ambiguity here, is there? But what is missing from a simple literalism is a grasp of context:
The Hebrew prescientific understanding (operative here) was that male semen alone contained the whole of nascent life. With no knowledge of eggs and ovulation, it was assumed that the woman provided only the incubating space; hence the spilling of semen for any non-creative purpose – coitus interuptus, masturbation, etc – were ALL considered tantamount to abortion or murder in the ancient world of the Hebrew people… What’s more, in a world of honor, male dignity and power was compromised if a man acted like a woman. (Wink, p. 2)
These two biblical texts are unambiguous: homosexual activity is not only an affront to the Lord, it is to be punished with execution. Now add this, the one unambiguous New Testament teaching about homosexuality, from Romans 1: 22-27.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever… For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
If you read this passage with childlike simplicity, there is no ambiguity and Paul clearly condemns same sex activity. On one level, this rings true. But if you read this passage with some imagination and wisdom – if, as St. Paul himself once said that when I was a child I thought and saw as a child, but now that I have matured I have put childish things away – then… then something more nuanced emerges.
• Namely, that St. Paul believed everyone was straight – with no knowledge of modern sexual orientation to say nothing of the breadth of gender realities – so he saw heterosexual people being caught up in drunkenness and lust.
• What’s more, he observed that often drunkenness and lust can cause some to behave like animals – not homosexuality and affection between consenting adults as we know it – but rather a downward spiral of bestial lust.
And that, beloved, is a careful and honest summary of what our scriptures unambiguously teach about homosexuality: it is slim pickin’ – and Jesus says nothing at all on the matter.
Yes, there are two ancient Hebrew texts and one from the New Testament that “take a negative view of homosexual activity” (Wink) but let’s not stop here, because there is more clarity to be brought to light by recalling the bigger picture, ok? For example, the Bible is filled with prohibitions of all types – not simply sexual prohibitions – but a host of forbidden activities that 21st century people no longer embrace nor consider normative. Let me offer this far from exhaustive list for your consideration:
• The ancient punishment for adultery was death by stoning. What’s more, adultery was defined as a violation of a man’s property – his wife or bride – so that men could not be convicted of adultery unless they had sexual intercourse with another man’s wife.
• Sexual intercourse during the seven days of the menstrual cycle was strictly prohibited. Polygamy, however, was practiced and encouraged – as was concubinage (women living with men to whom they were not married) and neither are explicitly condemned in the New Testament.
There are also a host of conflicting insights when it comes to incest, rape and prostitution in the Old Testament that arise mostly because women were considered to be the property of men. Prostitution, for example, was considered normal “as a safeguard to the virginity of the unmarried and the property rights of husbands.” What’s more, a man who went to a prostitute committed no sin, but the woman was labeled a whore.
You see what I’m getting at here, right? Time makes ancient truth not only uncouth, as the hymnist wrote, but also oppressive and morally offensive. If we live under the Old Covenant, St. Paul taught, then we don’t get to pick and choose: this is an all or nothing ethic and by virtue of our baptism, we have clearly chosen another path. Most of us favor the path Paul described in Philippians:
Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others…. And work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
That is, seek what is healing and holy with imagination and faithfulness to Jesus. And it is just that, dear people of God, seeking out faithfulness to Jesus with imagination that has changed my heart and mind about what the Bible really teaches about homosexuality – and here’s my take:
First, I no longer see any consistent Biblical ethic about sex in our Scriptures. I do see sexual mores conditioned by culture and context. I also see sexual practices that make sense in one world but not in another, sexual acts that are morally repugnant to me and some things that are just bewildering. But I don’t see anything that even vaguely resembles a consistent sexual ethic in the Bible.
Second, I do see an ever-evolving movement towards compassion in the Bible: Once the rule was an eye for an eye; then it became love your neighbor but stand firm against your enemy; and now we are wrestling with what it might look like to try to love our enemies and neighbors as ourselves.
And third, I sense that these two truths call for us to make a choice between a love ethic and a preference for the status quo: both the Old and the New Testaments speak of both realities, but it seems to me that we have a choice to make. Are we children of the Exodus or slavery? Do we render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and God what is God’s or do we try and serve two masters? Do we say we follow the Lord but shut out grace or do we seek compassion in all things?
I have come to cast my lot with grace and joy, compassion and liberation as well as the love ethic of the Bible. This wasn’t always the case, you know? There were two times in my life – as a young believer and later when I tried to live into a more fundamentalist spirituality – when I looked at life in black and white terms. It was the whole Bible – or the Bible in holes – the letter of the law rather than the sloppy agape of moral relativism and all the rest: it is very appealing, you know, to have all the rules and hold other people accountable?
But… I know longer see that way as bringing me closer to the Lord. I no longer see a condemnation of homosexuality as a litmus test of Biblical integrity nor do I believe that any loving same-sex relationship is an abomination. Why? Partially because my study of the Word has gone deeper as I’ve tried to summarize that for you today.
But also because there have been a few times in my life – personally and professionally – when I ached for grace and only found the judgment of God’s people. I was hungry – and wouldn’t be fed; I was alone – and was shut out of community myself – I was afraid and there was no one to comfort me.
And this changed me – it opened my heart by breaking it. So since that time, I’ve explored the road less travelled: a way that challenges the judgment system of my faith with the more tender and satisfying grace of Christ Jesus – and try always to err on the side of grace. A few years ago, I heard former UN Ambassador, Andy Young, who is a United Church of Christ minster put it something like this:
• He was talking to a gathering of the United Church in Atlanta about his early days in ministry. He was a bright and articulate young Black preacher who was angry: angry about racism, angry about poverty, angry about war and discrimination.
• And before he worked with Dr. King, he worked with the National Council of Churches in NYC. And at the National Council he came into contact with a lot of gay clergy who were still in the closet – they were afraid – and very, very careful. But they befriended Andy and told him: “Man, you have to chill – let go of some of that anger – and let it move you towards loving and hope or else it will kill you.”
• They said, “Let us take some of the heat for you in the fight for equal and civil rights because if you go up against the Man with all that anger, he will beat you black and blue.” So they did – they went to the lunch counters and the sit-ins, they went to the demonstrations and all the rest and helped Andy Young live into his dream of equal rights.
And when he was moving on to do bigger and better things, these gay clergy folk – who were still in the closet – said: Thank you for listening and thank you for letting some of your anger be transformed – and thank you, too for letting us do some of your lifting. Just, please remember: there will come a time when we’re going to need you to do some lifting for us, ok? Please, remember…
That time is today for me: so let those have ears to hear, hear.
Amen, brother.
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