Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Standing on the Side of Love by Bill Chadwick

“Standing on the Side of Love” 
Oak Grove Presbyterian Church
Galatians 3:26-28
Bill Chadwick
Sunday, April 29, 2012 
Today I invite us to think together about the amendment that is before the voters of Minnesota this fall that would place into the state constitution the requirement that marriage is reserved for one man and one woman. 
I have a pastor friend, now retired, who loved to rile people up.  If I might play amateur psychologist, my theory is that as the child of an alcoholic he was uncomfortable when things were calm.  Well, my parents were teetotallers.  As am I.  I love calm.  hateconflict.  I would much rather not talk about the amendment.  I do so only because of the ordination vows I took almost 35 years ago. I am preaching today about the Marriage Amendment only because I am attempting to follow faithfully my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  I might be mistaken.  I once again remind you, that in the Presbyterian way of doing things, “Just because the preacher says it, doesn’t mean you have to buy it.”
I believe that to be faithful the Church always needs to take a stand, just like it did against slavery, just like it did in favor of human rights for women, for people of color.  The Church ALWAYS needs to take a stand on behalf of human rights for all of God’s children.  And especially so when it comes to fair treatment of LGBT folk, since the church has consistently led the way in their persecution.
When my grandchildren ask, “What did you do when the issue of human rights for gaypeople was still being debated?” I don’t want to have to say to them, “Well, as you know, Grandpa doesn’t like conflict, and I didn’t want to offend people, and I was afraid it might affect contributions, so I kept my mouth shut.”  I especially don’t want to say that if the questioning grandchild happened to have been born gay.
There is so much to say that I couldn’t do it in one sermon, so I put a bunch of stuff in the bulletin handout.  What I would like to do primarily in the sermon is to tell stories, most of them personal.
My story.  It has been a long journey for me to get to where I am today.  The Presbyterian Church was just starting to talk about the ordination of gay people when I graduated from seminary 35 years ago.  The following year was the first vote at General Assembly, when the proposal was roundly defeated.  In the leadup to that vote I preached a sermon using Acts 10 and 11 as my basis.  That is the story of Peter praying at midday on the rooftop in the city of Joppa.  He has a vision in which a sheet comes down from heaven laden with all kinds of animals, clean and unclean (according to Jewish dietary laws), and Peter hears a voice saying, “Rise, Peter, kill and eat.” And Peter protests, “Surely not, Lord.  Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.”  The voice spoke from heaven a second time, “Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.”  This happened three times.  Immediately following, he encounters Cornelius, a Roman centurion who has had his own vision.  Long story short, Peter realizes what the vision was trying to tell him:  It’s time to change his mind!  The gospel is not just for Jews, God’s love is for uncircumcised Gentiles as well.  That is absolutely mind-blowing for Peter!  It’s against the scriptures.  It’s against tradition.  But God was doing a new thing and commanding Peter to get on board.
So the gist of my 1978 sermon was this:  I am still not quite ready to ordain homosexual individuals, but I am open to the possibility that the Spirit might someday change my mind.
Over the next few years I continued reading the latest Biblical scholarship and scientific research. I met and became friends with several very committed Christian people whohappened to be gay.  They had undergone extensive therapy and prayer for years and still couldn’t change who they were.  I finally came to the conclusion that people simply are born who they are; gay people clearly have God-given gifts for ministry and that we should welcome all God’s children to use their gifts in ministry in ordained positions.  
And we should encourage people to form committed relationships.  I was happy to bless civil unions.
But marriage?...  It somehow didn’t seem right to me to call a same-sex commitment “marriage.”  Why?  Just pure emotion, tradition, inertia.  Nothing logical about it.  I am embarrassed to say that it was only a few years ago that I moved to the point of fully supporting marriage equality.  
Another story.  My younger brother, John, and I were extremely close growing up.  I was so excited when he and his wife started having children.  I didn’t have any of my own yet.  I loved being an uncle.  Many of you had the joy of watching Claire and Jim grow up here at Oak Grove.  A couple of GREAT kids!  Claire grew up, fell in love with a wonderful man, and married him two years ago.  Jim grew up, but when he falls in love he will not be able to marry that one he loves. By the time Jim was three or four years old, I was very sure that he was gay.  Jim didn’t choose to be gay.  Why shouldn’t Jim be able to share the same right to marriage as his sister does?  Jim has told me that a lot of his relatives got married at Oak Grove and it would mean a lot to him to someday be married here.
One comic has said, “Let gays marry.  Why shouldn’t they be as miserable as the rest of us?”  That may be kind of a funny line.  But I’m not miserable.  My marriage means the world to me.  On Tuesday Kris and I celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary.  My marriage is a place of safety, welcome, commitment, companionship, intimacy, trust.  That can all happen without marriage.  But our relationship is acknowledged, encouraged and celebrated by the world and by the church.  Why should Jim be excluded from that acknowledgement, encouragement and celebration because of an accident of birth?
Marriage says “We are family” in a way that no other word does.
About two months ago while flipping through the TV channels one evening I came across a presentation of the Broadway playMemphiswhich won the Tony Award for best musical in 2010.  Have any of you seen it?  I wasn’t familiar with it, but the TV program was just starting.  I was quickly captivated and I watched the entire thing.  And then a few weeks ago a touring production came to the Ordway in St. Paul and Kris and I wentto it and thoroughly enjoyed it.  (Unlike most straight men I love musical theater.)  The play is set in the 1950s and is loosely based on the career of a Memphis radio disc jockey.  In the musical the lead character is called Huey Calhoun and through the course of the play Huey meets a wonderful singer named Felicia, and eventually they fall in love.   Huey asks her to marry him and she says, “Yes.   Yes, I love you with all of my heart and I would marry you, Huey, …if I could.”  She means, if it were legal.  But he is white, and she is black.  In Memphis in the 1950s it was against the law for a white person and a black person to marry.
Doesn’t that just make you shake your head in sadness?  In amazement?  I am utterly confident that fifty years from now—or probably less, maybe half that—almost everyonewill be shaking their heads about the current ban on gay marriage in the same way that almost everyone shakes their heads at the ban on interracial marriage of a half-century ago.
Even if this amendment passes, it is just a temporary bump in the road on the way to the inevitable.  According to the Gallup Poll (May, 2011) 70% of young people in America favor gay marriage. When the loudest voices opposing gay marriage come from the Church, it’s one more nail in the coffin…of the Church.  The Church is brushed aside by the younger generation as being narrow-minded, judgmental and irrelevant.
You sometimes hear the statement, “Gay marriage is a threat to heterosexual marriage.”  How so?   Two of our very good friends, Suzanne and Diane, were legally married in Massachusetts eight years ago.  My wife, Kris, flew out to be in the wedding.  We see them socially on a regular basis.  Eight years.  Their marriage has not affected my marriage one bit.  Any more than your marriage (pointing to congregation) or your marriage affects my marriage. Whom you choose to love does not affect whom I choose to love.
Another story.  About a woman named Ruth.  (I’m indebted to St. Paul theologian David Weiss for this insight.) You (probably) know Ruth’s words, even if you don’t know her story: “Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.”  (Where do we so often hear these words?)  This is one of the most often quoted texts at straight marriages. But these words were spoken by Ruth to her mother-in-law, Naomi.  These words were spoken by a woman whose people, the Moabites, were condemned in the Bible – forever. She has no business pledging – and fulfilling – a vow of faithfulness like God’s own promised faithfulness. But while her love for Naomi was ethnically and culturally odd and her (later) marriage to Boaz (a Hebrew) was religiously dubious, thanks to her odd love and dubious marriage she became the great-grandmother of King David. Her off-limits love became a blessing. 
I could give other germane Biblical stories:  The stories of Rahab, Hosea, the parable of the Good Samaritan, several women in Jesus’ life, and others.  As Weiss notes, “The Bible is full of stories about a God who welcomes surprising people into God’s family. Stories about heroes and heroines whose praiseworthiness lies in their promisedfaithfulness to another person.”   (See Weiss’s book, To the Tune of a Welcoming God: Lyrical reflections on Sexuality, Spirituality and the Wideness of God's Welcome (2008, Langdon Street Press).
If you support marriage equalitywhat can you do? Outfront Minnesota is an organization working to defeat the Amendment.  The Outfront folks expect that there will be an onslaught of misleading advertising this summer financed by the Mormon Church and others.  An Outfront trainer noted, “We believe that the way forward is not to be found in loud and angry debate with the opposition.  We think this only entrenches people.  Rather, our research finds that the single most effective way to advance our position is through one to one conversations. So, our strategy over the next months is to facilitate a million conversations. And, we have scheduled numerous trainings to help people plan those conversations, and feel comfortable having them.”  You can find information on the Outfront website.  Please hold gentle conversations with your friends and neighbors.
Final story.  Tuesday afternoon I was toiling away in my study when our receptionist came and knocked on my door to inform me that there was a man here who has just moved from another town and he is looking for a new church and wanted to know about Oak Grove.  I’m always eager to tell folks about Oak Grove so I bounded out to greet him.  We introduced one another and then walked out into the hall where I started to give him a little tour and tell him about the church.  But he stopped just outside the office and interrupted me, “You have a flag out front,” referring to the rainbow flag.  
“Yes,” I said.  And I was thinking “Hmm. This could go either way.  (I remind you that in 2008 a man came into a church in Tennessee with anger in his heart at what he called “liberal gay-lovers” and he opened fire, wounding seven and killing two.)  This was not in the back of my mind; this was in the front of my mind.  Was this man in front of me happy that we had the flag or was he here to set me straight, so to speak?  
He continued.  “Does the flag mean you welcome everyone?” 
“Yes, that’s what it means.”  
A big grin spread across his face and he pumped my hand again.  “That’s what I’m looking for!”  And for the next twenty minutes he told me about his spiritual journey and how he had been hurt by some of his previous church experiences. He said he was looking for a church that would preach positive messages and where everyone was welcome.  At the conclusion of our conversation he shook my hand again and said, “I’ll see you Sunday at 8:15.”  (And he was here.  And he received a very warm welcome from you Oak Grovers.)
We are in the season of Eastertide.  The essence of Easter is the message that Love wins. Why take the temporary detour of this amendment?  
Love will win.
***
(See attached bulletin insert below)


THOUGHTS TO PONDER 
IN REGARD TO THE MARRIAGE AMENDMENT

WHAT ABOUT THE BIBLICAL TEXTS REGARDING HOMOSEXUALITY?  In the narthex are copies of a helpful pamphlet by Walter Wink, entitled Homosexuality and the Bible. Other good sources include a booklet by the Reverend Mel White, co-founder of SoulForce, which is available as a free download at www.soulforce.org/pdf/whatthebiblesays.pdf  An excellent book written by a conservative Presbyterian pastor and scholar outlining why he changed his mind on this topic is Jesus, the Bible and Homosexuality by Jack Rogers (rev. 2009)

In addition, in a recent talk to the St. Paul chapter of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), St. Paul theologian and poet David Weiss offered some very helpful and thought-provoking points.  He notes that too often the Bible is pulled into this conversation just to condemn homosexuality.  “I’m reluctant to let the conversation be framed by a handful of texts that have nothing to do with committed same-sex relationships. The biblical writers knew about things like military rape, territorial rape, pederasty (men abusing boys), and temple prostitution. In the ancient world—as still today—sex could be misused to terrorize others, to establish a pecking order, or to “sell” everything from a temple sacrifice to blue jeans, lite beer, or shampoo. It shouldn’t surprise or disappoint us that the Bible takes a dim view of the misuse of sex as raw power or false promise. But marriage—whether between a straight couple or a same-sex couple—is not about using sex as raw power or false promise. Those texts really don’t belong in this conversation.”   

(I, Pastor Bill, would say that the Bible simply doesn’t say anything about the subject we are addressing today—lifelong, monogamous commitments between two people of same-sex orientation.  The Bible doesn’t say whether it’s okay or not, for the same reason the Bible doesn’t say whether air travel is okay or not: it’s simply not known in the Bible.)  

ISN’T “ONE MAN, ONE WOMAN” THE BIBLICAL MODEL?  Weiss again notes that that is a very problematic assumption.  Here are SOME of the models we find in scripture:  
• Two slaves assigned to marry each other by their owner (Ex. 21:4) 
• The woman as a spoil of war, claimed by a soldier (Num 31:1-18 & Deut 21:1-14)
• The wife forced to marry a man because he raped her (Deut 22:28-29)
• The woman now married to her dead husband’s brother because the original husband died without fathering a son (Genesis 38:6-10)
• Husband with multiple wives and/or concubines—common throughout biblical era.
• Husband has sex with both his wife and her slave girl (Genesis 16)
• Or the best remembered form of biblical marriage: where a man marries a woman who must be subservient to him, is typically chosen for him, cannot have a different faith from him, and who before the wedding must prove her virginity or be stoned

Weiss concludes that ALL are “approved” biblical models. NONE (is) very attractive to us today.
Then, asks Weiss, “Do we just tell the Bible to ‘sit this one out?’ Not likely.  Here’s how he imagines the Bible might be used in this conversation: 
“To remind people that throughout the Bible we hear the story of a God who loves us and who promises to be there for us, for always. And that this notion of the holiness of a loving commitment to be there for another person through thick and thin is what we know makes a marriage. It’s what we who are straight treasure about our marriages when they are healthy … and what we ache for when our marriages fail. It’s this model of love and commitment, of promised faithfulness that offers us an ideal by which we might measure the best of our own relationships.
(See Weiss’s book, To the Tune of a Welcoming God: Lyrical reflections on Sexuality, Spirituality and the Wideness of God's Welcome (2008, Langdon Street Press).
SHOULDN’T THE CHURCH BE TRYING TO ‘HEAL’ HOMOSEXUALS?  
Through “conversion therapy” and prayer, can homosexuals “change” and become heterosexuals?  Sexual orientation is commonly measured using the Kinsey scale, with 0 representing exclusive heterosexuality and 6 representing exclusive homosexuality.  Perhaps those who fall in the middle could have success in limiting their behavior to opposite gender, but the vast majority of scientific research shows that people near the far end of the scale (5 or 6) cannot have their feelings “changed.”  Attempts to do so cause great harm.  Robert L. Spitze summarized the positions of various medical professionals in the introduction to his study, “Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation?...Archives of Sexual Behavior.  32.5 (2003a): The Surgeon General (2001), the American Academy of Pediatrics (1983), and all of the major mental health associations in the United States, representing psychiatry (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), psychology (American Psychological Association, 1997), social work (National Association of Social Work,1997), and counseling (American Counseling Association, 1998) have each issued position statements warning of possible harm from such therapy and asserting that there is no evidence that such therapy can change one’s sexual orientation.

SUICIDES AMONG GAY YOUTH   The recent rash of suicides in the Anoka-Hennepin School District has been blamed on the bullying of youth perceived to be homosexuals.  Experts do not completely agree about the best way to measure reports of adolescent suicide reports, but gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth are considered to be a “special population at risk” in the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention of the US Department of Health and Human Services.  

EFFECTS FOLLOWING PROPOSITION 8 IN CALIFORNIA
Proposition 8 was a California ballot initiative that banned same-sex marriage in November of 2008. After the November 2008 elections, Marriage Equality USA conducted a survey to determine the impact of the campaign and the passage of Proposition 8 on the LGBT community. According to the survey:
• LGBT people experienced increased verbal abuse, homophobia, physical harm and other discrimination associated with or resulting from the Prop 8 campaign. 
• Children of same-sex couples expressed fear due to direct exposure to homophobia and hate and concerns that the passage of Prop 8 means they could be taken from their families and targeted for further violence.
• LGBT youth and their supporters experienced increased bullying at schools as Prop 8's passage fosters a supportive environment for homophobic acts of physical and emotional violence. 
http://journals.chapman.edu/ojs/index.php/e-Research/article/view/88/308
HOMOSEXUALITY IN NATURE  People sometimes say, “Homosexuality is simply unnatural.  Look at nature.”   In fact, homosexuality in its myriad forms has been scientifically documented in more than 450 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, insects and other animals worldwide.  It is found in every major geographic region and every major animal group.  Animals engage in all types of non-reproductive sexual behavior.  Same-sex sexual expression includes courtship, pair-bonding, sex, and co-parenting—even instances of lifelong homosexual bonding in species that do not have lifelong heterosexual bonding (Bruce Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, p. 12).
IF THERE ARE LAWS GUARANTEEING MARRIAGE EQUALITY WON’T CHURCHES AND MINISTERS BE REQUIRED TO OFFICIATE AT MARRIAGES FOR GAY AND LESBIAN COUPLES?  “This is one of the most damaging and misleading arguments set forth by opponents of marriage equality.  Churches, synagogues, temples, and other houses of worship are protected by the first Amendment of the US Constitution.  They are not required to perform activities contrary to their faith…Marriage equality would allow congregations and clergy that do wish to perform religious marriage ceremonies for gay and lesbian couples to more freely exercise their religious beliefs.”  (Speaking from Faith for Marriage Equality from Outfront Minnesota, p.4.)
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE IS ALREADY ILLEGAL IN MINNESOTA.  Voting “No” on the amendment doesn’t say Yes to gay marriage.  It just prevents the ban from being put into the Minnesota Constitution.
WHY MARRIAGE?  CAN’T WE ACCOMPLISH THE SAME THING WITH CIVIL UNIONS?   It is estimated that there are about 1100 federal laws and 515 Minnesota laws that offer rights and protections to spouses, but not to partners in civil unions.  Health care directives granting a same sex partner decision-making power have been successfully challenged in court!  See www.project515.org to learn more.  But beyond the issue of rights, why is marriage important to anyone?  It’s a public declaration of the personal commitment people make to one another, heart to heart, soul to soul.  Nothing says “We are family” like the word marriage.

Ephesians 4: 4-5:  "There is one body and one Spirit, just as we were called to the one hope of our calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism." We Are One.

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