The armchair, the ash heap and the barricade (20/7/08)

Texts: Romans 13. 1- 14, Luke 22. 47-53

“Those who think religion has nothing to do with politics don’t understand either religion or politics.” This statement is attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, one of the spiritual and political giants of the last century. What has religion to do with politics? If we look at the history of religions or even at the more limited vista of the Christian Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation we can see that this is not an empty question. Many different answers been offered to express this complex relationship.

It is rich and complex discussion, replete with examples from every age. A significant part of the tradition is the striking declaration of Paul from Romans chapter 13: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from God and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. (Romans 13.1) Coming in the book that many recognize to be Paul's programmatic declaration of the Christian faith, this statement is sometimes seen as definitive, as closing out the debate. Can anything else be said about the Christian view of submission to the governing authorities once we have read Romans 13?

Some want to look more deeply at the history of God's people. We want to explore the implications of the prophetic tradition where men and women inspired by God stood up to the anointed rulers and denounced their sins or announced their destruction as did Samuel and Nathan, Elijah and Elisha. Elisha seemed to relish the declaration that the dogs would lick up the blood of Ahab and that Jezebel would meet a grisly and cruel death: he certainly incited Jehu to rise up and kill both King Ahab and his Queen.

The seers Daniel, Ezekiel and John of the Apocalypse foresaw the overthrow of kingdoms and empires, the chariots of judgment with flaming wheels and the horses of the Apocalypse with their terrifying riders thundering into human history from the sky. For those with eyes to see the Gospel story itself, especially as told by say Mark the evangelist, is profoundly political - the story of the collision between Jesus’ announcement of the Kingdom of God and all of the kingdoms of humankind.

Through large swathes of 2000 years of Christian history this text from Romans has been a foundation stone of political disengagement on the part of churches. In one tradition it has been an important part of the theology of two kingdoms in which Christians are advised to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. Their loyalty and obedience in earthly affairs belongs to Caesar and their service to God is focussed upon the coming kingdom and the otherworldly dimensions of Christian faith. It was just such a theology that underpinned the attitude of the German National churches to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Against this stood men like Dietrich Bonhoffer and Martin Niemoller, who understood that when rulers and their policies stand opposed to God and his laws the allegiance of the Christian must always and only be to Jesus and his gospel.

Within our own Baptist tradition stands the involvement of many early Baptist pastor's in English Civil War. Many of our founding fathers took commissions in Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army and stood against the forces of the King Charles and the armies of the Presbyterians from the north. Among their number were a group called the Fifth Monarchy men. These had read the prophecies of Daniel about four earthly rulers who had to find their end before the heavenly King would return to establish his kingdom upon earth – the so-called Fifth Monarchy. In their vision the task of the Christian was to sweep away every earthly vestige of government so that the way might be prepared for the triumphant return of Christ the King. They were Christian anarchists who took up the sword against any form of earthly authority.

All these, in the times of the Bible and in Christian history since the Bible, are a long way from the calm exhortations of Paul that we should be subject to the governing authorities because there is no authority except God. This very brief survey suggests either that these folks never read Paul, or that Christian attitudes to secular authority is a complex issue and not so straightforward as might first appear from the words of Romans 13.

When you are interpreting texts, as when you are buying real estate, the first rule is location, location, location. What is the social location from which this text arises? What issues does it address and what is the social experience of people who were hearing it? With a text like Romans 13 nothing is more important in hearing what the text is saying than reflecting upon the social location of the listeners. (three social locations)

Throughout Christian history this has been a very precious and reassuring text for those who are comfortable and safely ensconced in wealth and power. Within an ordering of social arrangements and political reality that has delivered us security and social respect it is only natural to be greatly encouraged that the existing state of affairs is ordered by God! This is seen very clearly revealed in some hymns which see the ordering of human affairs as having been intimately arranged by the personal direction of the Creator:

The rich man in his castle,

The poor man at his gate,

GOD made them, high or lowly,

And ordered their estate. (From All things bright and beautiful)

For some reason this verse doesn't appear in the latest edition of our hymn book. I wonder why? Perhaps it is because we can recognize the thinly veiled class interest that is served by the singing of this hymn and the politically and socially offensive character of the theology expressed in it. And yet in a hundred subtle ways the idea that all authority that exists has been ordained by God and serves his purpose is very comfortable for those who are seated in the armchair of life with good jobs, nice houses, fine prospects and no worries. When the poor hammer on the gates of the castle (rather than sitting quietly and reverently beside it) many Christians blessed with comfortable armchairs turn to Romans 13 to judge and criticise those who protest or complain.

But if one is not sitting in a pleasant armchair with an armchair view of history the picture looks very different. In the Bible one of the greatest pictures of suffering is that of Job. With his fortune, and his family and finally his health taken from him, covered from head to foot with loathsome sores, Job took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself and sat upon the ash heap in the yard. His situation was so dire that even his wife said to him “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2.8-9). From the ash heap of his suffering Job raised a great complaint and questioning against God. Far from accepting the way that God had ordered his life and the world, Job raised a hue and cry against the divine ordering of the world in some of the most powerful poetry in all of Scripture.

From the ash heaps of history Providence does not look so benign. The suffering in every age and in every land cry out with deep questioning about that which oppresses them. They have no calm acceptance that every ruler comes from God but are ready to question the way the world is, even if it means questioning the very justice and fairness of God himself. Those on the ash heap of suffering read our text more thoroughly - even getting as far as verse 3: “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad.” (Rom 13.3). Those who suffer under bad government or evil rulers see this as a qualifying principle, a condition that must be met before the authority of rulers is to be accepted and acknowledged as coming from God. Without this qualifying principle, they ask, do we have to accept that Adolf Hitler was instituted by God simply because his authority existed? This appears to be (with little theological embellishment) the proposition that Robert Mugabi now commends to the world with regard to his own administration. From the armchairs of the Wolf’s Lair in Hitler’s beloved mountains, or Mugabe’s opulent palace in Harare, their power may seem divinely ordained and a truly providential ordering of the world, but from the ashes of the concentration camps and the hospitals where the beaten and hungry of Zimbabwe shelter, Paul’s principle in verse 3 that rulers must protect the good and restrain the evil is an accusation of such government that makes the calm acceptance of verse 1 impossible.

But there is a third location from which this text can be heard. Christians have not only occupied the armchairs of wealth and power or been reduced to the ash heaps of penury and suffering, sometimes they have been on the barricades of history earnestly and enthusiastically embracing the course of revolution and subversion.

I mentioned the Fifth Monarchy men of 17th-century in the English Civil War many of whom were committed Baptists. In the crisis of the German churches of the 1930s and 40s it was Christians like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who not only called the church to faithfulness but actively participated in the German resistance and the plots to kill Hitler and bring down the Nazis. In the 1970’s Liberation theology exerted strong influence in Latin America and parts of Asia and Africa calling Christians to analysis of , and resistance to, existing structures of power.

To Christians who sit in this place the words of Paul are words of rebuke and caution. From this social location Paul is providing a critique of the revolutionary spirit affirming the purpose of good government, not only in narrow terms of political obedience but in the spirit of paying what is due: taxes, revenue, respect, honour - all the dimensions of civic life that build up mutual trust and bonds of connection. In this context Paul is neither rubber stamping the existing order of things, nor heaping frustration and disrespect on those who suffer under corrupt government but putting a Christian case for the respect of structures of authority that ultimately reflect the authority and goodness of God, if they are honourably and properly exercised.

But what of the time of Paul? What was the social location from which he was writing and in which he was being read? The success of the Maccabean revolt in the second century BCE and the rise of the Zealot party during the first century CE raised aspirations of Jewish autonomy throughout the Roman world. In the first century such sentiments incited Jews to tax revolts and riots from Rome to Alexandria, and protests against the Emperor Caligula and Pontius Pilate, the Prefect in Judea.

We can be reasonably certain that Romans was written from Corinth in the year 57 of the common era (CE). It had only been eight years before in the year 49 CE when the Emperor Claudius had expelled Jews from Rome because, in the words of the Roman historians Suetonius, “the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus”. If this name Chrestus is a corruption of the Latin Christus (meaning Christ), then the historical context had a profound impact upon the shaping of the book of Romans!

After Claudius died in the year 54CE and the edict lapsed, Jews began slowly returning to Rome. The return of Jewish Christians to churches that had become increasingly Gentile during their absence may well have been the cause of the tension between Jewish and Gentile Christians that we have already identified as the near horizon against which the book must be interpreted. Against a far horizon of civil disturbance and accusation against the Jews, and by implication the Christians, Paul writing in one Corinthians 13 becomes a reassuring statement of Christian policy and rebuke against any who would cause trouble. If confirmation were needed of the restiveness of the time, it would only be nine years after Paul wrote that the Jewish zealots would launch a major war in Palestine (in 66 CE) leading to the destruction of the Temple and Jewish society.

Here we have the context into which Paul speaks. He is not speaking to those in comfort atop the social order who might use this text to protect and enshrine their prerogatives and privileges in the heart of a religious worldview. Nor is he speaking to those who are being ground under the heel of an uncaring empire or a ruthless dictator. He is speaking to context in which revolution is a real option, a choice that will be taken by many. He is outlining a Christian defence of the prerogatives and rights of government in time of widespread challenge and revolt.

What are we to do with this text? We who have been given such a comfortable armchair ride in life need to be very careful with this text. We must always be suspicious when the word of God seems to accord with our own economic and political interests. Whenever a Christian in the privileged armchair talk about this text with a sister or brother who sits upon the ash heap of suffering and oppression there is the risk of grave offence and injury against the very gospel of Jesus who pointed to the coming of the kingdom in which all would find freedom under the rule of God not the flawed and corrupt order of human affairs that we find the present world.

I think I have only understood this text once in my life in an encounter I had in 1983. I was sheltering under a bed in the home of the Baptist deacon in the Highlands of the Philippines as the bullets flew around outside. A militia group authorised and armed by the government come through the village and was shooting at family members of my host. When the firing stopped I was urged to go outside and hand out my business card that showed I was a pastor from Australia – “they won’t shoot you, you’re a foreigner” I was told. We finally made our escape piled into the back of a jeepney, not knowing whether our friends were safe or dead. One of the Deacons of the church turned to me to ask if I could give him 1600 pesos -the price of an M-16 rifle. And oh, I was tempted. Then, and only then, I really understood this text.

This text is tawdry self-interest when it is announced from the armchair of wealth and power, proclaimed from the cosy pulpits of wealthy churches with comfortable congregations of civil servants, businesspeople and professionals.

This text is cruel and deeply offensive when it is held over the heads of those on the ash heaps of oppression, loss and suffering. Romans 13.1 has no place in Zimbabwe today or in Darfur or Tibet. It is Romans 13.3-4 they need to be hear and understand. In such contexts the word of the Lord is not that all authority is ordained by God, but the grim word of Jesus: “This is your hour, and the power of darkness.” (Luke 22.53)

This text is for the person reaching for a gun, or putting a bomb in the back-pack, the person plotting terror or violence because their cause is higher that the state, purer than earthly politics. To all such people the words of Paul come as words of grace and freedom. They echo and extend the words of Jesus: enough of this, of swords and violence. Even though the hour is dark and wickedness is rife, we submit to the governing authorities, because all authority comes from God and his hour will come, the power of darkness will be defeated and earthly authority be formed on the model of the Kingdom.

What’s in the bottle? (3/8/08)

Texts: John 12.1-8, Ps 56.1-11

Some of the most memorable dinner parties don’t quite go according to the script. The prominent guest gets drunk and makes an ass of themselves. The catering flops terribly with an eminently forgettable dish put before the visiting gourmet. Any number of sundry disasters can occur to be retold as anecdotes over future and less memorable dinner parties. But you’d be hard pushed, no matter how much hard partying you’ve done in your lifetime to have seen anything like this.

When the fragrance first tickled their noses, they must have been a bit surprised. Pretty expensive stuff to be splashing about at a party like this. As the smell wafted through the joint they must have been intrigued. There must be buckets of it. When they came and saw just how much, and all of it puddled on the floor around Jesus’ feet the first response must have been shock.

Those who knew the price of things quickly did the sums. About a year’s worth of average male earnings was dripping through the floor boards. Today maybe $50 - $60,000 dollars worth. It was some gesture that girl made, and not one of them forgot it!

As the aroma of all that ointment spread through the house, it made quite an impression. Such an impression that the stories about it moved through all Jesus’ circle and eventually made it into all four of the gospels. Everybody had their own spin on events of course, but some things were clear. It was clear that the noses of those present couldn’t have have wrinkled more - they were affronted and scandalised by the waste. Nobody quite remembered who was most upset. Mark says it was some of the guests – perhaps even gate crashers who got in somehow. Luke says it was the Pharisees, but he seemed to think their noses would wrinkle at anything. Matthew remembers it being the disciples who would rather have used the money for charitable purposes and dear old John, well he remembers Judas as the villain, just wanting to get his hands on it by milking the poorbox. I suppose in a way that they’re all right – most of us know how other people’s money can be better spent, whether for noble or selfish ends.

The one thing that everyone remembers, is that Jesus was on the side of the woman. This fellow who never seemed to have any cash, who had no fixed address and no visible means of support sat there smiling at her, as more money than he had ever known, dripped slowly between his toes.

He had preached often enough about the needs of the poor. He’d told his disciples before to buy bread for the masses, and when they couldn’t he’d fed the mob by himself. He had challenged the rich to surrender their wealth and give to those with nothing. He was committed to justice and generosity and making the world a better place and he just sat there smiling as she wiped up that fragrant waste with her hair.

Even for those days it was not politically correct. The social justice types were quick to comment: how much could have been done for the poor! The good religious types sniped: Doesn’t he know what kind of woman this is?

But Jesus was even quicker to defend: “Leave her alone! She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me”.

Jesus points us to the heart of one of the dilemmas and tensions of spiritual life. It is the tension between caring and justice-making in the world, and celebrating, acknowledging and honouring the presence of God in human life. This story suggests that this celebrating and honouring is not a token thing – it is done best with abandon, with reckless generosity and with feeling.

This is not in keeping with the tenor of our times – we are a people of fixers, a culture of problem solvers. We live in an ambience of accountant-keeping in which the bottom line is all important. In any cost-benefit analysis worthy of the name, putting a year’s worth of work into a footbath doesn’t add up. Whether we are earnest disciples, or disapproving Pharisaical wowsers, or self interested con men like Judas we all have sensible financial strategies.

But Jesus points to moments that don’t fit into our schemes and our plans, moments when God is present to us and the extravagent response, the sacrifical response, the worshipful response is what we must do if we are going to be authentic to the moment. There is a moment when God is present when we must celebrate and respond. When we experience the amazing drama of a God who in Christ is not only real to us and present with us, but who in love will die for us, none of the usual strategies of justice and charity and political action are anywhere near good enough.

The simplest and best definition of Spirituality that I have heard is: “Spirituality what you do with what you value”.

What is it that we value? What’s in the bottle? Many people in our culture find their values expressed in material things. Michael Leunig has a little cartoon of Noah’s Ark with people carrying in their TV sets and lounge suites two by two.

Others find a different set for values. Some long for a renewal of the natural order. Others work towards a greater wholeness in family relationships. Others are seeking beauty and structure in their homes and their lives. People are concerned as never before about values, but seem to think that values can be selected like goods from a supermarket shelf. They wander through seminars and lifestyle programs and self-help books with their shopping trolleys as if we human beings can choose and package them together as we wish.

Whatever life has bottled up in us, is only the overflow of what God has done in us and for us. We often think rather selfishly of what we contain as something of our own, and not the result of God’s gracious action in our lives.

And yet the bottling activity of God values different aspects of our experience to those we hold on to. We value our strengths, God treasures our weakness. We exult in our power, God rejoices in vulnerability. We live as if suffering is to be left behind, as if all the pain and sorrow that we have known, just ebbs away. We want to forget it, and yet when grief wells up afresh and overwhelms us we know again how much we are carrying deep within and trying to forget. “You have kept count of my tossings. Put my tears in your bottle – are they not in your record?” sang the Psalmist of ancient Israel (Ps 56.8). “Put my tears in your bottle”: What we try to push away and repress, God has carefully kept in his own bottle, entered in his own records, and, if the gospel is to be trusted, even carried in his own body.

When it comes to what we do with what we value (our lived spirituality), we are a generation like the Pharisees and the disciples and dear old Judas. Some of us to moralise about social ends. Some of us seek to use the world’s resources for justice. Some of us manipulate things to suit our own ends. That’s what we do with what we have in life’s bottle.

There are some who want to pour it all out at the feet of Jesus. Whatever the bottler things of life, they are given us for the service of God. They are to be poured out because we have found in God a moment when nothing less than all can be offered. It comes about because of how we have experienced God and his care of us. We have come to value different things that have been canistered up in us. Our sorrows and weaknesses and tears are just as important, perhaps more important than our competencies and strengths.

As you worship here today – what’s in the bottle? What do you bring in yourself as you sit there in the pew? Is it material things, and social and intellectual power? Is it your ability to fix problems and solve dilemmas? Do you bring your competence, your skills developed in this world’s obsessed with technique? Are you a top lawyer or a great accountant, or a hot-shot policy analyst? Or is your security a little more local, that you know everyone around here – that you know this church and its people inside out? What’s in the bottle?

Or do you come with an awareness of your own suffering, of deep pain? Are you fragile and vulnerable and afraid? Have your tears gone into the bottle, to be treasured and understood and held in the heart of God?

What are you going to do with it? If spirituality is what you do with what you value you must work out what you are going to do with the bottle. Are you going to break it and let that stuff flow out to God, or are you going to keep it bottled up, fenced about with competencies and strengths and adequacy and a concern for all the ills of the world thinking that if you can fix things out there you might feel more sorted in here?

When people really learn to worship, the jars get broken and all the precious, costly stuff inside gets poured out. Our own suffering anoints, and is anointed by, the suffering of God and in it we find a fragrant healing. In that pouring out we know ourselves to be ordinary, fragile, empty little bottles.

‘What use is a church like that?’ I hear some of you asking. But you see, then a great miracle happens. The bottling activity of God goes beyond storing up and treasuring our weaknesses. Paul says that into common clay jars, into the empty fragile bottles we are, God pours the great treasure of the gospel (2 Cor 4.7). Yes, we find ourselves emptied, but then filled to overflowing with the abundant life of Jesus, spilling over and energising everything we do. That’s when we know how much we are loved, how strong we can be in weakness and how the vulnerable and fragile vessel of our lives, our thoughts, our hearts can be filled to the brim with the goodness and the power of God’s love for us in Christ.

What’s in the bottle? Each of us must answer for ourselves and then decide whether we will crack it open and pour it out in prayer and praise, and sacrifice. Then will we open ourselves to God, so that into those ordinary clay jars, the empty bottles that we are, comes flowing in the blessing, the treasure of God’s love and purpose for each one.

The great and glorious trouble of love (26/10/08)

Texts: John 8.2-11 , Genesis 1.26-31, Song of Songs 2.1-7

1. INTRODUCTION

I have a confession I must make: I have not been honest in titling this sermon. The words come from a great English writer but I have not quoted him accurately: he wrote of men in the great and glorious trouble of the love of women! I have been politically correct, but literarily dishonest. Whether this is a pastoral correctness or a pastoral dishonesty I have yet to determine.

Half the congregation may agree with the English writer – but others may see the trouble resting more with the men! This points to the intrinsically gendered nature of our existence that none of us can escape.

I want to talk about relationships and the challenges and joys that they present to us. Where should we start? Perhaps with the By-laws of Baptist Union of NSW and the ACT which state that hose in pastoral leadership are not permitted to engage in “sexual activity outside the legally constituted marriage of man and a woman”. This is consistent with what we perceive as the traditional approach of Christian churches to anything to do with sex and relationships: Wait until marriage! Don’t get divorced! Same-sex relationships are always wrong! For most of us it’s pretty easy to work out what the church usually says.

My problem with this approach is that this doesn’t say anything helpful to the single, the widowed, the divorced, those in common law marriage (sometimes called de-facto relationships), those who love but whose love is unrequited, those in conflict with the one they love, or those who experience same sex attraction. What can we same to these people about relationships, intimacy, tenderness and desire? Do they not experience and/or need these things? Narrowing things down to a blanket denial of “sexual activity outside the legally constituted marriage of a man and a woman” at the very least is not particularly helpful, if not just plain unrealistic.

Many people are struggling to live with integrity and are looking for a sense of peace and resolution about their relationships. Thankfully the Bible is full of stories of some of the most ambiguous tragic and painful relationships, and also some wonderful and hopeful stories about love and relationships. The stories in the Scriptures remind us that people have always been lonely and lusty, and romantic and faithful, and forgetful and wayward. Thank God for those little snippets of advice and encouragement which show us that they too struggled in relationships with all the things we struggle with. Today we have heard three readings - one a celebration of love on the lips of a woman and a man deeply in love (Song of Songs 2.1-7). Another is the story of a woman caught in the difficulties of adultery and its legal and relational consequences (John 8.2-11). Finally we heard one of the great primal myths of human experience, the explanation of the bond of a man and a woman as outlined in Genesis (Gen 1.26-31).

In today’s sermon I want to reflect upon some of the basic principles of a Christian understanding of relationships. I then wish to explore the role of social context in how our relationship are ordered. Third, I want to address how personal circumstances function in guiding our ethical decision-making.

I then wish to reflect upon the place of same-sex relationships within Christian thinking, in a very brief and cursory engagement with a very deep and complex topic. Finally I want to reflect upon where we might discover God had in all of the complexities of our understanding and experience of relationship.

2. CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES

The reading from Genesis (1.26-31) contains the creation mandate for relationship and sex. This great theme is revisited throughout the Bible and it is foundational for the thinking of Jesus about marriage (see Mark chapter 10 and parallels) and the Pauline tradition (see Ephesians chapter 5). Four great things about relationships can be discerned in this passage:

1) We are gendered beings: male and female. We are built for relationship: relationship needs are broad – friendship, intimacy, emotional connection, tenderness, touch. All these are not necessarily sexual. All these are important dimensions of our life together in the church……

2) Our gendered existence, our capacity for relationships and the gift of sex is VERY GOOD (Gen 1.31). Our existence is always gendered, and this gendered experience is at its core an experience of goodness. So often we give the impression that sex is bad, problematic, something to be either ashamed of or regretted. But God saw all that he had made and saw that it was very good. When I greet the people coming out of church: I love it … I see the young men in their strength and potentiality, the young women in their beauty and vitality. I see the mature men in their dignity and wisdom. And I greet the mature women in all their elegance and grace. It fills me with joy and, like God, I look on all that he has made and know that it is VERY GOOD!

Part of that is this goodness is the gift of sex itself. Sex might be very good but it’s not everything: James Thurber the American satirist of the mid 20^th Century once said “Sex is not everything. Studies show that sex rates from as little as 3% of everything to as much as 78% of everything, but it is not everything.” We must remember that our needs for intimacy, friendship, tenderness, touch, emotional connection, care and love is as much found in life in community as it is in sexual relationships.

3) Implied in this story is that the bond of relationship between a man and a woman is an enduring thing – they become ‘one flesh’. It changes them and the nature of their connection is a new reality. It displaces/replaces or at least supplements their existing identity and has implications into the future. Relationships, according to this story, are meant to last.

4) A further element of this story is that relationship involves letting go of the family of origin, of the community and other friendships and being joined to the new partner. Thus the relationships portrayed are not only enduring they are designed to be exclusive.

If we put all this together we can affirm that our gendered existence is a good thing - a form of blessing -that applies to all our relating not just the sexual, and that those special sexual relationships between men and women are designed to be both enduring and exclusive. Put all this together and you have essentially the ingredients of a marriage. But a marriage is not made by a piece of paper or the words of a clergyman. It is made when the good experience of gendered existence is explored within a context where relationship is both exclusive and enduring.

Now this is Christian teaching but it’s not just Christian teaching. These principles are supported by human experience. The nature of an intimate sexual relationship as enduring and exclusive means that it cannot be ended without pain nor multiplied without problems. That is a constant context for all of our lives, as anyone who has been through the dissolution of marriage or close loving relationship will tell us. It doesn't matter whether that dissolution has come about through the failure of a relationship or by the death of a partner. The processes of grief and sorrow will be different in each case, but grief and sorrow there will be.

Within these basic principles of marriage and relationship we are called to have loyalty and abiding commitment to each other and respect the special nature of these kinds of bonds.

There are also other considerations that guide our ethical thinking.

3. SOCIAL CONTEXT

The first of these is the nature of social context. Social context plays an enormous part in determining how the basic Biblical principles of enduring and exclusive relationships are enacted. Even within the Bible we find that the basic principles of human marriage are modified by the social context and needs of people. In Mark 10 Jesus says as much about the Mosaic provision for divorce - that this reflected the hardheartedness of the people, not the will of God. In the Old Testament we see the ways in which and the social context and needs of the time have structured and given shape to the way in which these basic principles of connectedness and exclusivity and commitment have worked in practice. The ancient law of levirate marriage there to protect widows in a time when there was neither social security nor independence of women. Similarly in ancient Israel there were provisions for concubinage and polygamy. In the Bible the acceptance of slavery and the ownership of another's body, free will and reproductive capacity also was addressed as a part of the laws and rules covering sexual relationships.

In the New Testament we find that the Pauline injunction to celibacy reflecting the social context of urgency in which the return of Christ and the end of the world were felt to be imminent. (For the detailed logic of this position read 1 Corinthians chapter 7.)

Of course, the post-Biblical historical context in which the church did its thinking and in which we find ourselves also affects the way we view sexual ethics. I give three examples:

Celibacy and Virginity: By the time of the church fathers the NT view that virginity was expedient because of the imminent return of Christ had changed. Celibacy was held up not simply because it was practical in a time of imminent social collapse but it was held to be holier and more appropriate state for Christians than marriage.

Now of course we live in an age when virginity or celibacy is often held up to ridicule and even pity. An important task for the church in such a world is to help support singleness and celibacy with dignity and respect, not just as a preparation for marriage or a sacrifice for religious life but as a calling of God that is fulfilling and rewarding and valuable to the individual and society

Concubinage: In parts of Africa today there are provisions where a person in traditional culture can convert to Christianity and enter the church with either multiple wives or multiple husbands: it is felt to be pastorally inappropriate to end these existing relationships and in these social contexts the church will honour existing polygamous relationships.

Marriage: My church history professor (who was a Welshman) told me a joke about the Welsh:

Man 1: Have you heard that Myfanwy’s getting married?

Man 2: I didn’t even know she was pregnant.

Man 1: She’s not pregnant.

Man 2: Not pregnant? And getting married? There’s posh!

This is not a slur upon Welsh women but a reflection of the social context of the Welsh villages and mining communities of the 19th-century, where a young couple getting married meant that an older widow would have to leave her home and live with her daughter to free up a house. It was not until a baby was on the way that the community felt someone should be asked to make such a sacrifice. In the ‘engagement’ period the marks of exclusivity and endurance still characterized the relationship.

It wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that Baptists and other Nonconformists had the right to celebrate marriages within their churches. The only Christian church empowered to marry was the Church of England. Accordingly many devout Baptists would live in a common-law marriage, simply announcing in church one day that from a particular day they would be living together as man and wife. An Irish Presbyterian minister made a similar point quite colourfully when speaking of his native Northern Ireland: “For 200 years” he said, “every Presbyterian born in Northern Ireland was a little bastard!”

Thus the emphasis on the legal quality of marriage in Protestant churches is relatively recent! In many traditions it was always the commitment, not the legal aspect, that mattered. Of course there were legal impediments for our forebears that are not there for us. But there are other dimensions of social context that may affect us.

1. We live in an age of Freud in which the understanding of the human person has been revolutionized…..

2. We live in a social context in which marriage is often delayed for social reasons of study or relocation for employment…….

3. PERSONAL CIRCUMSTANCES

Finally personal circumstances play a large part in how the basic structure of human intimate relationships, as shaped by the social context in which they have to be lived out, are given detailed expression. We look at the Bible we can see some wonderful stories of romance.

· The story of Isaac and Rebecca: the long search for Isaac’s wife of and the deep comfort and joy when they finally came together. (Genesis 24)

· Hannah who longed for a child and how she responded when the young Samuel was born (1 Samuel 1-2)

· The story of Jacob and Rachel to whom he worked as seven years only to be tricked at the last minute into marrying her sister Leah. He then having to work another seven years to win her hand. The Bible says that he was so much in love with her that those seven years seemed but a few days! (Genesis 29)

· There is the story of Gomer and her husband Hosea whose domestic life was deeply tragic and filled with pain. When Hosea named his children “Unloved” and “Not mine”, you do get the sense that all was not well with the marriage. Their troubled domestic life became a profound parable of God’s love for Israel. (Hosea Chapters 1-3, 11)

In all of these stories you see the way that personal circumstances and history shaped the way that the biblical injunction to have enduring and exclusive relationships are worked out within a particular social context.

4. SAME-SEX RELATIONSHIPS?

But what about same-sex relationships? Here is an area which is troubling the church worldwide. It would be irresponsible today to talk about relationships without engaging this topic, but I can do no more than offer some broad perspectives on the discussion.

The first is that the biblical prohibitions of same-sex acts are quite specific but they are not numerous. (about half a dozen in the whole of the Bible). This doesn’t mean they can de discounted but we must acknowledge it’s not a strong theme in the Bible.

Furthermore, there are different principles driving the prohibition. In parts of the Old Testament (eg Leviticus 18 ff.) it reflects the purity laws that were so much a part of the Jewish tradition. At other points (for instance in the Sodom and Gomorrah story - Genesis 19) it is not clear whether the great sin committed is against sexual purity or against the obligation to offer protection and hospitality. In the New Testament the prohibition is sometimes seen as a category of fornication and an affront to fidelity within relationships (eg 1 Cor 6.9, 1 Tim 1.10).

A further complication is that it is sometimes difficult to understand exactly what the texts are talking about. Are particular prohibitions aimed at forms of temple or religious prostitution? Are prohibitions of same-sex interactions talking about practices that were conducted as isolated acts alongside marriage (as was common in the Greek world)? Do any of the biblical discussions of same-sex relationships connect at all with the modern idea of sexual identity, that what we do arises from who we are and is deeply grounded in our sense of person-hood? When we look to the Bible for advice on same-sex relationships today are we ‘comparing apples with apples’?

Using our model of “Christian principles à social context à personal circumstances” we have to ask what effect the social context has on our view of same sex relationships? How does the social context inform the task of Christian ethics on same sex relationships?

1. Freud and the nature of identity……. Our whole understanding of sexuality, freedom has been transformed… What does this say about how we can apply our Biblical ethical principles

2. Society and its values: even if we Christians did decide that same-sex relationships are outside the will of God, what right do we have to impose our views on sexuality and relationship on the rest of society as the Christian community has very effectively done in the ACT through its lobbying on this issue? How would we feel if the Muslim community successfully lobbied for Sharia law to be binding on the whole Australian community, or the Jewish community sought to impose the Torah as the law of the land?

3. We also have to ask what do we want to see in gay culture itself? The social context of much gay culture is (in my personal view) rather debased – the values of enduring and exclusive relationships are not in evidence in some parts of the gay community. What I find deeply ironic is that where the gay community wishes to establish and encourage people into enduring and exclusive relationships (either through gay marriage or civil unions) the most vociferous opponents of such developments come from within the Christian churches. Do the churches actually want to keep strong such elements of gay culture as the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and the gay bar scene? The Christian community is certainly blocking any moves towards a more covenanted and settled way of living for gay and lesbian people.

Personal circumstances: Many families have gay children or grandchildren and this is so even in the church. Should we not listen to their stories, values and spiritual needs before we hand down our ethical opinion/decisions? I am NOT saying we bend the principles to suit the circumstances, but I believe that if we really want to hear the voice of God on this we need to hear from a range of people about these issues, not just from the white, middle-aged, ordained, heterosexual, married men who comprise the majority of the Christian ministry in Australia (and I personally plead guilty on all the aforementioned counts!!)

Summary: So what at first glance seems to be fairly clear is actually not very clear at all. In considering the matter of same-sex relationships we are actually considering a very complex area of human behaviour for which the biblical resources are not unanimous and straightforward. The whole area of same-sex relationships is one which I believe will take churches decades to resolve. It is also beset by the issues of how we read the Bible. Perhaps more than any other contemporary ethical issue, hermeneutical assumptions (that is assumptions about how we interpret Scripture) are absolutely central to this issue.

However, if same-sex relationships are considered acceptable (and there are many Christian theologians who believe that they should be), they fall within the same general principles that we have already enunciated. These principles are that relationships are good and fulfilling, that they should be enduring, involving commitment and fidelity and that either ending or multiplying our relationships leads to pain.

As a congregation we are divided on this subject: some will have a more traditional view, others a more accepting view. What is important is that we respect each other and accept our right to hold different views, and respect any same sex attracted people who come to our church – just as we will ask them to respect our diversity of opinion.

4. WHERE IS GOD IN ALL THIS?

Finally, I want to suggest that relationships are deeply iconic of God. The writer of Ephesians, drawing on the Genesis passage that we have read, refers to the basic principle of relational life: For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. (Eph 5.31) He immediately goes on to say “This is a great mystery and I am applying it to Christ and the church” (Eph 5.32). In a similar vein the writer of the first John affirms that “everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 John 4.7)

The iconic nature of human relationships leads us back into the mystery of God's love for us. All of our relating, our hunger for intimacy and our need for affirmation occurs within the horizon of God’s enduring and committed love to us. One thing the Scripture affirms is that God's love for us never ends. Isaiah affirms that even if the mother who bore us should forget us, God will never forget his people (Is 49.15). Paul in Romans asserts that there is nothing in all creation, not height nor depth, not things past or things to come, not powers nor governments nor anything else that all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Jesus (Rom 8.38ff).

When our own relationships failed to materialise as we would hope, or when they are constrained by selfishness and conflict, or when they come to an end through death or abandonment and we feel the devastating sense of loss, God's love is the horizon of our hope. In the turmoil of relationships we find that sometimes friendships, or our loving relationships, or even our marriages come to an end, but God’s love never ends. God’s love holds us in life and death, in conflict and betrayal, in loneliness and solitude.

But if God is love, this enduring and never-ending love is also exclusive. At the end of the day God is the one, the only one, on whom our life and our capacity to love is truly built. Jesus warned his disciples that whoever was not ready to give up family or wife or husband or parents for his sake was not worthy of him. This at first seems harsh, but it is simply reminds us that everything must be kept in its proper place and that the love of God and the call to discipleship is more foundational to our identity and well-being even than our personal relationships. Throughout the Bible there is the repeated call that we move away from our many idols and false Gods, the recurrent entanglements that draw us away from the centre of our being. God says “Come back to me, to the one and true centre of your life!” Just as to multiply our loving relationships must bring problems, the Psalmist says “Those who choose another pod multiply their sorrows” (Ps 16.4). Anchoring our lives in the true worship of God helps us to sort out our other commitments and priorities, to order our loving and our friendships within that sense of wellness, nurture and security that the love of God gives to us.

Rest in God, you who are lonely and disappointed in life. Find in him a sense of completeness and joy.

Rest in God, you who are betrayed and angry, who have found that love has ended, or at least a relationship has ended, you who are in pain. Find in him healing for your wounds and hope for your future.

Rest in God, you who are confused and wondering, grappling with what life has brought you. Find in him direction and guidance for life’s path and courage to set out along it.

Rest in God and commit yourself to the great and glorious trouble of love. And it is a troublesome business. It takes us into our insecurities and fears. It invites the centres of selfishness within us all to assert themselves.

Those who rest in God know that love may be troublous, but there is greatness and there is glory in it. And it is precisely in the trouble that the glory and the greatness is to be found. These are people who know that love is not primarily about pleasure or selfishness or power, and that beauty is not about dress or adornment or youthful bodies. They have really seen love: they have seen it in pain and selflessness and weakness, not in pleasure and power. They have seen it in nakedness and wounds, not glamour and allurements. They have seen it in a disfigured body on a cross more than in a youthful body on a bed. And in that love they have found glory and greatness amid all the terrible trouble that is sometimes encountered.

Because they are not frightened of pain, nor flattered by dress; because they will treasure another’s wounds more highly than they value another’s beauty; because all the disfigurement that disappointment and failure can imprint upon a body will not shake their devotion, these are the world’s great lovers!

They are not listed as the most eligible and available of partners. They are the world’s great lovers because in all the struggle of our most intimate relations, in the joy and the care that a primary relationship demands, in the nurture of their growing and rebellious children, in their care of aging and cantankerous parents, in the demands that friends and neighbours and workmates make upon them, they have known and embraced the great and glorious trouble of love!

This blog contains sermons preached at the Canberra Baptist Church. Getting the printed word into a readily available form is not always easy and a blog gives me a chance of sharing what's been happening at the church in a timely way. It will eventually integrate with the church's website (www.canbap.org) where you can find older sermons by me, my colleagues and former ministers.

Thanks for checking out the blog. I hope you are challenged by what you read or hear!