John 8.2-11 , Genesis 1.26-31, Song of Songs 2.1-7
Preached Canberra Baptist Church 26th October 2008
I have a confession I must make: I have not been honest in titling this sermon. The words come from a great English writer but I have not quoted him accurately: he wrote of men in the great and glorious trouble of the love of women! I have been politically correct, but literarily dishonest. Whether this is a pastoral correctness or a pastoral dishonesty I have yet to determine.
Half the congregation may agree with the English writer – but others may see the trouble resting more with the men! This points to the intrinsically gendered nature of our existence that none of us can escape.
I want to talk about relationships and the challenges and joys that they present to us. Where should we start? Perhaps with the By-laws of Baptist Union of NSW and the ACT which state that hose in pastoral leadership are not permitted to engage in “sexual activity outside the legally constituted marriage of man and a woman”. This is consistent with what we perceive as the traditional approach of Christian churches to anything to do with sex and relationships: Wait until marriage! Don’t get divorced! Same-sex relationships are always wrong! For most of us it’s pretty easy to work out what the church usually says.
My problem with this approach is that this doesn’t say anything helpful to the single, the widowed, the divorced, those in common law marriage (sometimes called de-facto relationships), those who love but whose love is unrequited, those in conflict with the one they love, or those those who experience same sex attraction. What can we same to these people about relationships, intimacy, tenderness and desire? Do they not experience and/or need these things? Narrowing things down to a blanket denial of “sexual activity outside the legally constituted marriage of a man and a woman” at the very least is not particularly helpful, if not just plain unrealistic.
Many people are struggling to live with integrity and are looking for a sense of peace and resolution about their relationships. Thankfully the Bible is full of stories of some of the most ambiguous tragic and painful relationships, and also some wonderful and hopeful stories about love and relationships. The stories in the Scriptures remind us that people have always been lonely and lusty, and romantic and faithful, and forgetful and wayward. Thank God for those little snippets of advice and encouragement which show us that they too struggled in relationships with all the things we struggle with. Today we have heard three readings - one a celebration of love on the lips of a woman and a man deeply in love (Song of Songs 2.1-7). Another is the story of a woman caught in the difficulties of adultery and its legal and relational consequences (John 8.2-11). Finally we heard one of the great primal myths of human experience, the explanation of the bond of a man and a woman as outlined in Genesis (Gen 1.26-31).
In today’s sermon I want to reflect upon some of the basic principles of a Christian understanding of relationships. I then wish to explore the role of social context in how our relationship are ordered. Third, I want to address how personal circumstances function in guiding our ethical decision-making.
I then wish to reflect upon the place of same-sex relationships within Christian thinking, in a very brief and cursory engagement with a very deep and complex topic. Finally I want to reflect upon where we might discover God had in all of the complexities of our understanding and experience of relationship.
The reading from Genesis (1.26-31) contains the creation mandate for relationship and sex. This great theme is revisited throughout the Bible and it is foundational for the thinking of Jesus about marriage (see Mark chapter 10 and parallels) and the Pauline tradition (see Ephesians chapter 5). Four great things about relationships can be discerned in this passage:
Part of that is this goodness is the gift of sex itself. Sex might be very good but it’s not everything: James Thurber the American satirist of the mid 20th Century once said “Sex is not everything. Studies show that sex rates from as little as 3% of everything to as much as 78% of everything, but it is not everything.” We must remember that our needs for intimacy, friendship, tenderness, touch, emotional connection, care and love is as much found in life in community as it is in sexual relationships.
If we put all this together we can affirm that our gendered existence is a good thing - a form of blessing -that applies to all our relating not just the sexual, and that those special sexual relationships between men and women are designed to be both enduring and exclusive. Put all this together and you have essentially the ingredients of a marriage. But a marriage is not made by a piece of paper or the words of a clergyman. It is made when the good experience of gendered existence is explored within a context where relationship is both exclusive and enduring.
Now this is Christian teaching but it’s not just Christian teaching. These principles are supported by human experience. The nature of an intimate sexual relationship as enduring and exclusive means that it cannot be ended without pain nor multiplied without problems. That is a constant context for all of our lives, as anyone who has been through the dissolution of marriage or close loving relationship will tell us. It doesn't matter whether that dissolution has come about through the failure of a relationship or by the death of a partner. The processes of grief and sorrow will be different in each case, but grief and sorrow there will be.
Within these basic principles of marriage and relationship we are called to have loyalty and abiding commitment to each other and respect the special nature of these kinds of bonds.
There are also other considerations that guide our ethical thinking.
The first of these is the nature of social context. Social context plays an enormous part in determining how the basic Biblical principles of enduring and exclusive relationships are enacted. Even within the Bible we find that the basic principles of human marriage are modified by the social context and needs of people. In Mark 10 Jesus says as much about the Mosaic provision for divorce - that this reflected the hardheartedness of the people, not the will of God. In the Old Testament we see the ways in which and the social context and needs of the time have structured and given shape to the way in which these basic principles of connectedness and exclusivity and commitment have worked in practice. The ancient law of levirate marriage there to protect widows in a time when there was neither social security nor independence of women. Similarly in ancient Israel there were provisions for concubinage and polygamy. In the Bible the acceptance of slavery and the ownership of another's body, free will and reproductive capacity also was addressed as a part of the laws and rules covering sexual relationships.
In the New Testament we find that the Pauline injunction to celibacy reflecting the social context of urgency in which the return of Christ and the end of the world were felt to be imminent. (For the detailed logic of this position read 1 Corinthians chapter 7.)
Of course, the post-Biblical historical context in which the church did its thinking and in which we find ourselves also affects the way we view sexual ethics. I give three examples:
Celibacy and Virginity: By the time of the church fathers the NT view that virginity was expedient because of the imminent return of Christ had changed. Celibacy was held up not simply because it was practical in a time of imminent social collapse but it was held to be holier and more appropriate state for Christians than marriage.
Now of course we live in an age when virginity or celibacy is often held up to ridicule and even pity. An important task for the church in such a world is to help support singleness and celibacy with dignity and respect, not just as a preparation for marriage or a sacrifice for religious life but as a calling of God that is fulfilling and rewarding and valuable to the individual and society
Concubinage: In parts of Africa today there are provisions where a person in traditional culture can convert to Christianity and enter the church with either multiple wives or multiple husbands: it is felt to be pastorally inappropriate to end these existing relationships and in these social contexts the church will honour existing polygamous relationships.
Marriage: My church history professor (who was a Welshman) told me a joke about the Welsh:
Man 1: Have you heard that Myfanwy’s getting married?
Man 2: I didn’t even know she was pregnant.
Man 1: She’s not pregnant.
Man 2: Not pregnant? And getting married? There’s posh!
This is not a slur upon Welsh women but a reflection of the social context of the Welsh villages and mining communities of the 19th-century, where a young couple getting married meant that an older widow would have to leave her home and live with her daughter to free up a house. It was not until a baby was on the way that the community felt someone should be asked to make such a sacrifice. In the ‘engagement’ period the marks of exclusivity and endurance still characterized the relationship.
It wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that Baptists and other Nonconformists had the right to celebrate marriages within their churches. The only Christian church empowered to marry was the Church of England. Accordingly many devout Baptists would live in a common-law marriage, simply announcing in church one day that from a particular day they would be living together as man and wife. An Irish Presbyterian minister made a similar point quite colourfully when speaking of his native Northern Ireland: “For 200 years” he said, “every Presbyterian born in Northern Ireland was a little bastard!”
Thus the emphasis on the legal quality of marriage in Protestant churches is relatively recent! In many traditions it was always the commitment, not the legal aspect, that mattered. Of course there were legal impediments for our forebears that are not there for us. But there are other dimensions of social context that may affect us.
Finally personal circumstances play a large part in how the basic structure of human intimate relationships, as shaped by the social context in which they have to be lived out, are given detailed expression. We look at the Bible we can see some wonderful stories of romance.
In all of these stories you see the way that personal circumstances and history shaped the way that the biblical injunction to have enduring and exclusive relationships are worked out within a particular social context.
But what about same-sex relationships? Here is an area which is troubling the church worldwide. It would be irresponsible today to talk about relationships without engaging this topic, but I can do no more than offer some broad perspectives on the discussion.
The first is that the biblical prohibitions of same-sex acts are quite specific but they are not numerous. (about half a dozen in the whole of the Bible). This doesn’t mean they can de discounted but we must acknowledge it’s not a strong theme in the Bible.
Furthermore, there are different principles driving the prohibition. In parts of the Old Testament (eg Leviticus 18 ff.) it reflects the purity laws that were so much a part of the Jewish tradition. At other points (for instance in the Sodom and Gomorrah story - Genesis 19) it is not clear whether the great sin committed is against sexual purity or against the obligation to offer protection and hospitality. In the New Testament the prohibition is sometimes seen as a category of fornication and an affront to fidelity within relationships (eg 1 Cor 6.9, 1 Tim 1.10).
A further complication is that it is sometimes difficult to understand exactly what the texts are talking about. Are particular prohibitions aimed at forms of temple or religious prostitution? Are prohibitions of same-sex interactions talking about practices that were conducted as isolated acts alongside marriage (as was common in the Greek world)? Do any of the biblical discussions of same-sex relationships connect at all with the modern idea of sexual identity, that what we do arises from who we are and is deeply grounded in our sense of person-hood? When we look to the Bible for advice on same-sex relationships today are we ‘comparing apples with apples’?
Using our model of “Christian principles à social context à personal circumstances” we have to ask what effect the social context has on our view of same sex relationships? How does the social context inform the task of Christian ethics on same sex relationships?
Personal circumstances: Many families have gay children or grandchildren and this is so even in the church. Should we not listen to their stories, values and spiritual needs before we hand down our ethical opinion/decisions? I am NOT saying we bend the principles to suit the circumstances, but I believe that if we really want to hear the voice of God on this we need to hear from a range of people about these issues, not just from the white, middle-aged, ordained, heterosexual, married men who comprise the majority of the Christian ministry in Australia (and I personally plead guilty on all the aforementioned counts!!)
Summary: So what at first glance seems to be fairly clear is actually not very clear at all. In considering the matter of same-sex relationships we are actually considering a very complex area of human behaviour for which the biblical resources are not unanimous and straightforward. The whole area of same-sex relationships is one which I believe will take churches decades to resolve. It is also beset by the issues of how we read the Bible. Perhaps more than any other contemporary ethical issue, hermeneutical assumptions (that is assumptions about how we interpret Scripture) are absolutely central to this issue.
However, if same-sex relationships are considered acceptable (and there are many Christian theologians who believe that they should be), they fall within the same general principles that we have already enunciated. These principles are that relationships are good and fulfilling, that they should be enduring, involving commitment and fidelity and that either ending or multiplying our relationships leads to pain.
As a congregation we are divided on this subject: some will have a more traditional view, others a more accepting view. What is important is that we respect each other and accept our right to hold different views, and respect any same sex attracted people who come to our church – just as we will ask them to respect our diversity of opinion.
Finally, I want to suggest that relationships are deeply iconic of God. The writer of Ephesians, drawing on the Genesis passage that we have read, refers to the basic principle of relational life: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. (Eph 5.31) He immediately goes on to say “This is a great mystery and I am applying it to Christ and the church” (Eph 5.32). In a similar vein the writer of the first John affirms that “everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 John 4.7)
The iconic nature of human relationships leads us back into the mystery of God's love for us. All of our relating, our hunger for intimacy and our need for affirmation occurs within the horizon of God’s enduring and committed love to us. One thing the Scripture affirms is that God's love for us never ends. Isaiah affirms that even if the mother who bore us should forget us, God will never forget his people (Is 49.15). Paul in Romans asserts that there is nothing in all creation, not height nor depth, not things past or things to come, not powers nor governments nor anything else that all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Jesus (Rom 8.38ff).
When our own relationships failed to materialise as we would hope, or when they are constrained by selfishness and conflict, or when they come to an end through death or abandonment and we feel the devastating sense of loss, God's love is the horizon of our hope. In the turmoil of relationships we find that sometimes friendships, or our loving relationships, or even our marriages come to an end, but God’s love never ends. God’s love holds us in life and death, in conflict and betrayal, in loneliness and solitude.
But if God is love, this enduring and never-ending love is also exclusive. At the end of the day God is the one, the only one, on whom our life and our capacity to love is truly built. Jesus warned his disciples that whoever was not ready to give up family or wife or husband or parents for his sake was not worthy of him. This at first seems harsh, but it is simply reminds us that everything must be kept in its proper place and that the love of God and the call to discipleship is more foundational to our identity and well-being even than our personal relationships. Throughout the Bible there is the repeated call that we move away from our many idols and false Gods, the recurrent entanglements that draw us away from the centre of our being. God says “Come back to me, to the one and true centre of your life!” Just as to multiply our loving relationships must bring problems, the Psalmist says “Those who choose another pod multiply their sorrows” (Ps 16.4). Anchoring our lives in the true worship of God helps us to sort out our other commitments and priorities, to order our loving and our friendships within that sense of wellness, nurture and security that the love of God gives to us.
Rest in God, you who are lonely and disappointed in life. Find in him a sense of completeness and joy.
Rest in God, you who are betrayed and angry, who have found that love has ended, or at least a relationship has ended, you who are in pain. Find in him healing for your wounds and hope for your future.
Rest in God, you who are confused and wondering, grappling with what life has brought you. Find in him direction and guidance for life’s path and courage to set out along it.
Rest in God and commit yourself to the great and glorious trouble of love. And it is a troublesome business. It takes us into our insecurities and fears. It invites the centres of selfishness within us all to assert themselves.
Those who rest in God know that love may be troublous, but there is greatness and there is glory in it. And it is precisely in the trouble that the glory and the greatness is to be found. These are people who know that love is not primarily about pleasure or selfishness or power, and that beauty is not about dress or adornment or youthful bodies. They have really seen love: they have seen it in pain and selflessness and weakness, not in pleasure and power. They have seen it in nakedness and wounds, not glamour and allurements. They have seen it in a disfigured body on a cross more than in a youthful body on a bed. And in that love they have found glory and greatness amid all the terrible trouble that is sometimes encountered.
Because they are not frightened of pain, nor flattered by dress; because they will treasure another’s wounds more highly than they value another’s beauty; because all the disfigurement that disappointment and failure can imprint upon a body will not shake their devotion, these are the world’s great lovers!
They are not listed as the most eligible and available of partners. They are the world’s great lovers because in all the struggle of our most intimate relations, in the joy and the care that a primary relationship demands, in the nurture of their growing and rebellious children, in their care of aging and cantankerous parents, in the demands that friends and neighbours and workmates make upon them, they have known and embraced the great and glorious trouble of love!
POSTSCRIPT: Call to Worship:
Jesus had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd.
How often are we human beings like sheep, moving mindlessly in a mob, following the crowd. How often are we panicked when there’s a gate we have to go through, some disturbing new challenge that leads we not where.
But to worship God is to centre one’s life, to hear a word of direction and comfort, to locate yourself not by the woolly thinking and wobbly action of the mob, but the calm word of the Master.
Prayer
Lord, we are too often like sheep - warm and cuddly, but somehow lost amid all the fluff; woolly in outer clothing and inner core; erratic and flighty as we skip across the great paddock of life.
Shepherd us we pray, ground and centre us, guide and encourage us, gather and lead us into truth, and grace, and light, for your name’s sake!