Sunday August 16, 2015
First Congregational United
Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
We’ve probably all been there. You’re at the family
reunion, or the company picnic, or out to dinner with a new friend and the
topic of marriage equality or Caitlyn Jenner comes up. Someone – a cousin, a
friend, your boss – says, “Well, it’s not really for me to decide. God’s
already decided. It’s very clear in the Bible. Homosexuality (or being
transgender) is wrong.”
It’s always hard to know how to handle this, yes?
Partially because we don’t want to get into it. Partially because we’re tired
of arguing. But also – sometimes – because we aren’t as well-versed in what the
Bible says as we’d like to be.
For the next two weeks, we are going to examine what the
Bible has to say about homosexuality. This week, we’ll focus on the First
Testament and next week we’ll check out the Second. Our final sermon in this
three-week series will explore what the Bible has to say about gender identity.
So…let’s jump right in. I should note up front that most
of what I’m sharing with you today I learned from this fabulous (and very
short) book, The Children are Free by
Jeff Miner and Tyler Connoley. Jonathan, can you please read the Genesis
passage for us?
***Genesis
19:1-8 is read aloud.***
Ah, good ol’ Sodom and Gormorrah. It’s such a deeply
disturbing passage…though not for many of the reasons we’ve been taught. For
many, many years this story has been used to beat up on people who are gay,
lesbian, and bisexual because it “clearly states” that homosexuality is a sin.
Except, of course. It doesn’t. Not really.
In this story, Abraham’s nephew, Lot moved to the big city
of Sodom. God Almighty is mad at the people there and wants to destroy them so
God sends incognito angels into the city on a recon mission to investigate.
Lot sees the two angels and greets them warmly, inviting
them to his home for the night. This was common practice in the ancient near
east – it was considered the norm to invite strangers into your home because
there were no hotels and it was unsafe to sleep in the city square. The two
man-angels come to Lot’s home and they settle in for the night. Suddenly, a mob
of angry people is at the door. The author of Genesis notes that it is every
single man in the city – young and old. Which is interesting because if this is
supposed to be a story about homosexuality, it seems highly unlikely that EVERY
male person in a large city would be gay, right?[1]
The angry mob demands that the man-angels be sent outside
so the crowd can “know them” which is Biblical code language for have sexual
relations with them. Lot, being the fine upstanding gentleman that he is,
refuses. Instead, he offers up his two virgin daughters to the angry crowd. My
study Bible says that Lot’s solution was “less than exemplary.”[2]
I tend to think that’s a bit of an understatement. Offering your two daughters
to an angry crowd so they can be raped is so disturbing, I’m not even sure what
to call it except horrifying and evil. Through a twist of magic, just as the
angry mob is about to break down the door, the man-angels intervene and no one
is hurt.
It seems pretty clear to me that this scene at Lot’s door
is not about sex or sexuality at all. It is about fear and what happens when
people are caught up in mob mentality. Rape is not about sex. It’s about power,
control, and humiliating another human being. That seems to be exactly what the
mob wants. They are afraid of these strangers in their midst and they want to
exert their authority by victimizing them.[3]
Other Biblical authors seemed to understand this. Sodom is
mentioned another 20 times in the Bible and no where – not once – is the “sin
of Sodom” understood to be homosexuality.[4]
Instead, it’s that they were prosperous, inhospitable, full of pride, and
haughty. They did not help those who were needy. They cared only for
themselves. The sin of Sodom was violence rooted in fear and seeking to
humiliate and control another. It has nothing to do with homosexuality at all.
Jonathan, can you please read the Leviticus passage for
us?
****Leviticus
18:1-5, 22 is read aloud.****
Here is a passage where context means everything.
Leviticus is, in general, a rulebook for living. As the Israelites were
becoming a more solidified cultural group, they needed to be “set apart” from
the other tribes and people around them. You can see this clearly in the beginning
of the passage we just heard: “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: I
am the Lord your God. You shall not do in as they do in the land of Egypt,
where you lived, and you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan.” And
then we’re off into this giant list of all the things the Canaanites do that
are bad news.
One of the things listed looks like it might be a
condemnation of homosexuality. But homosexuality as we know it didn’t exist in
Canaanite culture.[5] This was a
culture were gender norms were rigid. Women did certain things and men did
others. Everyone had to be paired up with someone from the opposite gender for society
to function properly. These people would have gone bonkers over Target re-doing
their toy aisles! They would not have understood a consensual, mutual partnership
between two people of the same gender.
Instead, what they are likely referring to here is related
to sexual acts that happened as a part of religious ceremonies. The Canaanite
people, like many others, used sex rituals as a part of their faith practices.[6]
We’re talking about sex rites, cultic temple prostitution, that kind of thing.
I won’t go into details. But there were certainly men involved in sex rituals
with other men and women with women. Those are the types of sexuality being
condemned here, not homosexuality as we know it.
There is another very similar reference to these sex
rituals in Leviticus 20:13. And that’s it. There are over 600,000 words in the
First Testament, but that’s all the First Testament says that could potentially
be construed as a condemnation of same-sex relationships. Let’s move on two
examining two stories that have been interpreted as affirming same-sex love.
Jonathan, please read us that passage from Ruth.
****Ruth
1:1-9, 16-17 is read aloud.****
Again, context really matters. In order to understand the
story of Ruth and Naomi, we have to understand the way families worked in the
ancient near east. Women could not own property. They did not ever live alone
or without men. They were generally considered the property and responsibility
of their fathers until the married, at which time they became the property of
their husbands. Side note: this is why I always scratch my head when I hear
women living in the 21st century say they want us to have “Biblical
marriage” now. No, thanks.
If a woman’s male protector died, she was extremely
vulnerable. That’s why there are so many Biblical imperatives to care for the
widows and the orphans. So when Orpah follows Naomi’s advice and decides to go
back to her own people, she’s not being mean – she’s just being reasonable. The
one who is wildly unreasonable is Ruth. Her decision to stay with Naomi makes
no sense at all. Miner and Connolley say the only way we can understand her
radical act is to know that it is motivated by love.[7]
Those words that Ruth says to Naomi, “Do not press me to
leave you…where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people
shall be my people and my God your God.” Those words have been read at
heterosexual wedding ceremonies for centuries.[8]
They are words of devotion, spoken in love. They are vows of a lifelong
commitment and covenant rooted in love.
Now you may be thinking, “Wait, doesn’t Ruth get married
later?” Yes, she does. Interestingly, the Bible says nothing about her loving
Boaz, her new husband. And Naomi and Ruth’s relationship remains central to the
story. In fact, when Ruth gives birth to a son, the author describes the child
as Naomi’s son.[9] Now do we
know if it was a sexual relationship? No, we don’t. Does it matter? Not really.
What does matter, is that, clearly, these two women continued to live in a
loving partnership, even after Boaz came on the scene.
And…speaking of that son born to Ruth and Naomi and Boaz.
He was named Obed. He was the father of Jesse, who was the father of David. So…speaking
of David….
****1
Samuel 18:1-4 and 2 Samuel
1:25-26 are read aloud.****
So these are stories from David’s youth – back before he
was King. And when he was a younger man, he had a complicated relationship with
King Saul. Saul eventually died in battle and David was his successor. Along
the time, David developed an intense relationship with Saul’s son, Jonathan,
and also married Jonathan’s sister, Michal.
In Miner and Connolley’s book, they go into more details
about the relationship between David and Jonathan than we have time for this
morning.[10]
I want to highlight just a couple of things from their relationship, which
spans vast portions of 1 Samuel. First, we just heard the story of their first
meeting. We are told that their souls were bound together and that Jonathan
loved David “as his own soul.” And Jonathan gives David prized possessions – including
the clothes off his back, his armor, his weapons. That’s a pretty intense first
meeting. If this meeting had happened between David and Michal or one of Saul’s
other daughters we would almost certainly assume it was romantic in nature.[11]
If you continue reading into 1 Samuel 20 you’ll find
stories of Jonathan and his father getting into an argument over Jonathan’s
relationship with David. Saul is displeased and thinks the relationship is
shameful. When Saul tries to kill David, Jonathan is the one who warns David to
protect him. The two pledge their eternal love to one another, kissing and
weeping at their last meeting. And then, in 2 Samuel, we hear a song David sang
when Jonathan was killed in battle, “Jonathan lies slain upon your high places.
I am distressed for you my brother Jonathan. Greatly beloved you were to me;
your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.”
Again, if David acted this way towards one of Saul’s
daughters, we would automatically see it as a romantic and sexual relationship.
Why not do the same for these two men, who were clearly devoted to one another,
even putting themselves at risk to care for each other? Now, some will say,
“But David was married! In fact, he was kind of a womanizer!” True. Trust me,
we don’t have time today to talk about King David’s treatment of the women in
his life. But, this isn’t a compelling argument. Plenty of gay men are married.
Or perhaps David was bisexual? Just because he loved a man certainly doesn’t
mean he couldn’t have also loved women.
Whew. And there you have it. What the First Testament of
the Bible has to say about homosexuality, in a nutshell. Next week we’ll take a
trip through the Second Testament. Thanks be to God for Biblical scholars who
help us analyze and understand our sacred texts. And thanks be to God who is
still-speaking, even through words that we previously thought were hateful. The
Good News is still alive. Amen.
1 comment:
I am sending this to my Disciple Class, many of whom have asked me about homosexuality. Thanks for your continued wisdom for my walk.
Love.
Post a Comment