I Am Weary of Gay Marriage... Mark 10:2-16

Sermon given on Marriage Equality Day, October 11, 2009.

I don’t know about you but I’m weary of all the talk about gay marriage. I’m sure that sounds like a pretty strange thing for me to say, especially on Marriage Equality Day.

But here’s what I’m weary of: I’m weary of James Dobson and Focus on the Family telling me that I and you are sinning because of who we love. I’m weary of Religious and Political Right wing leaders telling me that society will fall apart and our world as we now know it will end if you and I are allowed to marry the person we love. I’m weary of homophobia, driven by fear and ignorance, being used in an attempt to dehumanize us as “outcasts” unworthy of respect, protection, or inclusion. But most of all I am weary of the Bible being used to justify spiritual violence against us.

The state of Massachusetts has had legal marriage of same sex persons for several years now and, contrary to the predictions by our friends in the Religious and Political Right, that state hasn’t fallen off of the continent into the Atlantic Ocean. Nor has its day to day social fabric been destroyed nor even changed much from what it was like before the laws were changed. Looks to me like all of the warnings of the terrible things that would happen if Queer People got to marry each other have failed to have happened.

Today’s Gospel passage is a good example of how scripture can be misused and abused to the benefit of those who are doing the primary interpretation which they believe to be right and above all reproach. And in this case you must see it for what it is, the claims of the male-gender dominated society in which those who own the distinction of being male believe they are the very pinnacle of God’s creation, far and above everyone else, with rights and privileges that no one else owns or can seek to claim for themselves.

Jesus takes those leaders, the religious right of his own day, as well as his own disciples to task and tells them in no uncertain terms that they have got it all wrong when it comes to marriage, but especially when it comes to divorce, because their viewpoint, their reference for understanding is wrong to start with.

We have followed the story of Jesus for the last several weeks through the Gospel of Mark, as he journeys with his disciples toward Jerusalem, frequently taking the common understandings of the Scriptures and turning them upside down and inside out. I think that is exactly what needs to happen to those who are misusing the scriptures against you and me. They need to look at the example of Jesus before they open their mouths again. They need to let Jesus turn their worldview upside down and inside out.

I was a great fan of West Wing, the TV series where Martin Sheen played the character of President Jed Bartlett. In one episode the president confronts a woman who is a TV personality known for giving advice usually based upon her fundamentalist literal interpretation of scripture. She has obviously made statements about homosexuality being an abomination, so he takes her to task about exactly how much of the scripture she truly does believe by asking her what kind of a price he should set for his daughter, a Georgetown graduate who is very helpful around the house, who he wishes to sell into slavery, a practice approved of by the same Leviticus text she is quoting. Or should he stone his assistant himself or call the police to do so because the assistant insists on working on the Sabbath. Should he and his family stone his brother to death or call the entire city because his brother has grown two different crops in the same field on his farm? Or should he burn his mother at a small family gathering because she made and wears clothing from two different kinds of cloth.

The question is: can we take scriptures from either the Old Testament or the New Testament which address specific historical, cultural and limited social situations that are extremely different from our own culture and society, and apply those directly to our own times and lives, without some thought and discernment as to whether they may or may not be God’s intended truth for us today?

Don’t be fooled by those who tell you that God’s Word never changes, for the truth is how we hear it, how we apply it, how we pick and choose what we will apply to our own lives, that truth has changed throughout history and will continue to change today from culture to culture, society to society, country to country, denomination to denomination, and person to person. And that’s exactly the point that Jesus is making to the men he is talking to in today’s Gospel passage.

These so-called experts in religious law ask him what seems like a legitimate question, but they, as seems to be their habit with Jesus, simply wish to trick him into giving them an answer that they can turn around against him and charge him with blaspheming against God. Jesus knows what they are doing and he turns the question upon them. They thought they knew the correct answer. When Jesus got through with them, they weren’t sure any longer about what they thought was the truth. They just knew they didn’t like Jesus turning the tables on them. When the Religious Right uses the scriptures against us to promote their own hate and rejection of us contrary to the example of Love and Inclusion taught by Jesus, we have to speak up and speak out and tell them that they are misunderstanding, and abusing the very Word of God they say that they hold in such high regard.

Jesus’ opponents ask him: Is it lawful for a man to kick out his wife by divorcing her.

Jesus doesn’t ask them what the Scripture says, instead Jesus asks them what did Moses tell them which is a significant difference?

They answer that Moses said it was okay for a man to fill out a few papers and divorce his wife, abandon her, and send her out into the streets to fend for herself.

It was a man’s world. Men ruled the day. Women were simply possessions. Women were owned by their father until given by their father in marriage to a husband. They were then owned by their husband until divorced or until the husband died. If divorced they had no one to give them a place in society, no place to live, unless they could return to their own family, but that was highly unlikely due to the social stigma and embarrassment surrounding divorce in those days, even if it wasn’t the fault of the woman.

A man could divorce his wife simply because she couldn’t become pregnant and give him children, or even because she hadn’t given him a living son. They didn’t have medical science that could tell them the man might be the sterile one and that is why the woman couldn’t have children. But that didn’t matter. Not being able to give birth, more importantly, not being able to give birth to a son was the fault of the woman and grounds for divorce. There were many other reasons why a man could divorce his wife that were just as ridiculous and just as demeaning and destructive toward the woman.

Women got no respect. There was no equality in their society. Women could demand nothing from their husband if they were divorced. Life on the streets as a victim of violence and rape was the fate of most divorced women and even of widows whose husbands had died leaving them destitute. Without a living husband a woman was quickly moved to the very bottom of their society.

Jesus says that his opponents have answered correctly, that Moses gave them this rule because Moses knew they couldn’t live up to the real intent of what God wanted. What Jesus is saying is very important for you to understand because Jesus is telling us very clearly that what we frequently call the Holy Word of God isn’t recorded the way that God intended, but has been changed from God’s intentions by an all too human author, in this case Moses.

I point this out to you because we are the recipients of much spiritual violence against us based upon the interpretations of scriptures by Religious Right who are reading scriptures that may not be exactly what God intended because the original intentions of God have been filtered through all too human authors, translators, and interpreters.
Yes, there is no question that scripture gives us much spiritual truth, but you and I must use the discernment and the intelligence that God has blessed us with to determine what that truth might be for us in the here and now. That requires serious study of the scriptures in their historical, cultural, and geographical settings in order to come to terms with what the author intended, how it was heard by the people it was written for, what the underlying timeless spiritual truth is, and how we will apply that truth to our lives today based upon the example of Love and Inclusion taught by Jesus.

In researching for this week’s sermon I kept running up against the criticism of gay theologians by the Religious Right who are upset that we put the words of Jesus above the words of St. Paul. On the other hand, I am aghast that so many on the religious right have equated Paul’s letters on par with the teachings of Jesus by saying that all of the New Testament is the Holy Divine Word of God and that whatever Paul wrote has as much authority as what Jesus said. I don’t think so!
Jesus is paramount, not Paul. We don’t interpret Jesus’ teachings based on what Paul said.
If we are to get at the truth of the scriptures then we have to interpret all scripture, including St. Paul’s actual writings and those that have erroneously been attributed to him, through the witness and word of Jesus Christ. If something doesn’t stack up to the love and inclusivity of God that Jesus came to share with us then I question whether it is what God intended for us to accept as the truth.

Jesus tells his critics that Moses knew they had hard hearts and therefore Moses allowed an out for them that God had never intended.

Did you know that Jesus had much more to say about divorce than he ever did about marriage? Isn’t it funny in this current debate that the religious right isn’t concerned about the threat to marriage that divorce itself presents instead of the perceived threat that gay marriage will bring to heterosexual marriages? How would my marrying Mark be a threat to anyone else’s marriage? It would seem to me that if the Religious Right holds Scripture in such high authority they should be fighting to make it harder to dissolve legal marriages and do so with the same fervor and energy that they are using to oppose same-sex marriages.

Jesus then teaches that God wished for there to be mutuality between men and women instead of the gender hierarchy that had come to exist. In speaking to his own disciples he tells them that the man does not have the right to put out his wife just because he finds someone else more desirable and wants to marry that person instead. It’s a matter of disrespect of his wife, a stunning concept that they would find hard to accept in their male gender superior society. And to make his point clear, Jesus says the same thing is true of the woman who walks out on her husband to take up with another man.

Dr. James Dobson and others claim that Queer people want to destroy marriage and the family by demanding our right to marry each other. Research and history prove otherwise according to the American Anthropological Association. Many societies have held in esteem the differences of God’s creation in gender and sexual orientation.

The American Academy of Pediatrics states that it supports the right of every queer couple to legal recognition of their relationship and co-parenting responsibilities. Children of Queer families are no more likely to grow up gay or to have problems that the children of straight families. If they fear that our children will grow up gay, then how are they dealing with the fact that most of us who are gay grew up in straight families? Maybe they should be worrying about straight families with as much fervor as they worry about Queer families? Hmmm?

The American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy states that: “We see no evidence that same-sex couples or family units vary significantly from heterosexual couples or family units in terms or aspirations, hopes or goals, or in outcomes for children.”

Right here in Seattle, Dr. Gottman and his wife Julie Scwartz Gottman, who have conducted research, therapy, and education at the Gottman Institute for over 30 years, say, “Gay and lesbian relationships are the vanguard of how heterosexual relationships could be. Heterosexual couples have a lot to learn from gay couples. Same-sex couples tend to be more positive than straight couples during conflict and tend to use more affection and humor when discussing difficult subjects. They tend to use fewer controlling and hostile emotional tactics during a fight, and fairness and power-sharing between partners appears to be more common in gay and lesbian relationships than in straight ones.”

We’re not doing so bad, are we?

Just a few passages earlier in Mark, Jesus had taught the disciples that they must become like children in order to be a part of the New Community of God, that is they must give up all their aspirations for power and position and take the part of the most insignificant person in that society, the position of a small powerless child.

You’d think that the disciples would have remembered what Jesus said, but now we read that the disciples are stopping families from bringing their children to Jesus for his blessing.

Can’t you imagine what they might have been saying: “Get those kids out of here! Don’t you understand that Jesus has important work to do! He doesn’t have time to be bothered by you and your children! He needs to be with the really important people! The people that can help him achieve his goals!”

I love Nettleton’s translation of Jesus’ words: “Little children can come to me any time they like, and don’t you dare try to stop them. The realm of God is centered on children such as these. The fact of the matter is that anyone who will not welcome the life of God as trustingly as an innocent child will not receive it at all.” www.laughingbird.net

I want to tell you this morning that I am not only weary, but that I am also excited about the future of Queer persons. I have incredible hope that we will see Referendum 71 approved. We have so little time and there is so much to do. In Washington D.C., today our denominational leaders have gathered together with thousands upon thousands of others to speak out and speak up about our love and God’s acceptance of us.

President Obama made some very significant statements and some particular promises yesterday when he spoke at the Human Rights Council meeting. Yes, only time will tell if he can live up to those promises, but when have you heard a President be so inclusive, so hopeful for our Queer community?

All across America people like you and me are gathering in Marches and Rallies, just like we will today, to speak out and up about their love for each other and about God’s acceptance of the Queer community. It is truly an exciting time to be alive. It may not happen overnight, but our society is changing, making room for you and I to live out our lives and live out our love with dignity, respect, and equality.

But the real reason why I am so excited is because of the young Queer people we have in our church and others who I have met recently. I went to the Thinking Queerly Workshops at Seattle University yesterday which were put on by a group of young Queer people who are out to teach us old queer people a thing or two about hope and building the future that we say we want to achieve together. I looked at them and they were, oh, so young, so very, very young. Two of our own young persons were there with me and I was so proud to see them taking part in the discussions and speaking out loud about what our society might become because of their activism.

There was a moment when I became overcome with emotion as I saw in my mind a vision of the Religious Right trying to keep these young people from going to Jesus. They ushered our Queer children aside telling them Jesus didn’t want their kind because Jesus was too busy to talk to them or care for them. But Jesus rebuked those in the Religious Right and welcomed these young Queer people, saying to the Religious Fundamentalists of: “Let my Queer children come to me any time they like, and don’t you dare try to stop them. The realm of God is centered on Queer children such as these. The fact of the matter is that anyone who will not welcome the New Community of God as trustingly as these Queer children do will not receive it at all.”

Today is Marriage Equality Day. Today is truthfully Equality Day in the New Community of God. No one has any special rights or privileges over and above anyone else in this New Community. We are all beloved Children of God and therefore we should be demonstrating our love for God and for each other through mutual respect, honor, trust and encouragement.