SERMON 6. PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY

GENDER AND SEXUALITY: Radical equality

In our attitudes to gender and sexuality, a lot can depend on our personal experience.

I consider myself fortunate to have lived most of my life in a household with at least one strong woman; firstly my sister, secondly my daughter, and last but not least, my wife Helen.In the face of incessant pestering by her little brother, my sister Sue once pulled me through a rosebush, and on another occasion half-drowned me at the local pool.Things equalised when I grew to an appropriate height and beyond, and remained that way.Of my daughter Julie, I said at her wedding, not that no man was good enough for her, but that she was good enough for any man.And she is! Helen needs no introduction, and our relationship is based on radical equality, mutual love, honour and respect.

My experience of gay men has done nothing to reinforce the stereotypes and prejudices that many men have.Contrary to the homophobic prediction that one is in imminent danger of sexual attack, only one gay man, a leader in my first church as a probationer minister, has ever made a pass at me.He quickly gave up when he realised that fondling my ear was having no affect whatsoever. Gay men have their strengths and weaknesses like everyone else but one thing I have never felt in their company is unsafe, and I cannot say that for every heterosexual man I know.

I understand that for people who have grown up being taught to fear or disrespect the opposite sex, or to harbour dark suspicion of gay people, it can be much more difficult to accept these differences.Especially for those who have suffered at the hands of rogue elements in the homosexual as well as heterosexual community, and particularly when the abuse has been of the powerless by the more powerful, deep and lasting pain can be inflicted. Fortunately, we are not totally at the mercy of our individual experience, but also have our reason and the wisdom of our faith community and society to draw on.

I offer a caveat here.Being neither gay nor female I address these matters 'from the outside' as it were.For too long, representatives of the church have assumed the right to speak on behalf of others, too often in ignorance. I apologise if in some things I miss the mark.

Progressive Christian churches are distinctive in their deliberate embracing of the radical equality of female and male, and explicit hospitality to people with a gay lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender orientation. This is seen as a natural working out of the principle of justice and equality that it holds as central to the life and teaching of Jesus.

As far as women are concerned, we are fortunate in the Uniting Church to have modelled for us a community that is trying very hard to redress the injustice and indignities that some women have experienced over the ages at the hands of a patriarchal and at times misogynistic church.I referred last week to the Early Church motif of the praying woman, which gave way after Constantine to the representation of Christ as Roman soldier. Woman in the Middle Ages who lived alone and independent were often killed as witches, and male dominance in the church has been axiomatic until fairly recently.It is not before time that women can and do participate fully and freely in our ministry and leadership. Serious if not always welcome attempts have been made to use gender-inclusive language and ensure that our committees are adequately represented by both men and women.These changes should be embraced, not feared, and progress guarded and extended with vigilance and determination.For as we look around we see that in many churches women are still barred from certain leadership positions- barred from eldership, barred from ordained ministry including the priesthood, for traditional and supposedly biblical reasons that to many of us seem spurious.How the women in these churches put up with it is quite beyond my comprehension! Some are even going backwards in removing female participation in eldership. Yes, St Paul did write to the Corinthians that women should have their heads covered and remain silent in church, and in 1 Timothy we read "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission…" (2 vs. 11) on the basis that the Fall was Eve's fault!As one looks around it is clear that the women of this congregation do not regard the head-covering injunction part of scripture a relevant for today, and as a church with a history that includes women ministers and congregational chairpersons we obviously do not feel bound by the scripture that demands that women remain silent in church, and unable to teach men, or male children.Some couples married in church still draw on the words of 1 Peter that in a marriage the woman must submit to the man's authority. Most of us however can now see more wisdom in relationships that share the burdens equally, or in ways appropriate to their situation. The greater biblical principles of love and respect trump the narrow cultural utterances of the first century of the Common Era and in the earlier Hebrew writings.

We now recognise that in the world of Bible times women by and large had a very raw deal indeed.Lot will rather give his virgin daughters to the violent male mob than surrender his two male guests.The ten commandments speak to men only, as is clear by the command to not covet one's neighbour's house, wife slave, ox or donkey (Exodus 20:17). Women are vulnerable in a community unless they are under the protection of a man, and have no property rights (They are the property!).Paul and the Pastoral Epistles call for female subordination even though it is also clear that there were women leaders in some of the churches that Paul visited.While Jesus is the shining example in scripture of respect for woman he does not so much raise their status as he deflates the pride of men in relation to them, as we saw in today's gospel story from Luke.

It is obvious that if we want biblical guidance in matters of gender relationships we have to go beyond what the scripture describes about the treatment of women, even beyond what some writers prescribe as appropriate for their day and age, to the principles of justice, respect and compassion which emerge in spite of the often discriminatory realities of the day.These principles are obviously most apparent in the life and teaching of Jesus, which is why, when it came to the crunch, at the cross and at the tomb, it is the women who are present, and whose love overflows in grief.

As Christians with intellectual integrity we have also had to take notice of the sometime strident voices of women who have spoken out to redress inequalities in suffrage, employment, remuneration, legal rights and so on. Recent Nobel laureate Doris Lessing is a case in point.Refusing to be branded 'feminist' she nevertheless has her book characters speaking women's truth to a community that has been slow to listen to such things. The reason we do not have the bride's father 'give away' the bride any more is because we recognise this for what it used to be- an exchange of property. The law now treats men and women equally, and what actually blows me away is how the church will sometimes seek exemptions from legal requirements in view of their special traditions of discrimination! Are we not supposed to be leading the way in issues of justice, rather than fighting against them?

When it comes to relating to people with a homosexual orientation we have much further to go. It is the single greatest cause of division in the Christian Church generally, not only between Progressive and other Christians, but within denominations and even congregations, as we found to our cost during the recent debate of the so-called Resolution 84 of the 10^th Assembly. (This resolution refused to nominate homosexuality as an excluded lifestyle for ordination in our churches, while at the same time giving presbyteries and local congregations the final say in their choice of minister.) Taussig points out that while there are strong Progressive streams in most denominations in the USA, the United Church of Christ is the only one to officially reject Church teaching that homosexuality is a sin.

A huge amount of debate in the church about homosexuality revolves around the supposed position of the Bible. People who know virtually no other verses can quote from Leviticus 18 and 20 to prove that God abhors homosexuality. I find it interesting that in churches that now choose to overlook the various biblical injunctions about women, especially those in the "Holiness Code" of Leviticus 17-26, many do not apply the same rule to verses that supposedly address homosexuality. The fact is that only the two Leviticus passages and Romans 1 actually clearly refer to sexual acts with persons of the same sex, and the Progressive position along with much other biblical scholarship is that what is being described is actually homosexual rape, usually as an act of war, where to treat a man like a woman was to inflict the greatest possible humiliation; or cultic prostitution, neither of whichhas anything in common with what we understand today as homosexuality. A homosexual lifestyle in which one's partner is loved and respected is not what the writers of Leviticus were talking about, not what Paul was talking about in Romans 1, and certainly not what is being referred to in 1 Timothy. Tonight I am going to screen an extended Biblical exposition on the various texts under question from the Progressive position.I have also made available documents in the library that put both the Conservative and Liberal positions. If we are going to use the scriptures to argue the case one way or the other we really need to be up to date with the scholarship.

Just one example of how far the debate has strayed from good Biblical scholarship is over the account of Lot in Sodom.To cut a long story short, the reason why Sodom was destroyed was not, as is often cited, because of rampant homosexuality, but according to numerous prophets and Jesus himself, because of injustice and failure to offer hospitality. Homosexuality is not mentioned by Jesus and the prophets, either in relation to Sodom, or anything else for that matter!

The church has to decide whether it is appropriate to continue to regard homosexuality as a sin, in spite of scientific evidence that it is a naturally occurring phenomenon in up to 10% of the community; or whether it is going to offer full equality and unconditional hospitality to everyone regardless of their sexual orientation. For Progressives it is not just a matter of welcoming gay and lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender people in spite of their sexual orientation.It is a matter of inclusion on an equal basis with all other gifted and flawed members of the community of faith. To live according to a naturally occurring sexual orientation is not a sin.What is sinful is sexual aggression and sexual abuse, sexual sins that occur in heterosexual and homosexual communities alike.

There is also an issue of intellectual integrity here.Much of the fear and prejudice, especially towards gay men, has to do with the suspected link between homosexuality and pedophilia.I checked with Dr Ann Taylor, a lecturer in sociology at the University of Newcastle, to discover that the research into this supposed link shows there is no positive correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia. Other evidence shows and that when a child is molested by an adult, it is about 100 times less likely to be by a gay or lesbian person than by a heterosexual person.

I mentioned earlier the largely unfounded fear that if you start to talk to a gay or lesbian person of your gender, they are likely to make a pass at you! Again, such behaviour is much more likely to occur with a heterosexual person!

Finally, we come to the myth that gay and lesbian people actually choose their homosexual lifestyle.I checked this one with Rev Sheila Zincke of the Newcoast Metropolitan Community church.(Sheila, her partner and children worshipped here with us a few weeks ago).While she acknowledged that in some cases people unsure of their sexuality may experiment with different orientations, by far the majority are born with a naturally occurring homosexual orientation. Why would people actually choose to be part of a marginalized and discriminated group?Why would people actually choose a lifestyle which gets them kicked out of their home, or their church?Why would people freely choose a way of life that alienates their family and friend, which sees them disadvantaged at law?Why would people choose a position so vulnerable that when the person they love falls ill they can be barred from the bedside by the sick person's family?

When weighing up the big and contentious issues of gender and sexuality we can in my opinion do no better than ask about the way of Jesus. What made him so different, so head and shoulders above his purity-obsessed fellow Jews? My observation is that it was because he was not afraid of people who were different.There are many example of this: the so-called sinful woman who gate-crashed the party at the home of Simon the Pharisee, the untouchable lepers, the impure Samaritans, the naked and demented Gerasene man who lived among the tombs, and that 'other group' who were casting out demons in his name. Apart from this general fearlessness of difference we have no indication whatsoever what he thought about homosexuality. In fact, it is surely instructive that on an issue that some would have us see as grounds for exclusion from the Christian community, or at least from Christian ministry, Jesus had nothing to say! Rev Ken Martin of the Metropolitan Community Church tells of how the time when he visited a local church to address the issue of Homosexuality and the Bible.At the end of his talk he was approached by an elderly lady who said that while she had found his talk interesting, she wondered how he could hold such views in the face of Jesus' strong opposition to homosexuality.When he gently enlightened her that there is no recorded saying of Jesus on this matter she responded "Well, I always thought he was a bit of a liberal"!

How does a Congregation move forward on the Progressive path in terms of the issues of gender and sexuality? Just as hospitality was central to the life and teaching of Jesus Christ, so I believe that it is crucial that we affirm and assert the Safe Place statement of the Uniting Church, displayed in the foyer. This means that while we might not all be able to agree on the role of women in the life of the church, or fully accept the right of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and trans-gendered persons to live that lifestyle to which their sexual orientation draws them, we are all charged to accept one another with the love of Christ, and to protect one another from inappropriate or abusive words, attitudes and behaviour.One thing that is abundantly clear in scripture, from beginning to end, is the sacredness of hospitality, especially to those who are vulnerable. This is the bottom line! Everyone who comes here is entitled to physical safety, emotional safety, psychological safety and the right to not have their personal boundaries violated. If we are willing to embrace the Progressive Christian way, or even if we do not, we will encourage all people, be they gay or straight, woman or man, to live their full humanity in this fellowship of the way of Jesus.

Brian Brown

POST SCRIPT

PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY

Defining Characteristics

1. Spiritual Vitality:

Participatory Worship

Expressive and Arts-infused Worship and Programming

Re-claiming Ancient Christian Rituals

Claiming Rituals from beyond the Christian Faith

Development of Small Groups for Spiritual development and Nurture

2. Intellectual Integrity

Rethinking God Language

Valuing Modern Biblical Scholarship and Critical Thinking

Valuing the Relationship between Science and Religion

3. Transgressing Gender Boundaries

The rejection of Homophobia

The Affirmation of equal rights across Lines of Gender and Sexual Orientation

4. Vitality without Superiority

Celebrating Christianity without Claiming Superiority

Drawing on the Common Ground of Wisdom with other Faiths

5. Justice and Ecology

Asserting the Centrality of Justice in the Life and teaching of Jesus Christ

Justice and Compassion as the Benchmarks of Christian Behaviour

Ecology as a Central Focus of Concern and Mission

Based on A New Spiritual Home: Progressive Christianity at the Grass Roots

By Hal Taussig. (Polebridge Press, California)

THE EIGHT POINTS OF THE CENTER FOR PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY. "By calling ourselves progressive, we mean we are Christians who:

1. Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus

2. Recognise the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way of God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us

3. Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus' name to be a representation of the ancientvision of God's feast for all peoples

4. Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable; including but not limited to- believers and agnostics; conventional Christians and questioning skeptics; women and men; those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, those of all races and cultures; those of all classes and abilities; those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope.

5. Know that the way that we behave toward each other and other people is the fullest expression of what we believe

6. Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty- more value in questioning than in absolutes

7. Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do; striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God's creation and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers.

8. Recognise that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege."

Website: www.tcpc.org