This is the sermon I preached today at Stowe Community Church in Stowe, Vermont....
Today, as a church, we come to a very important place of
decision. In our Annual Meeting this morning, you will decide as a congregation
whether you will allow same sex wedding ceremonies to take place in this
building, whether you will allow me as your pastor to perform such weddings wherever
there is opportunity, and whether you will become an “open and affirming”
church.
In the sessions that I taught this summer on various Bible
passages that impinge on this issue, I shared where I stand on this issue and
why. I do not want to go over all of that again. But I do want to remind you of
how we have arrived at this juncture today….
When I interviewed with the search committee of this church
I was informed of the church’s position on same sex marriage and I was asked
how I would handle the issue in this church.
I informed the search committee that I was raised within a
family and church tradition that took a conservative view of this subject but
that within recent years, through a process of study and knowing gay
Christians, I had come to a different view, and that I was open to performing
same sex wedding services.
Secondly, I told the committee that I was prepared to lead a
church-wide dialogue on this issue.
Thirdly, I promised that I would offer teaching on the
subject from the Bible.
Fourthly, since this is a church with a congregational form
of government, I told the search committee that I believed this matter should
be voted on by the whole congregation.
Finally, I told the search committee that I would abide by
whatever the whole church decided in this regard and that I would serve as this
church’s pastor regardless of the outcome of such a vote.
Over the course of my first months in this church, I
listened to many of you share your concerns with me regarding same sex marriage
in the church. In reporting these concerns to the board, it was decided that we
should proceed with a church-wide conversation on this topic. Having done that,
the board further decided to survey the congregation to see where we stood. And
having done that, the board reviewed the findings of the survey and decided we
should move to a congregational vote on the matter.
That brings us to today…. I would like to speak with you
about what I believe is the greatest need of this hour as we prepare to vote on
the issue of same sex marriage in this church. I believe the need of this hour
and every hour are the same. The greatest need of every human being is to love
and be loved. I learned early on in ministry that the number one sign of mental
health is the ability to give and receive love freely.
I believe Jesus made love the central message of his
ministry when he said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
(John 3:16)
I know we know these words, but I wonder: have we truly
taken them to heart, and do we fully realize how they might apply to this
situation we are facing as a church?
During our discussion of same sex marriage this summer, I
shared this story in one of the sessions….
There was a young man named Travis whom I led through
Confirmation in a previous church. Travis contacted me by email some years
after I left the church and he had an important question he wanted to ask me.
Travis was 19 at the time and a virgin. He shared with me that he knew he was
gay and then he asked, “Will God still love me if I act on the feelings that I
have?”
How would you have answered Travis? I am sorry to say that I
hesitated in my answer and I don’t even remember, fully, what I said to Travis
in my email response. But I do know that Travis acted on his feelings and
entered a relationship with another young man. So far as I know, Travis is no
longer involved in church.
The way we answer that question: “Will God still love me if
I am gay and act on it?” probably won’t change anything about the way that
people act on their sexual orientation. But our answer probably will help to
determine that person’s attitude toward God and the church.
Similarly, I have found in my many years of performing
weddings, that when I say “no” to doing a wedding, it does not change the fact
that the couple in question is going to get married. What my answer does
determine is whether I will have the opportunity to be a witness for the love
of Jesus in that wedding ceremony.
As Pope Francis said, not too long ago, in a press
conference, “… in my life as a priest and bishop, even as Pope, I have
accompanied people with homosexual tendencies, I have also met homosexual persons,
accompanied them, brought them closer to the Lord, as an apostle, and I have
never abandoned them. People must be accompanied as Jesus accompanies them,
when a person who has this condition arrives before Jesus, Jesus surely doesn’t
tell them ‘go away because you are homosexual.’”[1]
The important thing to me, as a pastor, is being able to
accompany people on their spiritual journey, even on the part of their journey
that includes marriage.
But let me return to John 3:16. We must ask: what kind of
love does God have for human beings anyway? There are other words that the
Apostle John could have used to describe God’s love, but when recording this
statement of Jesus in John 3:16, John uses the word agape. Agape love is
unconditional. God does not say, “I will love you if you do this or that. I
will love you if you are this kind of person or that kind of person.” God loves
without conditions.
Who does God love? “For God so loved the world…” Do you reckon you are part of the world? How about gay
people? Are they part of the world? I believe that God loves everyone. No
exceptions.
How did God love the world? He loved the world by becoming
one of us, by identifying with us as human beings.
Is there anyone in the world who completely understands
sexual orientation, where it comes from and how it works? I doubt it. Do
scientists understand it? I know they are trying to understand but I think the
ones who are honest will admit that we do not yet completely understand sexual
orientation.
Do theologians or pastors understand it? Again, I think
anyone who claims to fully understand the human psyche is deluded.
There is one person in the universe who I believe perfectly
understands us as human beings; in fact, he understands everything about us.
And that is God. The God who I believe in, the Triune God who is Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit, understands us completely. God not only understands us because
he is our creator; he understands us because he became a human being himself.
God understands us completely and he loves us anyway. That’s amazing, isn’t it?
What do we have to do to receive God’s love? Jesus tells us
we must simply believe. We need to believe in Jesus, trust in him, and we will
receive a life that will never end, a life full of his love.
When giving a talk in a school, church, or other location,
my favorite time is the question and answer period after the official talk.
People’s questions always bring out, I think, the most interesting and
thought-provoking ideas. My friend, Douglas Gresham, likes Q&A so much that
when he is invited to give a talk somewhere he usually speaks for only five
minutes or so and then immediately moves into question and answer.
However, Q&A is not always friendly. Any of us who have
been in the church for any length of time can probably think of times in our
church life when someone’s pointed question in front of a group seems intended
to get someone else into trouble.
Such was the situation with Jesus and the religious leaders
of his day. During the last week of his life, Jesus overturned the tables of
the money-changers in the Temple. The religious leaders asked him by what
authority he did this. Then Jesus proceeded to tell various parables as a
warning against them. The religious leaders disliked this so much that they
immediately set about trying to get Jesus in trouble with his words. In fact,
the Pharisees enlisted the help of the hated Herodians, the Jews in league with
the Romans. And even the Sadducees, the religious leaders who were responsible
for overseeing the Temple worship, and who didn’t agree with the Pharisees in
their theology, even they got in on the act. So, the Q&A during the last
week of Jesus’ life was not very friendly at all. In fact, it was deadly.
It was in this heated context that Matthew tells us Jesus
was asked one of the most important questions ever. In Matthew 22:34-40 we read…
When the Pharisees heard that he [Jesus]
had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer,
asked him a question to test him. “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the
greatest?” He said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest
and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor
as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
Now, to understand the amazing wisdom of Jesus’ response to
this question, we must remember that there were hundreds of commandments in the
Torah, the Jewish law, contained in the first five books of the Hebrew
Scriptures. How could Jesus pick just one of them and exalt that as the most
important? Even out of the Ten Commandments, how could Jesus pick just one and
leave aside the others?
When one considers this context, one can see how masterful
Jesus’ response was. He quotes two commandments from the Torah which sum up all
the others. The first comes in Deuteronomy 6:5 and is part of a statement
called the Shema, which means “hear”. “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the
Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul
and with all your strength.” That statement is recited daily by many Jewish
people down to this day.
Notice that Deuteronomy has the words “heart…soul…strength”.
Some manuscripts of the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, the
Septuagint, add the word “mind” to the text. In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus brings all
four together: “heart, soul, mind and strength”. In other words, we are to love
God with everything in us. That, says Jesus, is the greatest commandment. And
no one could fault Jesus for saying so.
Jesus adds that the second greatest commandment is like it:
“Love your neighbor as yourself.” That comes from Leviticus 19:18, also part of
the Torah.
This past summer we looked at two Scriptures from Leviticus,
18:22 and 20:13, that talk about a man not lying with a man as with a woman.
But Jesus does not quote these Scriptures. Nor does he quote any of the other
myriad of laws in Leviticus he could have quoted. Rather, he says, “Love your
neighbor as yourself.” That is the second greatest commandment.
How is this command like the first? When we love our
neighbor as our self then we love the image of God in our neighbor.
Jesus says that all the Law and the Prophets, in other
words—the bulk of the Hebrew Scriptures, hang on these two commandments.
However, the big question is: who of us has ever fulfilled
either of these commandments? Other commandments in the Scriptures might be
fulfilled on our own power, but not these two: for these two require a
disposition of the heart, an attitude of love toward God and neighbor. At all
times, we must do what is best for God and our neighbor. None of us have ever
done this. And this, I think, shows us our need for a Savior—someone who can rescue
us from the sin of not loving God, not loving neighbor, not loving ourselves,
someone who can enable us to do these things. And that someone, I believe, is
Jesus.
Therefore, in these two passages, John 3:16 and Matthew
22:34-40, I believe we have enough wisdom to guide us in the decision before us
as a church. Who does God love? Everyone. Whom does God call us to love? God
calls us to love him with everything in us, and he calls us to love our
neighbor as ourselves. That means loving the image of God in our neighbor.
Is everyone made in the image of God? Yes, everyone. Is everyone
our neighbor? Is the gay person our neighbor? Yes. God loves everyone and he
calls us to love everyone, including ourselves.
Unless we have received the love of God, I don’t believe we
can truly love ourselves or anyone else. But once we have received God’s love
we will be able to do what Jesus commands. We will be able to love God back. We
will be able to love ourselves. And then we can love our neighbor as we love
ourselves.
Now, what exactly does it mean to love our neighbor as
ourselves? I believe that when we love ourselves, we work for our own greatest
good. Therefore, when we love our neighbors as ourselves we will be working for
our neighbor’s greatest good.
What is our neighbor’s greatest good when it comes to same
sex weddings in our church? That is the question we must answer. And when it
comes to voting today, that is the question I believe we must each answer in
our own hearts.
Now I realize that each of us may answer that question
differently. I know that some of us are going to vote differently than others
on the question that is before us today. I know we are not unanimous as we go
into this vote.
And that leads to another way we are going to need to learn
to love. We need to learn to love one another, even when we disagree strongly
with each other. What does such a love look like? I think it looks like
listening. I think it looks like seeking to understand each other. I believe
that when we have real love for one another we will not demonize those with
whom we disagree, but rather we will speak lovingly to and about those with
whom we disagree. If we have God’s love in our hearts, we will not say or even
think: “You must not be a Christian because you disagree with me about this
issue.” If we have love in our hearts, we will respect one another. I believe
that when we have God’s love at work in our hearts we will each work for the
greatest good of our whole church.
Of course, anytime we have a question about love, we know
where to go with that question. In Jesus, I believe we have the greatest model
of love who has ever lived. If we want to know how to love, we can look to
Jesus. All we must ask is: what would Jesus do?
That is the question we must ask and answer as we come to
vote on the question that is before us today: what would Jesus do?
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