Sermon for October 4th

"The great theologian Karl Barth said that a good preacher would preach with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other (or, perhaps today, with CNN.com up on their computer). That means that while I’d love to talk about lots of other interesting issues in today's readings, I would be doing you all a disservice by pretending I don’t know what’s being said across the radio waves and on TV, in the newspapers and around town about marriage, about sex and about the Bible. Throughout the history of Judaism, as well as the Christian faith, any sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman has been considered to be against God’s will, but things are changing. As of a month and a half ago, the ELCA has decided that pastors in monogamous, lifelong, same-gender relationships can be ordained and that homosexual relationships may be blessed in God’s name. And so, with fear and trembling, even though we’d ALL rather not talk about this, after reading the scripture passages today, I see no way I cannot talk about this.

I am NOT going to use code words today. I do not want to be ambiguous. Today’s sermon will be about what scripture has to say about marriage and how that affects our understandings about same-gender sexual relationships as well as remarriage for heterosexuals. Why am I focusing on these issues? Why am I focusing on this instead of something else more important? Because that’s all anyone else inside or outside of the church seems interested in right now. To say nothing just encourages the FALSE claim that the Bible never says anything about these issues or that God doesn’t care. Now, I COULD just preach on the psalm today and dodge a bullet, and keep everyone happy, but God seems to have something to say, according to today’s texts, and so I must stand up and say it.

Many Christians, including some of our best pastors, bishops and theologians, have argued that the Bible doesn’t say anything about such things as loving, committed, monogamous same-gender relationships. I would like you to listen to Genesis 2 again, “The Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.” Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.”

It was not good that the man was alone, he needed a partner. God found him one. When the woman was made, the man found his complement, his helper, the one that would make him complete. And while this isn’t just about “plumbing” as so many are so often saying, it is important to realize that “plumbing” is still a part of it—God commands them to be fruitful and multiply after all, they are blessed to become one flesh. Only in the male-female sexual relationship can this “one flesh” be realized—we call it a baby.

When Jesus was asked by the Pharisees about changing the standards of marriage and divorce, did he relax sexual standards to fit with the changing times? No. He said, “From the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female”. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” I’m not sure how much more clearly Jesus could have expressed God’s intentions for our sexual relationships as human beings.

About a month ago, my son got into trouble for throwing a ball in the house. His mother and I explained that balls were made to play with outside and not inside. "Don’t throw balls inside the house", we said. So, he bounced the ball, kicked the ball, batted the ball, rolled the ball, tossed the ball, dropped the ball, and caromed the ball off of his sister’s head . . . and he got in trouble every single time. I mean, we never actually said that he COULDN’T do any of those things, but by saying that balls were for outside we were very clear, weren’t we? For centuries, no one has ever doubted God’s intention for his creatures on this matter. It always seemed obvious. Now our big argument is that God never said that we couldn’t.

But in six passages spanning the Old and New Testaments, God did say no to homosexual behavior. Only six passages, you might ask? That’s not very many. Indeed, and there are only four passage against sexual relationships with animals. In fact, it appears that the more taboo the activity, the less it needed to be talked about. And how many times is homosexual behavior, loving or otherwise, lifted up in a positive way biblically? Never. God said, “I’ve created the man for the woman and the woman for the man. And whenever sexual activity outside of that relationship occurs, it is NOT blessed by God. Whether it is before marriage, or an extra-martial affair, whether it is with an animal or with a member of one’s own family.

Some of you believe that gay marriage should be legal in America, that it is a civil rights issue. Fine. According to the constitution of the United States, you have an argument. I do not have anything to say about your political views. But as Christians, the constitution is NOT the final authority for our behavior. The Bible is our authority. While we, as Americans, protect the right of people to believe and worship whatever God they choose, as Christians, we hear Jesus say, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.” We do not have freedom of religion in the church, only freedom in Christ. We do not get to change our interpretation of the Bible according to how society has changed, the Bible interprets our lives and our society in order to change US. As Christians, we often have the right to do many things, but we are called by God to follow his commands.

Pre-martial sex, divorce and remarriage, the adulterous thoughts that fill our heads, all of these things are acceptable in our society, but they deviate from what God commands. Jesus says, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” Are we hypocrites for allowing remarried pastors to be ordained while refusing to ordain pastors in lifelong, committed, monogamous same-gender relationships? Are we hypocrites for blessing the second marriages of people while refusing to bless same-gender relationships?

What is the difference between remarriage and gay marriage? In Genesis 2, we hear how God made marriage in the beginning and it is a picture of perfection. But one chapter later, we find that all of our relationships have now been cursed, including our marriages. Wives seem to inherently realize that their marriages are cursed better than husbands do, but it is true for both. We need to correct the thinking that being in a marriage is somehow more “holy” than being single, it doesn’t make you look better in God’s eyes. Marriage is not salvific. It is part of God’s civil law meant to protect you and your neighbors, for the sake of children, the family and society.

Some divorces, as most of you know, seem more like a blessing than a curse, but God hates divorce, scripture says, and wishes that none of his children would ever have to go through the causes of divorce or the effects of it. God is not a fan of remarriage either, but not in the way you might think at first. Remarriage is not a sin because it is somehow less “pure” in God’s eyes than a first marriage, but because you are now sharing the effects of a divorce with your new spouse. We often call this “baggage” nowadays. Joint custody, trust issues, bitterness, step-fathers and step-mothers . . . if you truly loved a person, you might consider remaining unmarried to save them from all those effects of sin. Remarriage piles up sin upon sin.

But does God place his blessing on a remarriage even in the midst of all these curses and sins? Yes. Just like in a first marriage, while God has cursed our relationships he has also provided for our comfort. Just as the Lord provided a helper for the man at creation, a divorced person may find a protector for their family or a partner to raise children from a previous marriage. In addition, God can continue to bless a remarriage with children where the two can become one flesh. This is God’s “Yes” even in the midst of all his “No’s”. There will be times it is better to stay unmarried. There may be times it is better to be remarried. Neither choice is without sin.

What then is the difference between remarriage and gay marriage? The blessing of God. It may not be fashionable to talk about marriage being closely related to procreation, but the truth is that God has given a blessing to men and women to “become one flesh” that he has not given to people in same-gendered relationships. Are there men and women in marriages that cannot have children? Yes, but if the number of fertility doctors and adoptions and surrogate mothers are any indication, many married couples see this barrenness as a curse, and not a blessing. Despite sin’s effects on our world, on our bodies, and on our relationships, God continues fighting these effects with his blessing to become one flesh, to be fruitful and multiply. But to declare God’s blessing upon a couple in a homosexual relationship is like acting out a play in front of an empty theater . . . you're not fooling anybody. Procreation is not the only blessing of marriage, but it is still a very important part of it.

God created men and women as sexual partners in creation and Jesus, as we would expect, continues to highlight this fact. Once sin entered into the world, God had to start saying "no." a lot. Any relationship outside of marriage between a husband and a wife is a deviation from God’s plan for your life. We are all accused, whether in thought, word or deed. We are all called to repentance before God. But “No!” is not God’s last word. While you may be struggling and suffering with the effects of remarriage, pre-marital sex, adultery, divorce, pornography, or homosexual behavior in your life, I pray that you might finally see the joy of God’s “Yes”. Jesus Christ loves and forgives sinners like you. His church, this church, welcomes, loves and forgives all sinners, like you. So that you and I might turn away from our sins, knowing that they have been nailed to the cross of Jesus where they have died up there with him. Now God’s unconditional forgiveness is yours. Amen.

Sermon for March 30th

“For you do not give me up to Sheol.” Repeat after me, “For you do not” “give me up” “to Sheol”. We don’t use the word Sheol nowadays much, do we. We hardly even know how to say it. But the word is used sixty six times in the Bible, so it deserves some attention. What does it mean? Sheol, the place of the dead. Not hell, but the grave. When the Bible talks about Sheol, it is not trying to make you think of devils, or fire or a place of torment; Sheol is the place where everyone went when they died. So my question for you is this: Have you ever been to Sheol? Have you ever died?

“Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there, if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.” That’s what Psalm 139 says. God seems to be everywhere. But psalm 16, our psalm today, gives a little more information on what God actually does. He is not only present, but doing something in these places, “For you do not give me up to Sheol, or let your faithful one see the pit.” God is present in death, in the grave, in Sheol, but that in itself is not good news at all. The good news is that God will not stay silent there like all the rest of the dead people, but God actually has something to say.

Have you ever died? I’m not asking for you to give me an account of some out of body experience you had on a doctor’s table or anything where your heart stopped beating for an inordinate amount of time. I don’t want to know the five people you met in heaven. That death is an important one, and one that, finally, must be dealt with as well. However, the time when you heart stops beating and you take your last breath is what Martin Luther would call the “little death”. The easy one. I’d like to know when you have died and kept having to breathe through it. When you felt like everything was taken away from you except your heart beat. That’s what Luther would call a big death. And that big death is as much like Sheol as anything else.

A big death is when you wish you were dead, but you aren’t that lucky. Losing a beloved husband, wife or a child is one such example. They stop breathing, but you die. All your wonderful dreams and intentions are lost. We go through life expecting that the future is always there, but when someone dies it’s like the rug is pulled out from under us. It’s hard to realize how much of your life you have wrapped up in someone until you can’t share that life with them anymore. That is Sheol. That is the big death Martin Luther talked about.

As I walk to church down past the graveyard two or three days a week, it appears that death is a pretty natural part of life. Many people and movies refer to life like a circle so that we shouldn’t be so afraid of dying and things like this. At my seminary, some professors argued that death is no problem, but it is the fear involved with dying that is a result of sin. Death should be no big deal. But the fact is that we can only whistle in the graveyard as long as we don’t have to bury someone there.

Scripture tells us that the wages of sin is death. That seems about right. Even when death seems to be the best possible outcome for our loved ones, nobody likes the result very much. For those of you who have sat with someone who was dying, you might have prayed for death to come quickly. Of course, but that doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t have wanted them to be with you longer. When we deal with death, we deal with the outcome of sin, and we die in this experience. That is why God does not keep silent, but interrupts with his promise of new life. “I am the resurrection and the life!” Even though our hopes die with our loved ones, we can only then hope in Jesus. This big death rips faith out of our hands and tosses it out into the darkness, but God speaks from Sheol and gives you Jesus to be your light and your salvation.

Big death happens to all of us in many different ways—not only at hospital beds and graveyards. There is a line from the movie Under the Tuscan Sun that I think really gets to this point well. One of my favorite lines is when Francis speaks about her divorce to a friend, “A divorce really should kill you. When the person who said they would love you forever says that they don’t love you anymore it should just kill you, like a swift bullet to the heart. You shouldn’t have to go on living through something like that.” Many of you have lived through this kind of death, when the very foundation of your life was shaken. Many of you have known people who have lived through this kind of death.

What is it about a divorce that rocks us all to our core? Marriage is not just about living in the same house, having kids or sharing a life together. Intertwined with it are many hopes and dreams. It means security and companionship. And when a marriage ends, or a separation begins, it feels like everything is taken away from you, like you have lost your direction, like you have died even though your heart keeps on beating. Even in our society where divorce happens so often, everyone feels the hurt somehow.

At seminary, I was asked if I thought it would be ok to preach about divorce since Jesus calls it a sin in different texts. Since so many people in the church are divorced, pastors often don’t want to make anyone feel bad or singled out. But here’s the thing, nobody likes divorce. Nobody wants divorce. I don’t think that this is a newsflash for any of you, right? Sometimes divorce is the best choice to make, but even then it is a result of sin. The question is not whether we sin, but what does God do with our sin? What does God do when we have lost everything? What does God do in Sheol when we have died? God forgives sin and speaks up even when we have lost the ability to speak. He says, “I will not give you up to Sheol. I will not give you up to this death.”

Sometimes this big death will involve your job. When you have worked toward a goal for years on end only to change direction midway through your life, this is a death. A death for all those dreams you had made. When you are expecting a job offer for months on end only to be rejected again and again, this is a death to all your plans. When your children leave home. When you retire. When you move into another home. This is death for us. Sometimes your heart aches even when you are experiencing new joy. But God does not expect you to deal with these times by yourself and he does not just sit idly by. God speaks into your darkness and gives you faith to see into a new light, “I will not give you up to Sheol. I will never leave you or forsake you.”

We don’t find much need of God in our day to day life. We plan our trips, we make out our schedules, we have our conversations and seem to do just fine on our own. When things are going fine, our prayer life fades. When we are boasting about our success, God’s voice seems distant if not non-existent. We choose not to listen to God. We choose not to look at God. We choose not to believe in God.

So God finds a way to get through to us when we least expect him to show up. In the dark, rainy day funerals where pastors speak a word of hope. In the care and consolation of a friend as we sign divorce papers. We are driven to pray to him when there is nothing left for us to do. We are driven to the scriptures when we can listen to nothing else. And here, when we wish we could just give up and go away, God speaks into the despair and promises you a new heart. Yes you have died, but your life is hidden with Jesus. Only when Jesus comes again will you finally stop dying and receive eternal life. Your life is hidden with Jesus and his promises. Promises of hope even in the darkest times. “For he does not give you up to Sheol; he never has and he never will.” Amen.