WRESTLING WITH THE CULTURAL WARS

Sermon Summary (2/3/19) “Wrestling With the Culture Wars?”  Lev 18:22; 1 Timothy 1:8-10

The end of this month, United Methodists from all over the world will gather in St. Louis to consider one issue, human sexuality, how the church will handle the issues of gay ordination and same sex marriage.  Their decision may either unite the church or tear it apart.  I need to give this sermon. 

Remember Matthew Shepard?  Beaten, tortured, left to die, trussed to a fence near Laramie, WY. I never understood the hate that some harbor against gay people until Matthew Shephard. In fact, growing up in the 50s in South Dakota, I knew little about gay issues.  I guess the first time I ever had to talk about them was at an Annual Conference in NY when our working group voted down legislation that would have liberalized our rules about what we believe and about ordination of gays.  A young woman there said very sadly, “I guess I’ll never be able to fulfill my dreams in the United Methodist Church.

When I told Rosemary that I was going to talk about in this sermon, she said, “Why?  Why would you ever want to do that?”  I might have changed my mind except that at that time, a 350 member church in Wichita voted to exit the Methodist Church because of their uncertainty about where the church will come down on issues of human sexuality.  The church is beginning to be torn apart.

So where do we go?  The Book of discipline while calling us to extend grace says, “Homosexual conduct is incompatible with Christian practice.”  That’s what the church says today.

What do conservatives say? How do they interpret the Bible?  And how do progressives interpret it?  One would think the Bible would have a lot to say on such a hot topic, but there are only five passages and Jesus was silent on the issue, didn’t even allude to it.

I’ll let you read the passages listed at the top of the page.  Conservatives say, “The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it.” 

Progressives say that passages must be read within the context of the cultures that they addressed, that Moses wrote into the abhorrent religious practices of the Canaanites, that Paul wrote into the extensive promiscuity of the Greek and Roman temple worship .  And neither have anything to do with our understanding of homosexuality today, and therefore don’t address today’s understanding which can be life-giving.  They argue the word itself only originated in the late 19th century as did psychiatry, our understanding of human behavior.

I’ve wrestled with this issue for 30 years and I’ve finally come to understand it’s complex, and that while we wrestle we are to “Do no harm.”  I cannot love my neighbor when I wish them or do them harm, intentionally or unintentionally.  My task as I wrestle with it is to be a follower of Jesus and “Love one another.” Amen.