Sermon for Sunday, February 24, 2008THE SPECTRUM OF HUMAN SEXUALITY7th in a series on Confronting the Controversies By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz |
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Scripture: Leviticus 20:13 ~ NRSV 13 If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. Mark 7:14-23 ~ Good News Translation 14 Then Jesus called the crowd to him once more and said to them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand. 15 There is nothing that goes into you from the outside which can make you ritually unclean. Rather, it is what comes out of you that makes you unclean." 17 When he left the crowd and went into the house, his disciples asked him to explain this saying. 18 "You are no more intelligent than the others," Jesus said to them. "Don't you understand? Nothing that goes into you from the outside can really make you unclean, 19 because it does not go into your heart but into your stomach and then goes on out of the body." (In saying this, Jesus declared that all foods are fit to be eaten.) 20 And he went on to say, "It is what comes out of you that makes you unclean. 21 For from the inside, from your heart, come the evil ideas which lead you to do immoral things, to rob, kill, 22 commit adultery, be greedy, and do all sorts of evil things; deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride, and folly— 23 all these evil things come from inside you and make you unclean." This morning we are doing the same sort of thing as last week—thinking together about one of the most emotionally intense and divisive issues in our religious and political discussions and I ask you to be in prayer briefly with me that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts will be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen. The last time I devoted an entire sermon to the topic of sexual identity and same sex orientation was sixteen years ago in our congregation in Colorado Springs. The controversial Amendment 2 was on the ballot in our state and there were passionate church leaders who, I believe, were misleading people spreading false information. They told voters that the controversial amendment would keep gay and lesbian persons from having “special rights” when in actuality the only rights to be protected were the right not to be denied job or housing simply because of sexual identity—hardly rights that you and I think of as special and rights that most of us take for granted. There were other tactics that I saw to be devious—attempts by some to portray gay persons as child molesters and only as sexually promiscuous. They presented the false notion that gay persons want to recruit children to be gay. I believe that some church leaders were breaking the commandment about not bearing false witness and one of those was Ted Haggard who you know as the former pastor of New Life Church recently removed over allegations about a relationship with a male prostitute. The people of Colorado passed that amendment by a 53 % vote and the Colorado Springs voters had a much higher margin of support for the discriminatory measure and I personally believe that that higher level of support in Colorado Springs was one reason that the Ku Klux Klan decided to hold a rally the following summer because they saw it as a ripe recruiting ground for their forces of bigotry and hatred. Over many years of American history the Klan harassed and abused not only black and Hispanic minorities but also immigrants, Catholics, homosexuals and others they wanted to demonize because they were “different”. Luckily when the Klan came, our church and couple of other organizations had organized a city wide rally to celebrate diversity and our rally drew many more people each year and drew people away from the Klan event. During that Amendment 2 controversy, our Methodist congregation took some public stances against that amendment and against discrimination, as did our Bishop, and we lost members and gained some members. Judy and I had a rock thrown through our window at home, I believe, because of our opposition to legalizing discrimination. That was nothing compared to the professor at Colorado College who had someone fire a rifle into his living room. It was a very bitter time in our state. And many of you know that the US Supreme Court also saw through those misrepresentations as well and declared the Colorado amendment to be unconstitutional. My experience has been ever since that time that when we talk about such a volatile topic as sexual identity and sexual orientation, that we often generate more heat than light. I hope and pray that we can change that. Incidentally, I believe that words are important here. I do not talk about “sexual preference” because I think that is demeaning. I use the word prefer when I am talking about preferring chocolate ice cream over strawberry ice cream. The matter of sexual identity, whether people feel romantic attraction to the same gender or a different gender, is so much deeper than “prefer”. I believe it is a given, a part of our identity that we do not choose in the same way we do not choose to be left handed or right handed—that is a given. You may think differently about that and that difference is a very critical dividing point on issues like civil rights and job discrimination and legal rights for same gender couples. I began by recalling the intense divisions of 16 years ago. The divisions are still present but I think I see some change. One of those changes has happened as American business has led the way in being inclusive and open to all people regarding sexual orientation. While some church leaders have continued to demonize and condemn gay and lesbian persons as worst sinners than anyone else, American business has led in a different direction. Did you know that 94% of the Fortune 500 companies in 2007 had non discriminatory policies toward gay persons? I find that encouraging. Did you know that in recent polls most Americans (79%) are willing for openly gay persons to serve in the military? That is 79% of us disagree with the current “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that is costing us two or three service members to be discharged every day, some of those persons are in critical roles such as linguists in Arabic, Farsi, and Chinese—specialties we desperately need right now? Did you know that 24 other nations allow openly gay persons to serve in the military with no observed impact on morale, unit cohesion, readiness or recruitment? Those nations include Israel, Great Britain and Canada. There are other changes though they have seemed to come slowly. Retired Methodist Bishop Jack Tuell in a sermon ten years ago tells about how his mind has changed over the years about gay persons in ministry in our church and how he now is completely open to that. Bishop Tuell is not only a Bishop but also has a law degree and law credentials. His sermon is available today on the sermon racks. His witness is a sign of change and I believe, progress. There are other signs of change. There are now 245 Methodist congregations that have chosen to be identified as open to all persons as members regardless of sexual orientation and that possibility of becoming a reconciling congregation is one that our leadership council has begun to discuss. There are more signs of change, I have met others of you in our church who have told me personally that your own mind has changed about this emotional issue over the past few years and that you want to be more welcoming and more inclusive and more accepting of all persons. And at the same time that I believe this change is happening, I believe that there are sincere persons of integrity who have different ideas and differing opinions on sexual identity and civil rights for all persons and that we need to listen to each other with respect and humility. Back to those signs of change and openness. Why has that been happening? I believe it has happened partly because people have looked more carefully at the Bible. We have moved beyond a superficial posture that used to say, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” The Bible is more complex than that. The Bible does not tell us everything we need to know about everything. The Bible is authoritative about our relationship with God but there are some other perspectives in the Bible that are the science and math of 2500 years ago and need to be reconsidered—we will look at this next Sunday. The heart of the Bible is Jesus and his teaching and his example. There are some other parts of the Bible that need to be measured against Jesus and found wanting. Be wary when someone bases their belief on “The Bible says…” Be thoughtful about that. For instance, the Bible says that it is good to take the children of our enemies and kill them by throwing them against boulders. Psalm 137, verse 9. It is in the Bible but we don’t abide by it because it does not fit with the teachings of Christ. The Bible says that it is an abomination to God to wear clothing made of two different kinds of material. The Bible says it is an abomination to God to eat lobster or crab. The Bible says that adulterers are to be killed. The Bible says that it is an abomination to God to handle the skin of a pig—thereby outlawing football! That word “abomination” shows up over 70 times in the Hebrew Bible, mostly in Leviticus, and it is the word that is used in Leviticus 20 that says when a man lies with another man, they should be killed. I don’t know many persons, even so called fundamentalists or literalists, who really want to follow that prescription in Leviticus for the same reasons we don’t follow some of the other purity laws in Leviticus. They do not match up with the teaching of Christ who commands us to be compassionate. What does the Bible say about sexual identity? The people from 200 years ago did not know about sexual orientation or sexual identity. They believed everyone was heterosexual. Our biologists and psychologists tell us that is false today, that some percentage of all persons is born/created with attraction toward others of the same gender, and that is not a choice but a given. The Bible is helpful when we talk about behavior—we can all choose our behavior and we are responsible for our behavior whether we are talking about how we express our love or how much we eat and how little we exercise!! Our behavior is up to us and that is where some folks have just misspoken by portraying all gay persons as promiscuous. Promiscuity—casual and licentious sexual behavior—is wrong according to our book, but it is only one of many other wrong behaviors Jesus addresses in Mark’s gospel. Did you hear them? Theft, murder, promiscuity, greed, deceit, envy, gossip, arrogance or pride—does anyone feel left out yet? Jesus condemns promiscuity but he never addresses sexual orientation and does not say that being gay is inherently wrong or evil. He also says that we are not to condemn others without first looking at our own wrongdoing. And he is intensely concerned with hypocrisy-people talking about one way and then acting in an opposite way, people going through the motions of being religious and not having integrity or sincerity. Jesus is also passionately committed to including and welcoming people who were seen as outsiders and “sinners”! What does the Bible say about morality and sexuality? Are we willing to look at the whole Bible and not just some isolated passages? Are we willing to look at the close friendship and love between two important men in the Bible, David and Jonathan? David, the future king of Israel and most beloved and flawed king and Jonathan, son of King Saul who tried to kill both David and Jonathan. David talks of Jonathan after Jonathan’s death and affirms David’s love for Jonathan, a love that he says even surpasses the love of a woman. The Bible’s witness is more complicated than some people think. What do medical science and biology and the mental health profession tell us? Most of those experts say [it is in your bulletin insert] that sexual identity is a given and not a choice. The five to ten per cent of our population who are gay and lesbian did not choose that identity, it is a given, an inherent part of who they are. It is the same for others of us. When did we choose, decide, to have romantic feelings toward the opposite sex? It was a given for most of us. Some persons are in the middle of that spectrum and have feelings about both genders (Ted Haggard, Larry Craig) but usually there is a stronger inclination one way or another. By the way, on this issue of choosing or discovering one’s identity, that great American theologian Ann Landers saw through the “choice” falsehood twenty five years ago when she responded to a question. She wisely said why would someone choose to be attracted to the same gender when that seemed to guarantee people despising, demonizing, condemning, and rejecting persons as terrible sinners. Most psychotherapists believe sexual identity is a given and not a choice. They also believe that efforts to change or alter identity are misguided and dangerous. That effort is called “reparative therapy” and is rejected by mainstream therapists including those in our congregation who have signed together the statement in your bulletin insert. There are other very destructive myths that mainstream therapists have rejected. Gay persons are not child molesters. Gay persons cannot recruit others to be gay. Gay persons are individuals and there is no such thing as a “homosexual lifestyle” just as there is no “heterosexual lifestyle”. People who are straight or gay can be celibate or in a monogamous covenant relationship or engage in adultery or casual sex-whether they are gay or straight. There might even be more promiscuity among heterosexual persons than anyone else. One other insight from some scientific pollsters: There is a remarkable difference in attitudes of openness on civil rights for all persons depending on age. People under forty or so are less willing to discriminate and are more accepting than persons over forty or so. That is a terribly generic statement but unfortunately true and you might check that out with your friends. We have made some changes over the years but there is still a long way to go in the mind of some persons. Others do not want any change. In our own denomination a couple of years ago the Methodist Judicial Council upheld the right of a pastor who denied church membership to a gay man when he learned that the man was in a committed monogamous relationship. The Judicial Council said the pastor had that right to decide who can belong and who cannot. Many of us disagreed. We still exclude anyone from ministry who is openly gay and in a committed relationship. Some Methodists agree with that, some disagree. That leaves us with one of the characteristics I love about being part of the United Methodist church. We can think for ourselves. We are not all required to subscribe to one set of dogma and doctrine. John Wesley, founder of Methodism encourages us to think and let think—but first of all THINK. Read your Bible. Listen to the scientific research. Decide for yourself. What do you think? What civil rights and legal protections should be given to all Americans regardless of sexual identity? What should the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment mean for all persons? Is the granting of legal protections to same sex couples a threat to marriage? Do you feel your marriage threatened? What would you do if a son or daughter or grandson or granddaughter told you they were gay? What would you think or feel? What difference would that make if any? What else can we do? One thing we do is to prepare in our congregation to be picketed sometime in the future by Kansas minister Fred Phelps and his group who believe that all gay persons are the most evil and sinful beings and that any group that wants to offer a reproductive choice to any woman regardless of the situation should be mightily condemned. With the statements in the sermons from last week and today, I predict that this group will show up on our sidewalk as they did two years ago Easter Sunday at two other Methodist churches in Denver with their grotesque signs and shouts of hatred. And I also predict that we will be courteous and kind to them. What else can we do? We can listen to others who have different ideas. We can read books like Dr. Walter Wink’s “Homosexuality and the Christian Faith” (60 people showed up five years ago for a book discussion on this!), books like “What the Science Says and Doesn’t Say About Homosexuality” of which we received 150 copies for you this week. Read Dr. Furnish’s chapter on what the Bible says and does not say. Pick up a copy of Bishop Tuell’s sermon on how his mind has changed. See the films we will make available to you including the one featuring parents of gay and lesbian sons and daughters. And pray. Pray for discernment, for wisdom, for understanding, for grace, and for the spirit of Christ. Here is the film clip of one mother’s answer about what we can do.
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