Homosexuality and Grace
By Charles Rush
January 15, 1995
Leviticus 20: 1-5; 9, 10, 13, 18, 27
The Lord said to Moses "Say to the people of Israel, Any of the
people of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, who gives
any of their children to [the god] Molech shall be put to death; the
people of the land shall stone them with stones.
I myself will set my face against that person, and cut them off from
among his people, because they have given one of their children to [the
god] Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name.
And if the people of the land do at all hide their eyes from that
person when they give one of their children to [the god] Molech, and do
not put them to death, then I will set my face against them and their
family, and will cut them off from among their people, they and all who
play the harlot after [the god] Molech(9, 10)
For every one who curse their mother or father shall be put to death;
they have cursed their parents, their blood be upon them.
If any man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the
adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death(13) If a man lies
with a male as though he were a woman, both of them have committed an
abomination; they shall be put to death, their blood is upon them(18)
If a man lies with a woman during her menstruationboth of them shall be
cut off from among the people(27) If a man or a woman becomes a wizard
or a medium they shall be put to death; they shall be stoned with
stones; their blood shall be upon them."
one of his notable sermons, Bill Coffin begins by asking:
"Apart from their extraordinary contribution to human happiness,
what do the following have in common: Erasmus, Leonardo de Vinci,
Michaelangelo, Christopher Marlowe, King James I of England, Sir
Francis Bacon, Thomas Gray, Frederick the Great of Germany, Margaret
Fuller, Tchaikovsky, Nijinsky Proust, A.E. Houseman, T.E. Lawrence,
Walt Whitman, Henry James, Edith Hamilton, W.H. Auden, Willa Cather,
Tennessee Williams, and the tennis star Martina Navratilova.
They are all homosexuals.
Why do I bring this up?
Because, as Coffin noted, what was unmentionable has become
unavoidable.
As many of you know, I spent the better part of the week in Rhode
Island at a conference entitled ‘Common Ground' where 15
liberal American Baptist Churches met with 15 Conservative American
Baptist Churches to see if we could make peace on this issue.
We had two theologians to come and debate the issue, both of whom had
some pastoral experience.
Just to let you know, I argued for the inclusion of gays and lesbians
into the community of faith, my colleague argued for their prayerful
transformation to a heterosexual lifestyle.
I want you to know I'm not in a bandwagon here.
I decided to accept because I thought that God wanted me to.
You may ask how I know what God wants me to do?
I will tell you.
This comes not directly from the bible but from my own life.
1) I was prepared on the subject.
I have been teaching on the subject for 6 years, and each year I assign
new books, to keep me reading.
I must tell you that the more I read, the more my mind has changed.
2) The conference of Rhode Island found me, I didn't look for
them.
3) It seemed like a hard thing to do, with not much reward and a lot of
risk.
Generally speaking, when these things have lined up in my life, I have
looked back and decided that was what God wanted me to do.
I want to share some of that with you this morning.
Please keep an open mind.
And if you hear me out now, I will hear you out after service.
One thing that did happen at this conference.
We developed respect for one another and we agreed that even when we
disagreed, we would stay together.
There are only 5 passages dealing with homosexuality in the bible,
compared with thousands dealing with economic justice, hundreds dealing
with care for the poor and dispossessed.
But I do not choose to begin there, but with this passage in Acts.
Why?
You may recall that in the early church there was a vigorous debate
over whether or not to deal with the Gentiles or just the Jews.
And if you evangelize the Gentiles, do they have to become Jews?
Peter and Paul disagreed on this point, just as we disagree now about
homosexuality.
Paul took the liberal position that we should reach out and no they do
not have to become Jews.
Peter was kosher all the way.
He allowed Paul to work with the Gentiles, but he could not bring
himself to eat at the same table, for to do so would break kosher laws
and make his eating toevah, an abomination.
Jews were not to eat with Gentiles.
Now you cannot blame Peter here.
That is in Leviticus, and part of that we read this morning.
It is holy writ.
But the Spirit of God, was moving beyond Jewish tradition.
Peter is like us, he is rooted in the ways of the past doing
things.
As a result, God has to come to him directly before God can get his
attention.
He has a dream in which he sees ‘all manner of creeping thing,
birds, etc.' – all things that are not kosher – and God
tells him take, eat, you must not call common what I have
cleaned.'
Peter is just like us, stubborn.
God has to send the same dream to him three times.
He still doesn't get it.
Then a Gentile comes to his house, Cornelius.
Peter is changed by this visit.
Cornelius falls at his feet, out of respect and deference.
And Peter, quickened in his heart has these wonderful words of
acceptance ‘Stand up, for I too am only a man'.
In other words, I am not better than you.
We are both brothers.
What a wonderful line.
And Peter finally confesses ‘Truly I perceive that God shows no
partiality, but in every nation, whoever does what is right is
acceptable to God.'
Coffin has put the matter bluntly but aptly.
‘Perhaps the Holy Spirit is leading us today to confess Truly I
see that God shows no partiality but in every
sexual orientation,
whoever does what is right, is acceptable to God.'
Why do I say this, when it is patently obvious that the scriptures
hold homosexuality up for censure?
That would be true, but we cannot presume that what the bible writers
have in mind when they condemn homosexuality is the same thing that we
have before us today.
Indeed, the word homosexual is only 100 years old, and reflects an
understanding that developed after the advent of psychoanalysis by
Sigmund Freud.
One of the things that the inestimable scholar John Boswell made clear
in his very careful research is that understandings about homosexuality
have changed radically in the last 1000 years.
In short, I think the biblical writers presumed that all people were
born heterosexual; Today, the best research, and it is in its early
stages to be sure, suggests that our sexual orientation is given to us
on a range of possibility, from exclusively homosexual to exclusively
heterosexual.
This was beyond the purview of the biblical writers.
Thus in response to the homosexual community, I think, in this case,
for this time, we should look to what Jesus would do.
Let me unpack this a bit more.
This text that Ginger read this morning from Leviticus is one of the 2
texts in the Old Testament that directly condemns homosexuality.
We must make a couple of contextual notes about the text.
First, it is an odd collection of things that are condemned here.
But the punishment is stoning ‘let their blood be upon
them'.
Sounds serious.
I want you parents and teens to note that ‘cursing your
parents' is on the list (That's Leviticus 20).
Why stoning?
Because the sin here is idolatry.
This is one of the speeches set as something Moses gave before going
over to the land of the Canaanites.
And the message is ‘you are not to follow after the ways of them,
lest you follow after their gods.
The Rabbi's use this chapter unto the present, but it is never in
reference to homosexuality as such.
It is in the dangers of intermarriage.
Jewish mothers then, like now were convinced that the world would come
to an end if their sons married a Goyim.
‘Find yourself a Jewish girl.'
And then there is ‘abomination'?
What do you think of when you think of abomination?
Sounds bad.
Actually, the word ‘toevah' is not usually something which is
immoral so much as it is not kosher.
Lobster is an abomination.
Hot Pastrami on Rye is an abomination.
Sleeping with a woman during menstruation was an abomination.
So was the misuse of incense, mishandling a sacrifice, and adultery
with a cultic prostitute.
Why is homosexuality in this list?
Scholars believe that it is in reference to cult prostitution that the
Canaanites practiced?
What was this?
We can't be sure.
Earlier scholars believed that Canaanite fertility religion used
sexuality in a sacramental way.
The ancient people believed that the god Mat died in the winter
and was resurrected in the Spring.
It was in the spring that the gods began to copulate which caused the
earth to flower forth with new blooms and stimulated the animals to
breed.
It was believed that farmers took religious prostitutes and copulated
on their fields to ensure a good harvest.
As one of my students at Rutgers commented, ‘No wonder people went
to church back then.'
Lately, scholars have taken the suggestion that prostitution was never
exactly part of the religion as such.
Rather, during the high festival days (like unto our Christmas and New
Years), people would gather in the big cities at the Temples to make
their vow and participate in the Religious service.
Then, as now, there was a great deal of carousing during these
festivals and people were prone to fulfill their lust.
(Just think of that leer some of your colleagues and friends get in
their eye during the proverbial Christmas party).
People who did not have the money to pay their vow, regularly engaged
in prostitution to raise the money, and the practice was so regular
that it became intimately associated with the Pagan religious
festivals.
This is likely.
What a relief to know that the Canaanites weren't having any more
fun than the Israeli's.
Obviously, this kind of sex – either kind – is
impersonal, degrading, uses another human as an instrument for
pleasure.
We would still say, perhaps, that it is idolatrous, since it leads you
away from authentic spirituality which has to do with covenant, love,
faithfulness, caring, sharing, upbuilding others, etc..
I just want to point out that this is a far cry from two committed,
monogamous, equal partners who are asking for a recognition of their
love for one another.
And this is even a farther cry from them, as individuals, simply being
asked to be accepted for who they are without malice or hatred.
Secondly, people always ask about Sodom and Gomorrah.
In the first place, what is condemned in Sodom and Gomorrah is anal
rape, not homosexuality as such.
As many scholars have pointed out, homosexuality is never listed in the
sins which gave it to judgment in the bible.
Ezekiel says it was the failure to pursue justice.
Isaiah says it was indifference toward the poor and pride.
Jesus says it was a hardness of heart that made them inhospitable
towards strangers.
It is not until Philo is writing about the time of Jesus that
homosexuality becomes popular as an explanation.
You might ask why?
It was the common tradition stemming from Greece and practiced
throughout the Roman period as well, that older men would take younger
boys as students.
This appears to have originated in Sparta in the training of soldiers.
By the time these boys could grow a beard, they were no longer boys and
the relationship ended.
The older men taught the younger boys and the younger boys complied
with some sexual gratification of one type or another.
It was one way.
By the way, this is why the general in Plato's Symposium on love
argues that homosexual love is higher than the love between a man and a
woman.
Two soldiers, he says, who are also lovers, will be willing to die for
one another in battle.
Again, this love is over\under.
It is impermanent.
And it is expected of every boy so it does not deal with homosexual
orientation but with a weaker, younger person exploited by an older
person.
And when St. Paul is writing in I Cor. 6:9 and he condemns what is
translated into English as homosexuality.
He says ‘adulterers, drunks, thieves, and arsenakoiti will not
inherit the Kingdom of God'.
That word arsenekoiti is not a general word for homosexuality.
Scholars agree that it is a Greek word used by Jews to describe
pederasty, the Greek practice of Older men taking younger boys in this
fashion.
What if this is the only thing that the biblical writers brought to
mind when they thought of homosexuality?
We have every reason to believe that it is.
This is quite different from someone who comes to us and says,
‘Reverend, I always knew that I was different from the other
boys.
My brothers knew it too.
When I was a teenager, I hated myself and I wished every day that I
could change but I couldn't.
It's taken a long time for me to come to grips with myself.'
In the name of Christ what do you say to this person?
I like the pamphlet I got at Rutgers a couple years ago.
On the outside it says, ‘what did Jesus say about homosexuality?
On the inside are two blank pages.
And on the back it says, ‘that's right, absolutely
nothing.'
But I think Jesus does give us an indication of what to say.
And I want to close with at least a general direction here.
In the first place, it would be enormously helped if we stopped
thinking of homosexuals as people out there somewhere.
They are our children,
as Howard Moody has reminded us.
They have taught us in Sunday School.
They have sung with us in the choir.
They have been minister of the church.
Deeply closeted, yes.
But they have been with us for a long time.
Jesus called us all children of God.
Secondly, there was an article in Atlantic Monthly in March, 1993
by Chandler Burr that summarized the current state of research into
psycho-sexual development.
It is a very complex affair, with nature (genetics, hormones, possibly
brain structure) interacting with nurture (our early development in the
family).
The most frequent answer given by the experts in the field is
‘we're not sure'.
But no one disputes the fact that 4% of the population is exclusively
homosexual throughout their lives.
And even the Vatican has acknowledged that there is such a thing as a
homosexual orientation.
On this matter, I defer to the scientists who will give us a better
understanding of these matters over time.
Ever since Galileo, the church has learned that it is better to let the
scientists do their job independently.
And if it is the case that our sexual development is more complex than
we can presently understand, I doubt that it is wise for the church to
be issuing pronouncements on a general basis at all, lest they simply
look foolish in a decade.
Perhaps, we should do what Jesus seemed to do and deal with people
in their sexual being individually, personally, applying grace and
healing where we can.
I want to close here with a suggestion of the
disposition we Christians
ought to have dealing with a sensitive subject.
I urge us, in the words of St. Paul, to have the mind which was in
Christ Jesus.
There is a direction that is set for us which is really principal in
any moral/theological discussion.
Jesus was primarily about justification, grace, forgiveness, love,
koinonia, just/peace, reaching out to the lost, repentance,
reconciliation, salvation, personal honesty, right relation with God
and each other.
But he didn't unpack these ideas in any systemic manner.
And he was reluctant to draw general moral principals that should be
applied in different situations.
That is our Western mindset, not that of Jesus.
Indeed, when pressed, Jesus is often enigmatic.
"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that
which is God's."
When the woman is caught in Adultery (don't you wish you had been
there that day) he doodles in the dirt and replies ‘He who is
without sin, cast the first stone.'
He does make ethical judgments, but they remain remarkably
personal.
Zacheus, the hated tax collector, that terribly compromised man, makes
confession/repentance and Jesus says ‘Salvation has entered your
house this day.'
When he meet the Adulterous woman at the well, he tells her ‘Go
and sin no more' detailing her personal life.
When the disciples ask him an open ended question about theodicy that
would beckon forth an abstract response, ‘Who has caused this man
to be born blind, his parents sin, or his sin?' Jesus refuses to
become speculative and responds ‘neither'.
The Gederene Demoniac, the Woman with Flow, the Roman Centurion whose
daughter needs healing, the blind man by the pool of Siloam, each of
these people Jesus dealt with personally, not as representatives of a
class (Women, Gentile, Sick=Sinner).
Each of them could have been fitted into that story in Luke 13:10-17
that reads as follows: "Jesus was teaching on the Sabbath in one
of the synagogues, when a woman was present, infirm and afflicted by a
spirit for 18 years, bent over and unable to straighten up in any way.
When Jesus saw her, he addressed her and said, ‘Woman, you are rid
of your infirmity!'
And he laid his hands on her.
Instantly she straightened up and continued to glorify God.
The leader of the synagogue, however, annoyed that Jesus had cured her
on the Sabbath, remarked to the crowd, ‘There are 6 days when one
has to work; cone on one of these to be cured, and not on the day of
the Sabbath.'
But the Lord said to him in reply,
‘Hypocrites!
Does not each of you release his ox or ass from the manger on the
Sabbath to lead it off to water?
This woman is a daughter of Abraham, and Satan has kept her tied up for
18 long years.
Did she not have to be released from that bond, even on the day of the
Sabbath?'
As he said this, all his opponents were struck with shame, while the
whole crowd rejoiced at all the wonderful things he was doing."
(Lk. 13:10-17).
The Pharisees had the bible literally on their sides but they never
heard Percy Faith's wonderful tune ‘Try a Little
Tenderness.'
It's about the spirit not just letter of the law.
Do not each of us on the Sabbath still look for comfort, a hug,
intimate love, affection and caring?
Why is it that we are resentful when others find that same need met in
a different way from us?
It is a ticklish thing for us Christians to remember that Jesus
approached scripture and tradition with respect, to be sure, but his
emphasis was more on the embodiment of a spiritual demeanor of
‘love, grace, compassion, and forgiveness- than it was with the
letter of the law.
The Priest and the Levite have the bible on their side, but the
Samaritan does the right thing because he looks first at the need of
the brother in need and responds graciously out of that need.
We should be uncomfortable with that parable.
Certainly St. Peter was.
This is the man who asked, just as I ask, ‘How many times must I
forgive? 7.'
We want a concrete answer that we can apply, like a mathematical
formula that fits a variety of situations.
Jesus won't let us off that easy, because the Spirit of God is not
formulaic, it is embodied in personal love.
He gives us the response of the Zen master '70 times 7'.
Peter, like us, probably first said ‘Woah, I can't hardly
count to 490, how will I ever keep track?'
The fact is that, at the end of the day, we do not have an issue
sitting across the desk from us.
We do not have a
social question.
We have a
person, in need of God's grace, redeeming, and reconciliation.
I have my doubts about us ever really having enough knowledge about
sexual orientation to be able to make a credible judgment on a general
basis.
But I do know that when anyone comes to my office to speak about their
love life, I ask myself: Is this life enhancing?
Is it up building of character?
Does it develop tenderness, compassion, caring?
Does it honor their beloved?
Is it faithful, covenantal?
I could go on.
I close with a poem that someone gave to me to read at a funeral.
It was Xeroxed and I read it.
It moved me a great deal, about one person waiting for their beloved to
die.
Perhaps it moved me so much because I think of my own wife of 16
years.
It wasn't until much later that I realized that it came from POZ
Partner, a magazine devoted to AIDS issues.
It is entitled ‘Good-bye Raul'
The soul has its own schedule.
While we check the clock,
talk on the phone, plan vacations
or rush to work,
the soul consults its inner ledger, asking:
Have I done what I came to do?
Have I settled accounts?
While the cat licks her back the water boils,
While the cat licks her back the water oils,
the nurse makes a joke and checks
your pulse,
the soul tallies each victory and asks:
Have I made my mark?
Have I set things right?
While the car engine sputters and the coffee steams,
the soul-full of longing-stands
in the doorway, asks-
Can they live without me?
Have I suffered enough?
Last Friday, without warning, you answered:
yes
Mimi Plevin-Foust
I think what we are about is a quality of loving care and
compassion for each other during our short tenure on this earth.
May we have the courage to learn about that whatever quarters that
comes from.
For that is the spirit Jesus.
Amen.
© 1995 .
All rights reserved
