Scripture Readings: Luke 10:25-37, Micah 6:6-8

 As indicated by Karla, most folks here at St. Johns would not be surprised to find gay or transgendered folks affirmed in church, especially this one. But let us assume there are some folks who are surprised to hear such an affirmation. When we approach any subject of change to Church doctrine it is important to bring two qualities: humility and love.  Humility comes first through the acknowledgment that we are not God.  We are limited in time, space and knowledge. We fall short of God's glory and need God's grace. In any situation, regardless of how limited we are, we know that love is the starting point and the end goal.  And love is found in relationship.  We “work out our own salvation,” as Paul suggested, by taking humility and love into a particular context, a particular relationship, and there discern the will of the Holy Spirit. 

From where does this approach come?  Am I just making it up as I go along, or is there precedent?  I will draw heavily here from Jack Roger’s new book, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality. To begin to answer our question we take a humbling look at recent History.  On the issue of race and gender, the conquest of the Americas' slavery, women’s suffrage, and ordination, white men in positions of power interpreted reality, scripture and Church doctrine from their privileged position.  With virtually complete power and the sole voice, they were able to label others as inferior, and claim their own interpretations of scripture normative and their opinions “common sense.”

Now there is no shortage of exceptions to this rule in Church History, as people down through the ages, even white men, have made courageous stands for justice and love, and called the rule of love the guiding light to interpretation of scripture.  But it is a general truth that those who have controlled scripture and society have interpreted them to their own benefit and often to the detriment of others.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the American consensus on interpretation of the Bible began to change.  Two events were significant: slavery and the Civil War and the publication of Darwin’s Origin of the Species.  The Modernists, as they were called, tended to embrace the new science and a liberal optimism: seeing humans as evolving toward God.  They also made the claim that not all the Bible was equally true.  Also threatening was the implementation of social science, historical and literary criticism to the understanding of scripture.  Feeling their faith was threatened by these societal changes, the fundamentalists made the counter claim that all of scripture was God’s Word, inerrant and infallible.  In 1910, 1916, and 1923 the Presbyterian General Assembly made acceptance of the five fundamentals essential for ordained ministry:  they were the inerrancy of scripture, the virgin birth, substitutionary atonement on the cross, the bodily resurrection and belief in miracles.

But by 1927 Presbyterians came back and said that no one could create a short list of essentials and make it law, and if a person had a disagreement it was up to the local governing body, the presbytery, to adjudicate that conflict. The reason for this was that it is at the presbytery level where we meet each other face to face. By now we have jumped back and forth several times, most recently when the PUP (Peace, Unity and Purity) report gave jurisdiction back to the presbyteries, and we approved Lisa Larges ready for ordination.

By the 1930’s we begin to see the rise of “Neo-orthodoxy” led by, among others, the powerful mind of the Swiss theologian Karl Barth. "It was "neo" because it was a new approach, different both from the Modernist and the Fundamentalist approach.  It was 'Orthodox' as it turned people’s attention to Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture and depended on the work of the Holy Spirit to make the biblical message alive through preaching."  This new theology had both reverence for the Bible and used all the tools of contemporary scholarship to understand it. (Rogers, p.37)

“WWI, which had involved some of the most 'civilized' countries in Europe, dashed the existing liberal optimism about human nature.  Human effort, it appeared, was not bringing in God’s kingdom, nor was human reason proving adequate to know God.”  The liberal view that we were evolving ever closer to the kingdom of God looked bankrupt, and once again we were in need of God’s amazing grace.  “Neo-orthodoxy’s defining insight, taken from the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, was that people and God are known by personal encounter, not by rational analysis.  The revelation of God comes not in an inspired book, but in the person of Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate.  The Bible is a witness to Christ.  Thus, this approach to biblical interpretation was called “Christological.’” (Rogers. P. 38)

Scripture itself was interpreted through the lens of the person of Jesus Christ.  The switch here was that a general principal, the love and grace found in Jesus Christ, would take precedence over particular texts. This is the way Jesus approached scripture, as seen among other places, in his approach to the Sabbath and the parable of the Good Samaritan.   It is through this lens, the life of Jesus testified to in the Gospels, that our interpretation of scripture with regard to those who were discriminated against, namely African Americans, women, and now the GLBT (gay lesbian bisexual transgender) community began to change.

Two things guide us as we approach scripture and a difficult issue: relationship and Jesus.  Using orthodox language, God chose to reveal himself by sending his son Jesus to live, in relationship with us, incarnate in a particular time and place.  He maintained his divine integrity, loving all and calling for justice even when faced with death, even death on a cross.  But he is risen, and by his grace and his Spirit, which is the breath of all life, we are empowered to follow the way of Jesus.  We are, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the risen Christ, by incarnate love, to bring God's love into relationship with those in our particular time and place.  Taking Christ’s own emphasis, we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and soul, and our neighbor as ourselves.  We discern and affirm another’s call to ministry, when through humility and love in relationship with them, we witness the presence of the risen Christ in them, in their passion to love God and neighbor.

Now liberation theology added to neo-orthodoxy by pointing out that when we engage in relationship with the person of Jesus Christ testified to by the Bible, we see God’s preferential option for the poor and the oppressed.  “Blessed are the poor…Woe to you who are rich:”  The woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, the rich man in the front and the poor man in the back of the synagogue:  The scriptural examples go on and on:  Jesus approaches the humble with grace and forgiveness and brings hope for justice, while he approaches the privileged and arrogant, and their scriptural interpretations, with what has been called a “hermeneutic of suspicion.”   Liberation theologians see in scripture that God balances the prejudice of power and privilege. 

It has always been the habit of the privileged to accuse the underprivileged of lacking in mental and moral capacity.  And it is true, jumping back to the neoorthodox Reinhold Neibuhr, “The educational advantages which privilege buys, and the opportunities for the exercise of authority which come with privileged social position, develop capacities which are easily attributed to innate endowment.  The presence of able men among the privileged is allowed to obscure the number of instances in which hereditary privilege is associated with knavery and incompetence.  On the other hand it has always been the habit of the privileged groups to deny the oppressed classes every opportunity for the cultivation of innate capacities and then to accuse them of lacking what they have been denied the right to acquire.”  (Niebuhr, Reinhold.  Moral Man and Immoral Society. p.118) We have seen this trick used in recent history against African Americans, indigenous Americans, and women.

This point is particularly applicable to the issue of sexuality, it seems to me, as all the abuse by heterosexual men is overlooked and never calls into question heterosexuality as an orientation, while homosexuals are accused of being sexually immoral and then denied the right to make a legal and spiritual commitment before God and to one another in marriage.  It can also be noted, that one of the stereotypes racial ethnic minorities have had to fight against in their struggle for equality and justice has been the accusation of sexual deviancy.  And this is a big part of the reason why racial ethnic minorities within the Church will be slow to join the cause of more gracious, less rigid sexual standards.

Yet it is not my intention here to debate the specifics of the issues currently confronting us: sexual psychology, sociology and ethics, the possibility of marriage and ordination for gay, lesbian, bi and transgendered people. 

The points I want to make today as the resident theologian of this congregation, is that when we come to these issues and others regardless of our knowledge or lack of it, the biblical, Christian approach is the approach of Christ, toward relationship with humility and love.  That is, we are not talking about an issue, making judgments from on high, we are talking and relating with people.  Our gay and lesbian and transgendered friends whom we have ordained as deacons and elders at St. John’s have been subjected to the same criteria as everyone else, no more no less. In our relationship with them, in their relationship with us: do they love the Lord, and do they love their neighbor as themselves.  Do they have a love for mercy and grace, and will they work for justice?  The answer we have found in those cases upon which we have acted, by the grace of God, is yes.

To some such actions and understandings are labeled as radical. If radical is shocking then that may be true. I do now wish to imply that there is not a need for unsettling words and action, what Sean or Molly called taking the risk to “poke the bear.”  But my point is, if radical means totally new and different, then even poking the bear is not radical, if it is done in the Spirit for love and justice.  In this case, poking the bear translated into the language of Jesus would be:  pick up your cross and follow me.  From the angle I view it, opening our arms and hearts in relationship to the movement of the Spirit of God in gay, lesbian and transgendered people is not radical, it is middle of the road, right down the middle of the way which is Jesus Christ.  It is not that we do not take the Bible seriously, though we take it too seriously to take it literally.  Our actions are not intended to be unchristian, but on the contrary, to be utterly Christ like.  We are not leaving scripture or orthodox church tradition, but firmly rooted in its most powerful and important truths.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.