The Bible Tells Me So

I am proud that we are a Reconciling Congregation because of the Bible, not in spite of it.

In the United Methodist Church Reconciling Congregations are those that are open to lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgendered people (LGBT). We invite them to participate fully in the life of the Church. We support same sex marriage and the ordination of LGBT people.

One of my father’s professors at Yale Divinity School, Roland Bainton, used the distinction between precedence and principle in biblical interpretation. Precedence is any single event of verse which is lifted for its context and given unqualified authority. For example, one could use the words of Jesus to the rich man, “go and sell all you own and give it to the poor” as a definitive mandate for everyone to do just that. Looking at precedence the people who owned slaves have the Bible on their side. To look for principles in biblical interpretation is to see texts imbedded in a larger story – in the Old Testament it is the story of the people of Israel and their covenant with God. In the New Testament it is the story of Jesus – let us not forget that biblically Jesus is the Word of God, not the Bible.

So what do we do with the passages in the Bible that seem to be so clear about homosexuality? What we don’t do is use them as precedence. We also study the context and the larger meaning of the passage. I have been asked to give an explanation of these texts:

Leviticus 18:22

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

At face value, read as a single verse this seems pretty clear, but it isn’t. The Law, the Holiness Code in Leviticus comprises the details for living in covenant with God – 613 of them, to be exact. An important part of that covenant was for the people of Israeli to survive and prosper. To do so they needed offspring. We forget how hard it was for a child to survive into adulthood at that time. There was always a fear that the people would die out.

As a patriarchal culture women were seen primarily as the source of those offspring; women were seen essentially as incubators. Men put their seed in a woman and she gave birth to a child, preferably a male child. The seed of men was understood as the sole source of children and to use that seed for any other purpose was seen as a violation of the covenant and thus an abomination.

Onan was condemned for “spilling his seed upon the ground” rather than impregnating his brother’s widow as was demanded in the Law. This story of Onan could be used as precedence for the condemnation of masturbation – and it has; which brings up the issue of consistency. There are a lot of things in the 613 laws of the Holiness Code that we violate constantly. Eating pork is also called an abomination.

Women were considered unclean while menstruating – and they were segregated. When a woman gives birth to a boy she is considered unclean for seven days, if it is a girl it’s two weeks. One cannot pick and choose verses from Leviticus and make then universally authoritative. It is simple an abuse of the Bible.

Genesis 19:

Sodom and Gomorrah

Because the story contains a threat for men to “know” other men it is viewed as a condemnation of all homosexual activity. But the story is not about homosexuality. It is much more about hospitality. Two “angels” come into town and Lot shows them hospitality by inviting them into his home. The people of Sodom already don’t like Lot because he is an alien. They become angry and surround Lot’s house threatening to rape the visitors. Lot will not let the visitors out. Instead he offers his two virgin daughters in their place (now that would be an awful precedence!).

More important than the gender of those to be harmed is the spirit of violence and exclusion in the people; it is this spirit that leads to the condemnation of Sodom and Gomorrah. To be true to the Bible, we have to first ask, what if the Bible trying to say. In this case the more intrinsic message is that exclusion and violence toward strangers is a violation of the covenant. Ironically, and this is where the Bible can be so confounding, that includes homosexuals.

Genesis 1:27

Male and female He created them

“God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,” goes the quip. That God created men and women is often seen as reason enough to support our understanding of marriage between a man and a woman. The truth is, the Bible doesn’t have a single or clear understanding of marriage. It has many things to say about marriage that would not support our understanding of it. In the Old Testament men and numerous wives and fathered children by slaves. In the New Testament Paul instructs the nascent followers of Jesus to marry only if they cannot control themselves but it is better to stay single like him It is difficult to find a passage in the Bible that addresses men and women and marriage that would be appropriate for a wedding. The issue usually is procreation, not orientation.

Romans 1:26-27

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. 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. Men committed shameless acts with men and received their own persons the due penalty for their error.

Wow! That seems pretty clear. As precedence it is, in its context it is less so. I have no doubt that homosexual activity was seen in a negative way, as a part of the condemnation of any sexual activity the purpose of which was to procreate. What Paul is complaining about is people giving in to their passions. “For this reason” refers to the impurity of their hearts in general. The mention of homosexuality is an example of this impurity and giving in to passions.

If one reads on there is a longer list: they are filled with every kind of wickedness, evil covetousness, malice; full of envy, they are gossips, slanderers, heartless and ruthless. Then at the beginning of chapter two Paul says, ironically: Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others, for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things. When using precedence one often doesn’t read on. What Paul is addressing is rebellion against God, in any of its forms. One way in which to rebel against God is expressed sexually. Men were in the habit of visiting temple prostitutes, many of whom were boys. This is likely the kind of behavior Paul had on his mind.

To rebel against God is more about “hypersexuality” than it is specifically homosexuality. It is about prostitution, sexual abuse, friends with benefits, pornography, etc. It is when sexuality becomes a selfish act, regardless of love and care and outside of covenant. Speaking of precedence, there was no precedence for a loving and committed same sex covenant relationship. They simply could not have conceived of such a thing. To suggest that this passage in Romans is a blanket condemnation of this kind of relationship misses the point and becomes a judgment, which Paul more clearly condemned.

An overarching principle in the Old Testament is covenant: God’s covenant with the people of Israel. It is clear that it is in and through covenant that the Spirit of God works – the covenants we make in our communities, in marriage and with our children. To extend this covenant to all people seems to me to be biblical. In the New Testament love is an essential principle. If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels but do not have love… what am I? To take the Bible seriously we have to think more broadly and deeply, and more lovingly.

Pastor Jim