Texts:\u00a0 Philippians 4:8-9, Matthew 22:34-40<\/p>\n

This past year as I taught confirmation, one of our lessons focused on how we are all theologians.
\nI wrote that word up on the board and one of our students exclaimed \u2013 WOW! That\u2019s a 25-cent word!
\nThere was an old idiom that you shouldn\u2019t use a 50-cent word when a 5-cent word will do.
\nBut just because a word is complicated doesn\u2019t mean you shouldn\u2019t use it.
\nSo we unpacked it. We defined it. And suddenly, that 25-cent word wasn\u2019t so scary anymore.<\/p>\n

Today, we need to talk about some 25-cent words.
\nThese are words are important and form the background of both the conflict within our denomination and in how we might move beyond this tension.
\nSo\u2026 will you pray with me?
\nCompassionate God, all creation delights in the presence of your Word.<\/em>
\n May the authority of your Spirit bring understanding into our confused minds, and truth into our troubled hearts, that we may praise and serve Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen<\/em> (from the Worship@North website. https:\/\/northchurchindy.wordpress.com\/ )<\/p>\n

We are going to start in the same place as our confirmands. Our first 25-cent word is\u2026 theologian.<\/strong>
\nI am a theologian.
\nI have a Master of Divinity from Vanderbilt University and I spent three and a half years studying divine things like scripture and ancient texts and history and the thoughts of other theologians.<\/p>\n

But you know what?
\nYou are a theologian, too.
\nYou see, a theologian is simply anyone who reflects upon God\u2019s action in the world today and as United Methodists we believe that every single one of us is called to this task.
\nEvery generation must wrestle with our faith in a changing world.
\nThe church needs to see problems and challenges like sexual abuse or global migration so we can provide a faithful response.
\nBut, we also need to be able to figure out how to communicate the truth of our faith to a world that increasingly can\u2019t understand us.
\nTheology helps us to do both.
\nWhether or not you knew it before worship today, you are a theologian.
\nI want you to claim that! Say out loud and proud: I am a theologian!<\/p>\n

And as a theologian, your job is to answer a simple question: What can I say that is faithful to scripture<\/strong> as it has been passed down through tradition<\/strong>, and that makes sense in light of human experience<\/strong> and reason<\/strong>? (paraphrase of Book of Discipline p. 81)
\nAs Paul told the Philippians, we are to focus our thoughts on what is excellent and true, holy and just. We are to practice what we have learned and received and heard from our mentors and teachers of the faith.
\nThat is theology!
\nAnd as United Methodist theologians, you have four sources in discovering God at work in the world.
\nScripture. Tradition. Experience. Reason.<\/p>\n

These four sources make up our next 25-cent word: quadrilateral<\/strong>.
\n\u201c[John] Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.\u201d (p. 82)
\nAll four are important. All four are necessary. All four help us to see where God is working in the world.
\nWe start with scripture.
\nWe end with scripture.
\nScripture is the absolute foundation of all of our theology\u2026 so as theologians, we had better be reading and pouring over scripture in our lives.
\nBut\u2026 and\u2026 scripture is always being interpreted.<\/p>\n

First, scripture is interpreted by other scripture<\/strong>.
\nYou cannot take a single verse out of context but need to look at the fullness of the entire passage and story.
\nAnd, we come to see as we read the bible that there is an overarching story within the scripture itself\u2026 a story of creation and redemption, a story of mistakes and forgiveness, a story that ends in the restoration of all things.
\nIn our gospel, religious leaders ask Jesus to interpret and prioritize scripture for them. His response is one that provides us guidance when we in turn interpret scripture today \u2013 how does this verse lead us to love God and love our neighbor? (Matthew 22:34-40)<\/p>\n

Next, we have the witness of how people have interpreted that scripture through time. Tradition<\/strong> shows us the \u201cconsensus of faith\u201d that has grown out of a particular community\u2019s experience. (p. 85-86)
\nNot all contexts and communities are the same. The experience of Czech immigrants in the Midwest was very different than that of African slaves in the Deep South. Each community passed on the gospel and created practices of faith that show us how the scripture made sense in their lives. We also connect tradition with the theology of previous generations that have been passed down to us in creeds and writings.<\/p>\n

Tradition shows us how communities have understood God, but we also each have or own unique experiences<\/strong>.
\nWho you are and what you have been through is always with you when you open up the Bible \u2013 your pain, joy, anger, gender, economic reality…
\nIt is why you can read the same passage of scripture repeatedly over time and discover something new with each reading.
\nBut Wesley also talked about how God continues to reveal through our experiences and the fruit that we are bearing in our lives. When he saw the call in the lives of women around him, he began to license them as preachers.<\/p>\n

Our final source of theology is reason<\/strong>. As the Book of Proverbs reminds us, each person is called to \u201cturn your ear toward wisdom, and stretch your mind toward understanding. Call out for insight, and cry aloud for understanding. \u201d (Proverbs 2:2-3)
\nWe believe that God reveals truth in many places, not only in scripture, and that we should pursue such knowledge and truth with our whole selves. Science, philosophy, nature: these are all places that help us to gain understanding.
\nWhere we find contradictions within scripture itself or between a passage and wisdom of the world, reason asks what greater truths a verse might be speaking or how to prioritize and discern which is truer.<\/p>\n

Our Book of Discipline reminds us that<\/p>\n

\u201cUnited Methodists as a diverse people continue to strive for consensus in understanding the gospel\u2026 while exercising patience and forbearance with one another. Such patience stems neither from indifference toward truth nor from an indulgent tolerance of error but from an awareness that we know only in part and that none of us is able to search the mysteries of God except by the Spirit of God. We proceed with our theological task, trusting that the Spirit will grant us wisdom\u2026\u201d (Book of Discipline p. 89)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The simple truth which lies at the heart of our conflict today is that people of faith, United Methodists who care about the scriptures and who come from diverse backgrounds, cannot come to a place of consensus in how we approach matters of human sexuality and in particular how we understand homosexuality.
\nWe might use the quadrilateral differently or prioritize some aspects more than others.
\nBut I think part of the difficulty is that we don\u2019t even have a common understanding of the question we are seeking to answer within the scriptures.
\nAnd that means a couple more 25-cent words:<\/p>\n

First, homosexuality<\/strong>. This word was initially coined in the 1880s in German and made its way into English usage in the 1890s. The word itself simply refers to sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex. Some modern translations of scripture use this word, but it didn\u2019t even exist at the time the King James Bible was translated.<\/p>\n

Many who seek to answer the question of what we should do today start from this definition. Their concern is largely with the physical acts associated with any given sexual orientation. Many prohibitions in our Book of Discipline focus on this as well, using the phrase\u00a0 \u201cself-avowed, practicing homosexual.\u201d<\/strong> The question being raised by this group is largely about how we use our bodies and whether or not such use is good and holy.<\/p>\n

Others focus on a more expansive understanding of the complexity of human sexuality, referring to a wider group of people through the term LGBTQ+.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Science and sociology have helped us to see in the last fifty years that our identity is complicated.
\nThis graphic talks about four different aspects of our identity \u2013 all of which are placed on a spectrum. Our biological sex, how we identify our gender and how we express it, who we are attracted to\u2026 all of these factors play a role\u2026 which is why the terminology we use keeps expanding as well. There is a handout at the back that has this graphic as well as some common definitions within LGBTQ+ if you are interested. The question being raised by this group is also about how bodies, but tends to focus more on embodiment and identity as a whole person.<\/p>\n

As a denomination, when we bring these questions to General Conference, we seem to have reached our limits of patience and forbearance with one another.
\nBut as people of a local faith community, my prayer is that we can still remember with humility that now we see through a glass darkly and that we still might extend patience and forbearance towards one another as we explore a few scriptures together.<\/p>\n

When we open the scriptures, there are six verses that our tradition has used to condemn homosexuality.
\nGenesis 19: Sodom & Gomorrah<\/em>
\n Leviticus 18 & 20: Abomination<\/em>
\n Romans 1: Exchanging Natural Relations for Unnatural<\/em>
\n 1 Corinthians 6 & 1 Timothy 1: \u201cmalakoi and arsenokoitai\u201d<\/em>
\nAs United Methodist theologians, we start with scripture, and we end with scripture so we need to wrestle with these passages as background for our theology today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before they went to bed, the men of the city of Sodom\u2014everyone from the youngest to the oldest\u2014surrounded the house<\/span> and called to Lot, \u201cWhere are the men who arrived tonight? Bring them out to us so that we may have sex with them.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First \u2013 Genesis 19: 4-5, the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Angels from God arrive in order to determine if there are any righteous people in the town. The men of the city knock on the door of the house they are staying and seek to force themselves upon the visitors.
\nHowever, this is a great place to start using scripture to interpret scripture. While later Christian tradition adopted sodomy as a term for sinful, non-procreative sex, within the scriptures itself, the sin of Sodom was not sexual in nature. In Ezekiel 16, the prophet names the sin of Sodom as being proud and not helping the poor and needy. This was a culture that relied upon hospitality \u2013 when guests arrived the duty of the community was to welcome them and provide for their needs. To violently force yourself upon these visitors, attacking them, raping them, was against every hospitality code of the time. This is a clear violation of the command to love your neighbor.<\/p>\n

The question we wres<\/strong><\/em>tle with theologically is whether or not our experience of LGBT persons today is reflected in this text.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

You must not have sexual intercourse with a man as you would with a woman; it is a detestable practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If a man has sexual intercourse with a man as he would with a woman, the two of them have done something detestable. They must be executed; their blood is on their own heads.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The next two scriptures come from the Holiness Code in the book of Leviticus (18:22, 20:13). In many translations, sex between two men is named as an abomination, or detestable. Both of these chapters are concerned with sexual practices that were forbidden to the people of God as they were entering the Promised Land. It is a rejection of practices both in the land of Egypt and practices that may have been common among others in the land of Canaan.
\nThe Hebrew word that we have translated as abomination or detestible is probably not a fair translation of the word. \u201cToevah\u201d is understood by many today to instead mean ritually unclean or culturally taboo. The Israelites are called to be holy and set-apart and to adopt cultural practices that are different from their neighbors. In the larger context of Leviticus, these include commands about food, clothing, bodily fluids, and how you treat the stranger among you.
\nToday, our tradition still considers many of the practices within these two chapters of Leviticus to be culturally taboo, but not all of them. And we have moved away from many of the other prohibitions within these texts that we consider to be culturally bound \u2013 like eating shellfish or the cutting of hair. And that\u2019s because we hold a different understanding of what makes us unclean in the eyes of the Lord. Peter\u2019s vision in Acts 10 shifts the conversation within the Christian faith and his encounter with the gentile Cornelius leads him to proclaim, \u201cGod has shown me that I should never call a person impure or unclean.\u201d (Actus 10:28)<\/p>\n

Theologically, we ask today what scripture, tradition, reason, and experience lead us to claim as taboo sexual acts, framed by our understanding of what forms us as a Christian community that loves God and our neighbor.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That\u2019s why God abandoned them to degrading lust. Their females traded natural sexual relations for unnatural sexual relations.<\/span> Also, in the same way, the males traded natural sexual relations with females, and burned with lust for each other. Males performed shameful actions with males, and they were paid back with the penalty they deserved for their mistake in their own bodies.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Our next scripture comes from Paul\u2019s letter to the Romans. His argument here in the first chapter is that Gentiles and Jews alike are without excuse and full of sin. The Jews have been given the law and claim to follow it but don\u2019t. The Gentiles don\u2019t have the law\u2026 instead they should have seen God revealed through nature itself. Augustine and Aquinas and others have carried this concept through our tradition and our use of reason: we can know God through the world around us.
\nHere in this chapter, Paul argues that the Gentiles should have known God. However, they rejected God and turned instead to idols. As he describes cultic practices of worship, he claims that their idolatry led God to abandon them to their desires. As a consequence, natural sexual relations were exchanged for unnatural ones and these people were filled with jealousy, murder, fighting, deception, gossip, and disobedience to their parents. (Romans 1:29-31)
\nTheologically, the questions we wrestle with today start with asking what is natural<\/strong><\/em>. If one understands homosexuality to be a choice then it would lead you to think that such acts are unnatural. However, for others who believe that persons who are LGBT were created that way, it might be unnatural for them to act against how God has made them.
\nThis is another place where we might ask where our experience shows fruit in the lives of LGBT persons. Paul\u2019s argument here is that same-sex acts are the result of idolatry and cultic worship and these people are filled with other bad behaviors. What are the fruits we see in the lives of people we know who are LBGT? What are the fruits of people who are not LGBT? Do they love God? Do they love their neighbor?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you know that people who are unjust won\u2019t inherit God\u2019s kingdom? Don\u2019t be deceived. Those who are sexually immoral, those who worship false gods, adulterers, both participants in same-sex intercourse,^{[a<\/a>]<\/sup><\/span> thieves, the greedy, drunks, abusive people, and swindlers won\u2019t inherit God\u2019s kingdom.<\/span><\/p>\n}

 <\/p>\n

We understand this: the Law isn\u2019t established for a righteous person but for people who live without laws and without obeying any authority. They are the ungodly and the sinners. They are people who are not spiritual, and nothing is sacred to them. They kill their fathers and mothers, and murder others.<\/span> They are people who are sexually unfaithful, and people who have intercourse with the same sex. They are kidnappers, liars, individuals who give false testimonies in court, and those who do anything else that is opposed to sound teaching.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The final pairing of scripture is from 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10. We group them together because they refer to the same two words \u2013 malakoi<\/em> and arsenokoitai<\/em>. These words have been translated in multiple ways through our history of bible translation.
\nMalakoi literally means soft and has been translated as effeminate, as the passive homosexual partner, or as a male prostitute.
\nArsenokoitai is a word that appears only two times in all of Greek literature \u2013 right here in the Bible. It is a word that Paul appears to have made up from two other words: Men and Bed. How tradition understands this word has changed drastically over time. Some think it refers to the dominant homosexual partner. Others think it refers to pimps \u2013 men who sell sex. Others think it is connected with temple prostitution, or the practice of older men taking young men (soft men) as sexual partners within the culture of the time.
\nIn the context of the litany of other acts included in this list however, perhaps the Message translation most accurately captures the spirit of this passage. \u201cthose who use and abuse each other, use and abuse sex, use and abuse the earth and everything in it, don\u2019t qualify as citizens in God\u2019s kingdom.\u201d
\nThe truth is, we have all done these things. But the grace of God is present in our lives and has redeemed us and so our call now is to honor God, creation, and our neighbors\u2026 and that includes honoring our bodies.<\/p>\n

What can we say theologically about sex, sexuality, and our identity that rejects the way people use and abuse one another and helps all people to honor their bodies?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As I faithfully wrestle with a theological response to the presence and promise of LGBT persons in the life of the church, I am fully aware that I might end up coming to a different conclusion than you. We are all theologians after all, all tasked with using scripture, tradition, reason, and experience to weigh what we believe to be faithful responses in the world today.
\nThe very conflict within our denomination is the result of this very tension and next week we\u2019ll explore how people of faith have found themselves aligned with various positions today.
\nBut my prayer, above all else, is that we would continue to lift up as our number one priority the love of God and the love of one another \u2013 and that includes those who don\u2019t agree with us.
\nOur call as people of faith after all is to provide a welcome so vast and so radical that all might come to know and experience the saving grace of God lives. May it be so. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texts:\u00a0 Philippians 4:8-9, Matthew 22:34-40 This past year as I taught confirmation, one of our lessons focused on how we are all theologians. I wrote that word up on the board and one of our students exclaimed \u2013 WOW! That\u2019s a 25-cent word! There was an old idiom that you shouldn\u2019t use a 50-cent word…<\/span><\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,3,21,6,9],"tags":[1459,28,49,1407,1405,1393,418,476,483,494,541,594,597,610,1406,627,679,728,742,1408,855,888,1000,1023,1354,1080],"class_list":["post-3495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-god-words","category-kenotic-words","category-living-redeemed","category-ordinary-time","category-the-body-of-christ","tag-gc2019","tag-1-corinthians","tag-acts","tag-arsenokoitai","tag-commandment","tag-commission-on-a-way-forward","tag-god","tag-holy","tag-homosexuality","tag-human-sexuality","tag-jesus","tag-leviticus","tag-lgbtq","tag-love","tag-malakoi","tag-matthew","tag-neighbor","tag-paul","tag-philippians","tag-quadrilateral","tag-romans","tag-scripture","tag-theology","tag-translation","tag-unclean","tag-wesley","post_format-post-format-image"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/wayforward.png?fit=2403%2C1353&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7cYpi-Un","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3495"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3558,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3495\/revisions\/3558"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salvagedfaith.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}