Pentecost: Your Young Will See Visions

Pentecost: A Children’s Sermon

Good morning! I'm excited to be here today with you, and you, and you, and you.

I know that y’all learn about the church calendar in Temple, so tell me,
what special day in the church calendar is today? (PENTECOST!)

And what is Pentecost? (Beginning of the church, Spirit coming down.)

Yes, good. I want to talk to you about Pentecost and the Spirit.

There are a lot of ways to talk about the Spirit.
Some people talk about the Spirit being like the wind,
always blowing somewhere, even though we can’t see it.
And a lot of people talk about the Spirit as God with us;
even though Jesus is not here with us, we have the Spirit.
And a lot of people talk about the Spirit being with us
especially when we are sad or upset.

All of that is true. But I want to talk about something else today.

The Spirit is with us and in us, but the Spirit doesn’t just leave us alone.
The really exciting thing is that the Spirit changes us. The Spirit gives us all special gifts.

Each one of us is different, and we each have different gifts.

Some have artistic and creative gifts. Some have athletic gifts.
Others are gifted in seeing patterns and solving puzzles.
Some have gifts to speak in public, while others find their voice through writing.
And some of you, I'd say all of you, have a very special gift of making people smile.

I love the special, unique gifts the Spirit has given each of you.

But here’s the thing: You can’t just hold those gifts in.

Pentecost, you told me earlier, is also called the church’s birthday.
And you are a very important part of the church.
So we need you to use your gifts to make this church a better place.

If you were listening earlier, you heard our scripture, from Acts,
where Peter is quoting the prophet Joel.
He said that the young will have visions.

That’s a very special gift you can give us.
This week, I want you to have visions
about our what our church could be
and what our city could be.
And I want you to come back
and tell us all about your visions
so that we can help you make those visions reality.

Can you do that?

Let's pray.

God, give us visions.

Give us the courage to tell each other about our visions.

And give us the strength to live into those visions.

Amen.

The Blood of Abel is Crying Out From the Ground: #BlackLivesMatter

The Blood of Abel is Crying Out From the Ground

#BlackLivesMatter

I've been teaching on Genesis for the past month. Two weeks ago, we discussed the beginning of the Cain and Abel story, found in Genesis 4.1-7, just before Cain killed Abel, his brother.

And then a Black man in Baton Rouge was killed by police officers. Another Black man was killed by police officers in a suburb of St. Paul. And then in Dallas a sniper shot and killed five police officers, wounding several others. And then the Dallas police decided to send a robot with a bomb to blow up the sniper.

All of a sudden, our text took on a new meaning. The story of Cain and Abel had just played out in the news cycle, day after day after day.

So here's a recap of my Sunday School lesson, plus a little ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ preaching...

Cain kills Abel, his brother, in verse 8. Just like that, in one brief verse, Abel is dead.

And when God comes asking where Abel is, Cain gives that classic response: "Am I my brother's keeper?"

We can read this as Cain redirecting the question of responsibility back at God. Maybe Cain is not just avoiding his own responsibility, but asking God to take responsibility. And this is something we understand.

We often wonder why God doesn't intervene, why God allows murder to happen.

Why, God, didn't you step in to keep Philando Castile alive? Why, God, didn't you step in to keep Alton Sterling alive? Why, God, didn't you step in to keep those officers in Dallas alive?

But I'm reminded here that the call for us to love God, who we can't see, is translated into a call to love our neighbor, who we can. It is our responsibility to be the hands and feet of God.

Of course we're our brother's keeper!

And our sister's too!

It's our responsibility to watch out for our brothers and sisters, to keep them safe, to ensure that they aren't killed.

And God's response is interesting. Listen, says God, the blood of Abel is crying out from the ground.

There is so much good news here. There is no one to protest for Abel's murder - there's no witness, no one to video on their cell, and of course Cain is not wearing a bodycam - and yet the blood of Abel cries out to God nonetheless.

Even more, God hears, God listens, God responds.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that, just like God hears the cry of the silenced Abel, God hears the cry of the silenced Philando Castile, the silenced Alton Sterling, the silenced Dallas police officers, and too many more to name. Their blood cries out to God.

And I think we can extend that to say that God hears the cries of those without a voice in our society, those who are still alive but whose voices have been silenced.

God listens, even when our elected officials ignore the call for justice. God listens...

And you don't even have to occupy a bridge to make God listen. God is paying attention before it gets to that.

As progressive white folks, we like to think of ourselves as the enlightened ones. We would never act as the two officers did last week. We would never be Cain and murder our brother.

But look at verse 7. Very calmly, God offers a rational case for Cain to collect himself and do the right thing. You haven't done anything wrong, and you can still choose the right path, God says, just be careful because sin is waiting to ambush you.

But Cain is just not in a rational place.

How many of us have acted without thinking? Who hasn't acted on impulse? Who hasn't looked back in regret after letting our emotions get the best of us? We all have.

That is Cain. He's a sympathetic figure in verses 1-7. He's set up as a good guy. (Don't believe me? Go back and read the story for yourself. He didn't do anything wrong.) He has every reason to be upset. But sin - and notice that, here, the first time sin is mentioned in the Bible, it's described not as doing the wrong thing, but as a force outside of us - is waiting to ambush him.

And that's exactly what happens. God tells Cain that he can control sin, but instead sin controls him.

I offer a parallel here. The officers who killed Philando Castile and Alton Sterling were probably good guys. Like Cain. If they could, I'm sure they would take it back. Like Cain. But I don't think they made rational choices, but rather acted in the moment. Like Cain.

My first three years of teaching were in Frayser, in one of the most violent schools in the city. The year before I got there, there were over 160 fights in 180 school days. A few years before that, a young man was killed in the restroom. It was chaos, and I'd never seen anything like it.

We did a lot of good things at that school. We cut fights by half the first year. And then the next year fights were halved again. Every sports team made it to the playoffs. My class protested the death of Trayvon Martin at the entrance of our awards ceremony when the school board president was our guest of honor. There was a sense of pride, both within the school and in the community. And academic proficiency increased from 5% to 18%. Students with disabilities outperformed their non-disabled peers at 25%. Things were really turning around.

But some things I saw made me very uncomfortable. And yet I fell in line. I didn't speak up. Looking back, it terrifies me to even think about some of the ways I acted then.

I have a graduate degree in ethics - I am quite literally a master of right action. And yet...

The point being, in the wrong culture, there is a force that can take over even the best of us.

We are Cain.

Very easily, we could be those police officers too.

The hard truth, though, according to Genesis 4, is that sin is not so much something inside of us, but a force that is outside of us and beyond us. It has a life of its own. And that makes it so much more difficult to control.

It's embedded in the political system we participate in - and so we participate in it. It's embedded in the religion we practice - and so we practice it too. It's embedded in the news we consume - and so we consume it. It's in the very air we breath - and so we breath it in.

But Cain could control it, said God. And that means that we can too. And if we can control it, then by all means we must. Because there is too much blood crying out from the ground.

When it controls us, though, the good news is that God will not let go, will not give up, but will follow us even unto the land of Nod.

Cain went on to found the first city. His descendants were the first to discover art and culture and technology. They took the very same passion and emotion that Cain felt, and they channeled it into something productive and life-giving. Thanks be to God.

But they also continued killing. As do we today.

We can control it, says God. And so we must.

Those who have been silenced are crying out and asserting control over the forces in our society that have silenced them for years - and would keep them silenced.

They asserted control over a bridge. I was there. It was peaceful. It was nonviolent. But they controlled that bridge. And, as a result, they are on the path to control the force that is sin.

God heard them all along. But now, finally, their elected officials are listening. And so they are asserting control over the political process.

God heard them all along. But now, finally, religious leaders are listening. And so they are asserting control over religious institutions.

God heard them all along. But now, finally, the news media is listening. And printing public apologies. And so they are asserting control over how the narrative is reported.

As white folks, we must do our part.

We must stand up and affirm that #BlackLivesMatter. We must be part of the movement.

And yet, just like Stokely Carmichael told one of my Baptist heroes, Will Campbell, back in the '60s, we must get to work on our white brothers and sisters. We can't just abandon them because they don't understand why it's so important to say #BlackLivesMatter or why it's important to occupy a bridge. We must be the bridge that helps them understand.

And, as white folks, we must be willing to not be in control for once. We must be willing to check our privilege.

Listen! Abel's blood is crying out. May we listen to what it has to say. And may we not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.

Thanks be to God.

Towards a Christian Approach to Gay Marriage, Part IV: What the Bible Says About Homosexuality

So far, we've discussed marriage as a precursor to discussing gay marriage. We found that the so-called biblical definition of marriage is actually many definitions of marriage - and definitions that most of us don't really believe or uphold as 21st century American Christians.

Next, we turned to biblical ideas on homosexuality, examining the Old Testament first. What we found is that one of the most cited texts on the issue, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, is not really about homosexuality at all. And the only texts that do speak to the issue are found in Leviticus, a code of laws that we are generally quick to dismiss, so it's curious when one law is singled out as still applicable today. Moreover, the ancient logic of sexuality is bound up in a hierarchy of male dominance - and female subservience - that modern Christians do not accept.

This brings us to the New Testament.

In this post, we'll turn to Paul's letter to the Romans. Then, in the next post, we'll look at Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.

Jesus, it should be noted, does not address the issue of same-sex relationships.

Romans 1.16-32
In the letter to the Romans, Paul starts out with his reason for writing, his solution to the problem of the human condition (salvation, the Gospel) and then builds a case for the problem itself (sin), before coming back to his solution in more depth.

The structure of Paul's letter is important to the issue of homosexuality. Paul first addresses the sin of the Gentiles and then, once he's lured his Jewish audience into looking down on the Gentiles, launches an attack on Jewish sinfulness. But there's a crucial difference: Jewish sinfulness does not, according to Paul, include sexuality.

Let me repeat, for this is an essential point: Paul condemns the Gentiles for their sexual sins, but the Jewish sins he lists are not sexual in nature. In other words, sexual sin seems to be a Gentile problem, related to idolatry, not a Jewish problem since the Jews worship the one true God. The implication is that, if we could only get rid of idolatry, then we'd get rid of sexual sin as well in the process. Paul does not make this argument explicitly, but it's implicit to the case he's making.

So let's look more in depth at his case against the Gentiles.

The Gentiles are without excuse because God is revealed in creation. They - the Gentiles - knew God, but then they exchanged the worship of God for worship of idols. He's talking about actual idols, monuments built in human and animal form.

The outcome is lust and passion, impurity of heart, the degrading of their bodies, and sexual immorality.

I want to emphasize the link Paul is making between idolatry and sexual sin. For him, there's a direct connection. Idolatry leads to sexual immorality.

Now, whatever we believe about homosexuality, I don't think that's it. I don't know anyone who would look at our gay brothers and sisters - and accuse them of idolatry, of explaining their sexuality by referencing idol worship. That's just not how we think. That's not a narrative we accept as true. Even those who hold to the sinfulness of homosexuality would not explain the sin with Paul's logic here.

And that's important because, if you want to use Paul's teaching to condemn homosexuality, then you have to accept his reasoning.

Let's review. So far, we've seen that sexual sin is, for Paul, a Gentile problem. More specifically, it's a Gentile problem that's directly tied to idol worship. And, unless we are ready to accept this logic, a logic that says that homosexuality is the outcome of Gentile idol worship, then we probably shouldn't use Romans 1 to argue against homosexuality.

Again, I'll repeat a point I made in the last post, the point I'm making is not that you can't make a case for the sinfulness of homosexuality, but rather that you can't use this passage to do so.

However, say you do accept Paul's logic. What then?

Well, there's a still a couple layers here to unpack: the issues of "passion" and "natural intercourse."

Paul says that "God gave them up to degrading passions," and then "their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another."

First, passion. In the Greco-Roman world, passion is a problem. Sometimes the solution is moderation, balance, keeping the passions in check; some passion is okay, but it can easily become a problem when you have too much. This is a common them in both philosophy and in medicine. But then you have the Stoics, who believed that passion itself was bad. The Stoics even went so far as to argue that you should have sex without passion, a position that Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7.1-9, seems to accept as well.



So, even if you accept Paul's logic of the connection between idolatry and homosexuality, which I would argue is a stretch, you still have to deal with his understanding of passion. And that's quite a stretch too.

But then you have Paul's understanding of "nature" and "natural intercourse."

For Paul, mirroring the Old Testament view, there was a "natural" hierarchy that went like this: God-male-female. When a man assumes the female role (e.g., as penetrated), the natural and divine hierarchy was thrown into flux. Male-male sex was "unnatural" because it upset the "natural" hierarchy. Since most of us believe in the equality of men and women, we don't accept the male-female hierarchy as natural, much less as moral comprehensible.

 Moreover, in 1 Corinthians 11.1-16, Paul writes that it is against nature (para physin, the same phrase he uses in Romans when discussing same-sex acts) for women to pray without covering their heads and that it is against nature for a man to have long hair.

What? Isn't it actually more natural for a man's hair to grow out? And isn't it more natural for a woman to not cover her head?

And so the point is that, when Paul talks about "nature," he includes customs and social norms in that category. But that definition of nature just won't cut it in today's world.

Thus, if you want to base your claim on Paul's appeal to nature, then you are forced to admit that you really don't mean biology, in which case you discredit your case.

*   *   *
In closing, I'll repeat a claim that I've made throughout this series. I am in no way arguing that Paul would be in favor of homosexuality. Rather, my claim here is that you can't use Romans 1 to argue against same-sex relationships.

The broader point is that, so far, the Bible doesn't speak for or against homosexuality, especially as it applies to the marriage of two equal partners. Thus, if we are intellectually honest, we will admit that. Using the Bible to support your position is fine. Just don't claim that your position is the biblical one.  Because it's not.

*   *   *

In our next post, we'll continue to look at the New Testament, this time digging in to the Greek words found in 1 Corinthians 6.

Towards a Christian Approach to Gay Marriage, Part III: What the Bible Says About Homosexuality

Very often, people talk about what the Bible says without ever opening the Bible. This is especially true when issues of sexuality are being discussed. There is just this assumption that we already know what's in the Bible, so we don't actually have to read it.

Well, that's a problem. A big, big problem.

Any conversation about a text that doesn't include textual evidence would not be accepted by any serious scholar in any field - including biblical studies. In fact, that wouldn't even pass in any good middle school class.

In this post, and the next, I invite you to open up your Bible (oremus is my favorite online Bible).

Sounds easy enough, right? But, again, there's a problem.

We live in 21st century American, not in the ancient Near East or ancient Rome. And that makes any attempt to read and understand the Bible very difficult. To read the Bible well requires a knowledge of ancient languages and ancient cultures that most of us lack. Even if such knowledge weren't a problem, however, we'd still have to figure out how to transfer ancient stories and teachings to life in America today.

In short, reading the Bible is hard. No wonder so many people just skip the reading part!

If we're going to talk about what the Bible says about homosexuality, though, we're going to have to do the hard work of reading it, using our knowledge of ancient languages and cultures to find its meaning, and then figuring out how to apply that meaning today.

In this post, we'll do just that, with a focus on the Old Testament. Then, in the next post, we'll turn to the New Testament.

So, without any further adieu, what does the Bible actually say about homosexuality?

Old Testament Views on Homosexuality

There are only two passages in the entire OT that relate to the issue of homosexuality. A third has historically been taken to apply, but upon closer inspection does not. Let's address that one first.

Probably the most famous biblical passage on homosexuality is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, found in Genesis 19. It's from the city of Sodom that we get our word "sodomy," which is defined as anal sex (or sometimes also oral sex).

The story most people know about Sodom is that God destroyed the city because the men of the city were gay.

Obviously, these people didn't actually read the story printed in the Bible. Because, if they did, they would know that the story is about a lack of hospitality, even to the point of violence, not sex.

Shocking, right? That's not what I was taught about Sodom either. But, seriously, read Genesis 19. (This is a big time trigger warning text, by the way.)

Here's the real story:

• A couple of angels, disguised as men, arrive at Sodom. Lot greets them at the city gate and invites them to stay the night at his house. It's evening time.
• The men turn down the offer, stating that they plan to spend the night in the town square.
• Lot convinces them to stay with him.
• Before they turn down for the night, the men of Sodom come knocking on Lot's door, demanding that Lot hand over his guests so that the men of Sodom can "know" them.
• Lot goes out to bargain with them, even offering up his virgin daughters.
• This makes the men of Sodom angry, and they go after Lot.
• Lot's guests save him from the angry crowd.
• Not long after the incident, God destroys the city.

What do we make of this bizarre and troubling story?

The one thing you can't say is that this is a story about same-sex partnership. It's a story about attempted violence, about attempted gang rape, about not welcoming the stranger in your midst. It is not, I repeat, a story about homosexuality.

Yes, the men of Sodom seek sex with the men who are guests in Lot's home. But the problem is not that men are seeking sex with other men. The author of the story may very well think that sex between males is wrong, but that's not the point here.

Simply put, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah does not apply to 21st century discussions about homosexuality.

Not convinced? Flip over to Ezekiel 16.49-50, which is worth quoting in its entirety:

⁴⁹This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. ⁵⁰They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

Notice that Ezekiel fails to mention anything sexual. And, again, the point is not that Ezekiel or Genesis is in favor of homosexuality, but rather than the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is not concerned with that issue.

Leviticus 18.22, on the other hand, does very much speak to the issue. And it appears to be unambiguous in its denouncement of male-male sex:

²²You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Likewise for Leviticus 20.13:

¹³If 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.

These are pretty strong words. What do we make of these two verses?

First, context. Before we consider these two verses, let's look more broadly at the book in which they are found: Leviticus. Earlier in the book, eating fat prohibited, as is eating pork; if this is the case, then we here in Memphis, pork BBQ capital of the world, are in big trouble! Touching a pig's skin is also prohibited - so much for football! On the other hand, Leviticus has no problem with slavery.

I could go on, but President Bartlet (from The West Wing) makes the point about as well as anyone could, so watch this.

Here's the point: If you don't follow Levitical Law, then you can't cite Levitical Law to make your point. That's just hypocrisy. If you reject the parts of Levitical Law you don't like, how do you justify using it when it serves your interests?

Secondly, assume that we accept Levitical Law as valid. What does it mean for a man to lie with another man as with a woman (emphasis mine)? Remember, there were strict sexual hierarchies in the ancient world, including in the Bible. Men and women were not equal, and so sex always involved power dynamics. In sex, the man was the "top," the penetrator, while the woman was the "bottom," the penetrated. Thus, the male-female hierarchy was reinforced in sex.

According to this logic, a male who is penetrated takes on the female role, the bottom, an affront to the divine hierarchy that put the male on top.

To make matters worse, if a man can take on the female role, well, pretty soon you'll have women trying to take on the male role - and we can't have that, now can we!?!?

These verses are certainly about male-male sex (though, curiously, not about female-female sex). But the point here is more about upholding the male-female hierarchy than the sex act itself.

After all, the author could have simply said, "Don't lie with another man." That would have been a clear argument against male-male sex. But that's not the argument. The author specifically adds the phrase, "...as with a woman." And the reason is that, a man playing the role of a woman is, according to the philosophy of Leviticus, degrading to the man - and, in fact, to all men.

When we reject the male-female hierarchy of the ancient world, these verses cease to apply. If men and women are equal, then "...as with a women" loses its meaning. If men and women are equal, then male-female sex becomes sex between equals. And, in that case, "...as with a woman" would be no different than "...as with a man."

In sum, once you reject the male-female hierarchy, once you assert that men and women are equals, then the prohibition against male-male sex in Leviticus no longer holds. The prohibition is built upon sexual norms we don't accept.

The point, again, is not that Leviticus supports homosexuality, but rather that the book fails to offer a compelling reason to forbid it.

Conclusion

The Old Testament cannot be used by 21st century Christians to prohibit homosexuality. At no point is female-female sex even mentioned, and male-male sex is implicated with a set of laws and a sexual hierarchy we simply don't accept. 

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Stayed tuned. The next post will be will look at the New Testament and what it has to say about homosexuality. After that, we'll make some recommendations.

If you are just joining this discussion, make sure to catch up with the previous entries:

• Toward a Christian Approach to Gay Marriage, Part I

• Towards a Christian Approach to Gay Marriage, Part II: Biblical Views on Marriage & the Implications