Homosexuality
Acts 10:1-20, 28-29
Luke 10:1-12
February 17, 1991
I have often thought the Bible should he divided into segments and rated the way we do movies. Some parts of Scripture should have a ” PG” rating – generally acceptable to everyone, full of inoffensive stories on good living that could be used for Sunday school lessons. Other parts ought to be labeled ” R” for more mature readers. At times, these sections could be used in sermons. They are thought-provoking enough to illustrate challenging concepts.
And then there are still other parts of the Bible that should be labeled with an ” R, ” definitely restricted to those who are not upset by the truth. These parts are extremely threatening to those who want their religion to be comforting, safe, and secure. The ” R” sections contain shocking notions and ought to be read only by those who can handle explosive thoughts. “I dare you to preach on these passages, I once heard a clergy person say, ” you had better have an outside source of income and a job offer in some other town.”
The passage we just read, from the Book of Acts, is definitely such a section. It ought to be labeled ” R” – not for everyone, adults only – for it is disturbing in its direction and shocking in its implications.
In this passage, we see Simon Peter on a rooftop, and he is hungry, not having eaten all day. The body has certain fundamental needs, and it’s not helpful to forget those – so far we’re on safe “PG” ground.
But then, we read, Peter had a dream, a vision, an encounter with God. And in that encounter, God sends him every manner of animal, telling him to kill and to eat. Three times this happened – it seems God doesn’t want Peter to forget this lesson. Each time the Lord commanded him to eat birds, reptiles and pigs but Peter steadfastly resisted,
It’s not surprising that Peter is hesitant. All his life, he had lived with the moral law that every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth is an abomination and it shall not be eaten. Whatever goes on its belly, and whatever goes on all fours, or whatever has many feet, all the swarming things that swarm upon the earth, you shall not eat, for they are an abomination. ” That is the Levitical code, which Peter knew by heart and could easily quote. Peter was a good Jew. He had gone to the equivalent of Sunday school, and he knew his Bible. Now, God was suggesting a course of action completely opposite to the Biblical teaching. ” Kill and eat.
” What God has created, you must not call bad or dirty. ” Here is the very basis of our faith: ” The goodness, the rightness of all of God’s creation. ” And here, God reminds Peter that to be new person in Christ means to accept, to welcome, to affirm all parts of God’s creation.
This is really a shocking story. It says very slightly and clearly that we must be inclusive rather than exclusive. The questions all role customs, our old morality that leads to excluding and judging people. What we thought was an abomination may not be. The ways we thought we ought to act may not be God’s ways period what is morally wrong, or bad, or dirty, ain’t necessarily so.
this sounds like Jesus doesn’t it? There was one of those Levitical laws about working on the Sabbath, and one day Jesus’s disciples picked some grain on the Sabbath. The Pharisees, who were experts at playing the game, declared they were an abomination. But Jesus said laws change with different circumstances. To make them immutable or unchangeable, even a moral law, was to make the law an idol. Only God and God’s love were unchangeable.
For Peter, and I suspect for many of us, rigidity is more of a problem than we may think. We hold on to the old way as if it came straight from God. At least we know who the good and bad guys are but God finally nudges Peter to eat something he thought was bad period ritually impure. Maybe, maybe, this passage is inviting us to look at question and search out our old assumptions. Conventional wisdom is not something that is fixed particularly when it leads to exclusivity remember, what God has created, you must not call common or dirty, remember, old ideas are not necessarily fixed forever.
Turning once again to the passage from axe, we find Cornelius, a gentile, sending some friends requests that Peter come and share the good news with them. Peter not only is now willing, but first he bids the friends of Cornelius to come into his home. Under the old law, under Jewish morality, it is an abomination to invite gentiles to visit, but that was what Peter did. As scripture says, he called them to be his guests.
Incidentally, the word abomination in Hebrew tovah, is also used in Leviticus and reference to eating pork, misuse of incense, homosexual acts, and eating sliced fish. Generally, the word doesn’t signify anything evil, but rather refers to ritual and purity. So Peter is being challenged to commit an abomination, to become ritually unclean for the sake of Christ. He demonstrates that the old morality must be replaced with the law of inclusion, of love.
Jesus understood this and emphasized that, more often than anything else, inhospitality, exclusion, was one of the worst things a person could do as far as Jesus was concerned. This, as you can tell from our gospel, is the terrible sin of sodom, and not anything to do this as we often think, the act of homosexuality.
Recently, I read a great story about Sodom and Gomorrah. A political scientist who was also a good lady of theologian, open the speech he was giving in Washington DC in this manner Washington is full of sodomites. The Congress of the United states is full of sodomites. Then he said let me tell you what sodom means. I will read from the book of Ezekiel, the 16th chapter some of the 49th verse. This was the sin of your sister sodom she and her daughters had deprived and go with food and plenty, comfort and ease, and she never helped the poor in their need and he went on to say the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah has been the sin of inhospitable ality followed the sin of hardness of heart in the presence of human need the sin of neglecting the poor that is what the sodomy is all about.
I’m sure he captured his audience’s attention the same way the story of Peter and the friends of Cornelius must have captured there attention. Looking once again at our store, we find Peter journeying to the centurions house and sharing the good news with him. You might overlook this incident, or simply say it’s only justice that everyone has the good news preached, this is a PG statement, good, but suppose the good news contained these Now listen closely to Peter’s speech. Truly, I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
Could it be that the Holy Spirit, in our time, is speaking to each of us, telling us to put aside our moral hypocrisy and to begin to accept people as they are. Certainly this is what Jesus urged upon all his hearers. Possibly Peter’s struggle might be ours. Possibly we are being let’s declare with Peter the same statement of faith. Only today we might make it more explicit, for the gentiles in our midst, the so-called unclean, are not those who are uncircumcised or who are foreigners. The gentiles are those who have a different sexual orientation, period the gays, the lesbians, the homosexuals, or whatever term we want to use.
I would dare to suggest to you that Peter’s confession of faith could and should be said this way. Truly, I perceive that God shows me partiality, all of his creation is good, but in every sexual orientation, anyone who fears him, who knows him, and does what is right is acceptable to him.
This passage is shocking, disturbing, and destabilizing because the questions are fixed certainties. The shock of Christ is that many of our conventional explanations in our middle-class standards may not be God’s standards. This passage should be rated R for its shakes us out of our drowsy mediocrity. If we take this passage seriously, we will have to adjust the old morality and base a new understanding not on laws and customs but solely on love, the love of Christ.
Good people, it may be a shock to learn that Jesus never really spoke about sex. There were only three issues he felt to cut us off from God’s love: idolatry, that is, thinking things are fixed, immutable, unchangeable. The property, which declares one thing and acting in another way, and inhospitality, which excludes certain people and neglects the outcast.
The sermon today, was to be on the ordination of people with homosexual orientation, and the blessing of monogamous same sex relationships I was going to speak at length about justice for all people I was going to point out that homosexual relationships are not a choice for most people but rather a discovery, often painful, of the way the son of God’s children are created and finally, I was going to urge us all to consider this blessing all the same sex millions that are monogamous Internet coming growing, loving life giving relationships. I was going to do all of that, but in this one sense, these are single issues which each of us has to puzzle out, not as people lacking in guidance and direction from scripture. Not as people lacking in ethics based on love rather than custom. The mind of Christ has been made known to us if we are willing to wrestle with those difficult passages rated R. And, Peter story can speak to each one of us; for truly I perceive that God shows me partiality but in every sexual orientation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.
Amen
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