Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God. For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven.” (Matthew 22:29-31)
Please understand that this post is not an attempt to persuade, but rather a contribution to understanding. Not only do I respect contrary points of view, I understand how valuable they are to everyone’s journey. Good grief, I disagree with myself on a regular basis!
That said, no matter who you are – Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Pentecostal, Congregational, DOC, member of another religious body, agnostic, atheist, unsure, or disinterested – you have likely been on the receiving end of someone’s opinion regarding my denomination’s actions this week in response to the growing legality of gay-marriage in the USA.
To clarify: Ministers in the PC(USA) have now been given the authority to officiate at gay marriages – if they feel instructed by conscience, and only where it is legal in the state and sanctioned by the local church.
My background in this issue is – like yours – long, complex, and impossible to summarize. But I will share a few thoughts, musings that might hopefully help you when it comes to either closing your heart and mind or possibly considering another approach entirely.
REAL PEOPLE: First – and this is the story for literally tens of millions of Christians now – everything changes when you know and love real people, gay men and women with real stories, followers of the Living Way, human beings who live out real lives, right in front of you, and who cannot be discounted because they are God’s children too.
I have to confess that I flat-out rejected too many people for too long; I judged them because they made me feel uncomfortable, I treated them like they had something wrong with them, and I suggested that their faith had to be inferior because isn’t the definition of “right” always relative to my “normal”? or “other people have to be more like me”?
The problem with my thinking was that it forgot that the heart of the Gospel is about restoring our relationship with God, not teaching the rest of the world to look and act like Derek Maul. I can only stand in front of God, blameless, because of Jesus! Same goes for my gay friends – and I’m proud to say I have several.
THE JESUS STORY: There’s a scripture that’s been coming to mind recently. It’s from Matthew 22:23-32, a passage describing how some religious leaders were arguing (imagine that!) about eternity. They wanted to know what would happen if a woman was married to a series of brothers who all died, one after the other. “Hey Jesus,” they said, “tell us, whose wife will she be in the resurrection?”
Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God. For when the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage. In this respect they will be like the angels in heaven.”
In other words, Jesus said this: “You people are asking all the wrong questions! The story of God’s love is a much bigger and a more powerful story than your petty arguments. What you think is so important – and all of you can quote some section of the law to support your point of view – isn’t.”
THE RIGHT QUESTION: So here’s what I’m thinking. I think the right question to ask is this: “Are we presenting this broken world with the good news of the gospel of love? Are we a church that is saying, ‘Come, everyone who is hungry for the bread of life, and thirsty for living water; come and meet Jesus!'”?
In John’s gospel, halfway through the story about the woman at the well, Jesus scolds the disciples because they have no idea what is important. “I have food you don’t even know about,” he told them.
Meanwhile, the disciples were urging Jesus, “Rabbi, eat something.”
But Jesus replied, “I have a kind of food you know nothing about.”
“Did someone bring him food while we were gone?” the disciples asked each other. (John 4:31-33)
When we get caught up in all these arguments about polity and doctrine and judgement and “I’m right you’re wrong!”, well that’s the only noise the rest of the world hears. Then hungry, broken, thirsty people don’t get offered the bread of life, because we’re so stuck in our precious doctrinal details that Jesus has to look at us and say, “Hello! I have a kind of food you – evidently – know nothing about!”
Good grief! Preach the good news already or go home.
– DEREK
I love the PCUSA and made a conscious decision to become part of it. The GA’s decision on one particular issue will not make me more likely to join or more likely to leave. What I am personally discouraged about, of late, is what I perceive to be poor stewardship of our leaders’ time and talent and the church’s monetary resources debating issues that are politically-driven instead of working more directly on mission/discipleship endeavors. Why should the church fund debate after debate about how to label the state of Israel, which mutual fund or stock to invest in because that company might spend money somewhere that isn’t politically correct, trying to pass a Confession that has been rejected multiple times (which I personally voted “yes” on at a presbytery meeting), and other such issues. What if we devoted all of the time, talent, and treasure that is being spent on the tertiary or lower trivialities on true mission work–feeding the hungry, healing the sick, introducing children to Jesus? At the end of the day, does it matter if the pension fund invests in Caterpillar stock when there are thousands upon thousands of homeless, Godless, and churchless people looking for spiritual healing? What if we devoted all of the time that has been spent over the past 12 years on the Belhar Confession serving people in need?
Sorry for the rant and ramble, but I feel we are wasting too much time on this stuff (not your post, but the many fracturing debates at GA) while subjugating the truly important stuff. The Church is not here to further ideological or political agendas, it is here to show the face of Christ to the modern world. If we keep fighting about the 10% of issues on which we disagree, we are going to destroy ourselves…if we wonder why our numbers are shrinking it is probably not because of one position or another–but likely the incessant fighting amongst ourselves.
Bruce: Excellent analysis of a comlex topic. I agree that we have lost our way, but yet the Bible is very specific concerning same sex marriage. Does the current culture change the interpretation?
Agreed!
Like I said, “We’re asking the wrong questions!”
Well stated, Bruce
Mark 16:15
I am a Christian first and foremost. God doesn’t recognize denominations and neither do I. He recognizes hearts. I am also a Bible teacher for the last 45 years. That’s a lot of reading.
God’s Word guided and protected me through a beyond painful 20 year struggle with my Christian son’s schizophrenia, a struggle that ended with his unexpected passing. God’s Word affirms for me the knowledge that the Word of God is living and active. Heb. 4:12 That means that I cannot decide to discard passages I don’t like, such as this one in Romans.
Rom 1:24-27
“Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
So where do I go from there? The problem as I see it is that I can disapprove of the practice of homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender, and whatever else presents itself without disavowing my responsibility to love ALL people. Romans says there is none righteous, no not one. ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Those verses both use the word ALL. GIANT CAPS. GIANT FONT SIZE. That means everybody. No one is able to entertain a position of judgmentalism because no one has any ground to stand on. As a result, I will live them in the same way I love people who have affairs, cheat on their taxes, lie to their parents, and so on and so on. God sees all of those problems in the same. They are the trademark of sin nature. I have many friends who are gay or lesbian. They are good and loving people. I don’t agree with their lifestyle, but they may disagree with my love of video games. Pretty weird for a 66 year old grandma. I want very much to approve of GLTB’s, but for now, God’s Word won’t allow me to do that. Take a look at what has happened in England when they began to discard fundamental pillars of Christianity. We now send more missionaries to England than many third world nations.
I will gladly give full access to all rights of American citizens to gays and lesbians. They are citizens. They deserve equal rights. The trouble is that LGBT’s don’t want just equality, they want me to admit that passage above in Romans 1 is incorrect. God won’t let me do that. In America, they should have the right to believe as they choose, but so should I. In theory, that is what democracy is about. Unfortunately, those Christians who stand on the efficacy of God’s Word are labeled bigots. Are not the LGBT’s equally bigoted towards Christians. Is their not a dual standard here. It’s not about equality, it’s about who’s right, and Christianity is being kicked to the curb )-B
” I can only stand in front of God, blameless, because of Jesus! Same goes for my gay friends – and I’m proud to say I have several.” Derek, is it not possible to stand blameless in front of God, because she loved us before she knit us in the womb? Is God’s love insufficient in some way?
Not following your question, Hal?
Not sure about Hal’s question, but one thought comes to mind: it is ONLY because of Jesus that we can stand in front of the Father blameless. One Way.
Yeah. What Andre said!
Jesus expressed the same thought as Matthew 22 throughout the Gospels in a multitude of different ways. The Pharisees and the rest of us too keep tripping over attempts to make a God so immense to create the universe to fit into our little worldview. He gave a simple principle to live by, love God and love one another.
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It’s a tough one. The challenge, as I see it, is that keeping the scriptures. The same scriptures that teach us to ask the right questions also challenges our worldview and lifestyle choices. The Bible is a foundation for the instruction to keep our eyes on Jesus, to love God and love people, and to love people where they are. The Bible also teaches, consistently, that homosexual behavior and sex outside of marriage are not God’s intention for human beings to thrive in God’s creation – thus there are commands against both and theological and cultural internal to the scripture that offers reflections on what happens if we ignore God’s commands. One way of looking at it: this past week, the General Assembly of the PC(USA) finally agreed that the witness of scripture regarding sexual behavior is not valid while still affirming that the witness of scripture calling us to love people unconditionally remains valid. We’ve chopped off Romans 1, “therefore God gave them over…” in favor of Romans 8 “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”. We eliminated I Corinthians 6 “as such were some of you…” in favor of I Corinthians 13, “love believes all things.” We’ve kept John 8 11a “then neither do I condemn you…” without seriously considering John 11b, “Go and sin no more.”
Presenting the good news of the gospel of love, presenting Jesus requires both grace and truth. We’re moving forward with grace and truth significantly out of balance.
I understand your logic, but I don’t believe the General Assembly ruled scripture invalid; I believe it continues to struggle with interpretation – a do I – while considering the complete witness of the great arc of the Genesis to Revelation story, including the many and varied “difficult to reconcile with today” instructions that crop up again and again. I see the GA as good, faithful, Christians wrestling with how to witness to the amazing love of God in this 21st Century culture. I don’t always agree with everything ANY human body makes pronouncements about, including PC(USA) folk. That’s why these conversations must continue, and why I am glad I’m still involved in this story…
Derek, thank you for your thoughtful comments. I’m sure you have seen the book by Adam Hamilton on the subject. You might not know of Steve Harper’s new book, “For the Sake of the Bride.” He makes the same point. The first edition is self published but Abingdon Press is picking it up in July. Bob Tuttle
I like Derek’s reminder to “give access to EVERYONE to hear the Good News”… Leave the rest to God. His is the only judgement that matters.