I hope you will take the time to view this excellent study by Gordon Fee about the cultural background and context of the “household” teachings of Ephesians 5:18-33.
Up and On Our Way
Journey into New Life, part seven (conclusion)
Up and On Our Way (Luke 24)
Our Gospel text for this Easter season is Luke 24:13-35, the story of the risen Lord’s encounter with his disciples on the road to Emmaus.
In this passage Luke tells us what it means to walk with the living Lord Jesus Christ. It is more than a story of something that happened back then. It represents what newness of life is all about, how it works, and what it is like to experience the new creation.
We are the disciples on the road, and Jesus comes to walk with us.
• • •
“They didn’t waste a minute. They were up and on their way…” (Luke 24:33)
One of the least emphasized parts of the liturgy is the “sending” or the “dismissal.” Robert Webber writes, “The Dismissal is an integral part of worship because it brings closure to the public act of worship and sends God’s people forth into the world, where their private worship is expressed in relationships, in leisure, and in work” (The Renewal of Sunday Worship).
The Church exists in two forms: (1) Gathered, and (2) Scattered. In our gatherings, we meet together in the presence of the risen Christ, his Spirit nourishes through Word and Sacrament, and we respond in prayer and praise. But then we scatter into the world; to our homes and communities to do our daily work, relate to our neighbors, and walk with Christ in every dimension of what it means to be human. At the end of worship, we who have gathered are sent as God’s ambassadors to serve in the Missio Dei.
Traditionally, the dismissal consists of (1) a blessing, (2) a recessional hymn, (3) a word of dismissal. The Church leaves the worship gathering forgiven and in the favor of Christ, glorifying the Father, and empowered by the Spirit for service.
The events at Emmaus give us a picture of people blessed, praising, and moving in mission.
How the ELCA Dealt with the Issue of Homosexuality
Let me begin on a personal note.
The 2009 ELCA decision to approve their social statement on human sexuality, with its provisions for homosexuality, have never been on my radar in terms of why I choose to affiliate with the ELCA. I explained in this morning’s post that these things have never been “hot-button” issues for me. I came to believe that I am a Christian called to practice my faith and exercise my ministry in the Lutheran tradition, and this particular denomination works best for me. Period.
The ELCA also handled this matter in somewhat different fashion than other mainline denominations such as the Episcopal Church and the PCUSA. The ELCA decision is grounded in an understanding that at this moment in history members of the denomination do not agree about these matters. How then, are we to proceed?
Typically, in the evangelical world I come from, someone usually steps forward and says, “It’s my way or the highway because the Bible says ____________.” A split or splintering takes place and the denomination takes its particular stand while the dissenters form groups around their particular positions.
That’s not exactly what happened in the ELCA. Recognizing the deep divisions that exist between brothers and sisters in the same faith community about these issues, the denomination sought to produce decisions that would intentionally include people from conflicting sides within a broader context of Christian truth, morality, and love.
Trying to foster both truth and unity is a tricky undertaking, and there have been significant numbers of Lutherans who decided their position was being threatened, who have left and formed other groups. But that did not happen because one point of view “took over” the denomination.
Today, I simply want to set forth some of the ways the ELCA decided to approach these issues so that we can discuss one Christian group’s efforts to maintain unity in the midst of profound disagreement. After the break, I will highlight some of the provisions in the ELCA statement.
In terms of homosexual practice, please note that the ELCA limited their focus to same-gender couples in committed, life-long, monagamous relationships.
Continue reading “How the ELCA Dealt with the Issue of Homosexuality”
Chaplain Mike’s “Agenda”
In the comments on yesterday’s post, some of you questioned my motives and my “agenda” for discussing Bible verses that directly address the subject of homosexuality. Well, let me lay it out plainly for you.
To be perfectly honest, this is not something I would prefer to talk about. It has never been an issue I’ve considered deeply or had to deal with much on a personal, social, or pastoral level over the course of my journey. Like most everyone else, I have known gay friends, neighbors, family members, coworkers, and acquaintances, but we’ve never had in-depth conversations about sexuality. For most of my life gay rights wasn’t a culture war issue that had any strong resonance in the communities in which I lived, at least not in the way it has today. I’ve counseled individuals and couples with a variety of sexual questions and concerns, but never with regard to homosexuality or same sex attraction. I have had more exposure to GLBT communities as a chaplain, I’ve ministered to gay patients and their friends representing a variety of lifestyles: I’ve prayed and worked and taken communion with gay pastors and church members, I’ve wept with homosexual men and women who were mourning the loss of life partners, and I’ve served in the homes of gay patients who were thoroughly invested in immoral patterns of life. However, my experience is still slight.
Frankly, I must admit that the amount of time I have spent thinking about homosexuality and related matters has been miniscule. Gay issues have not affected me personally to any great degree. And homosexuality is not a “hot button” issue for me — never has been.
However, in ministry, we don’t always get to choose our issues, and this issue is front and center these days. As a candidate in the ordination process of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), one area of inquiry I think I should be prepared to discuss is this whole homosexuality debate. My denomination provoked a lot of controversy a few years ago by deciding to deal with the issue the way they did. Though I’d prefer not to have to devote time and energy to studying or discussing this right now, it’s what’s on the current ecclesiastical agenda for ministerial comment.
All of that probably sounds cold and uncaring to a number of our GLBT readers, because this is personal to you. Too many of you have been seriously wounded by churches and Christians who have not welcomed you, tried to understand you, or shown you the character of Jesus in the way they’ve treated you. The Gospel as you’ve heard it has not been good news for you. You have been making your voices resound in unprecedented ways in recent years, and people like me have been deaf or not paying attention. You see your situation as the arena for one of today’s primary struggles for justice and civil rights. If it’s possible that I am going to reenter parish ministry in today’s world, perhaps it’s time for me to clarify my thinking so that I can serve you better.
And then there is this: If the steady stream of studies coming out these days is any indication, the ways in which we think and talk about sexuality, especially homosexuality, is a significant concern for the young people among us. Rachel Held Evans’s recent post “How to Win a Culture War and Lose a Generation” is a good example of the kind of pushback that Christians, churches, denominations, and Christian organizations today are getting from the upcoming generations with regard to GLBT concerns. She cites David Kinnaman, who wrote,
“The gay issue has become the ‘big one,’ the negative image most likely to be intertwined with Christianity’s reputation. It is also the dimension that most clearly demonstrates the unchristian faith to young people today, surfacing in a spate of negative perceptions: judgmental, bigoted, sheltered, right-wingers, hypocritical, insincere, and uncaring. Outsiders say [Christian] hostility toward gays…has become virtually synonymous with the Christian faith.”
As a Christian, and as someone who may one day be back in parish ministry, announcing the Gospel to a multi-generational community, I can’t ignore that. I had better be able to talk about these matters with love and integrity.
That is why I decided to join the discussion Jeff began last week by writing some posts of my own.
In doing so, I’m not starting from ground zero but from thirty-five years of studying the Bible as a Christian. Nor am I stepping forward to announce that I’ve received some new epiphany giving insight into these matters. My personal views on sexual morality have been and remain consistently conservative, and I haven’t “drifted” toward libertinism. Commenters on this blog have even accused me of being prudish when it comes to talking about sexual matters.
These days, too many people are suspicious when you start to talk about contentious issues like homosexuality. They think you must have hidden motives, that you represent a “side,” that you are going to try and twist the Bible to make it say whatever supports your personal or political agenda. But I believe there is a host of people out there like me, who are being drawn into this discussion because we sincerely want to know how to live and speak the Gospel in this cultural moment. We want to know how to love God and love our neighbors in the real world, not some imaginary world of “positions.” We want to serve the church so that she lives up to her calling to lift up Jesus and look like Jesus. We want to serve the world so that they know there’s a place at the table for all who are hungry.
And that, folks, is my agenda.
What Does the Bible Actually Say about Homosexuality?
MOD NOTE: I have been deleting and editing a lot of comments because you are not sticking to the topic. This post is about one thing — EXAMINING WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY. It is not about our personal reflections or ethical considerations of the subject. All I want to do is look at what the Bible says. If you disagree with my interpretation, that is perfectly acceptable, but the proper way to respond is to set forth your interpretation and show why it’s better. Stick to the topic at hand, please.
• • •
In last week’s discussions, a number of comments asserted that the Bible is crystal clear about the subject of homosexuality. Others questioned that claim. It might be worth our while to look at the texts and discuss what we see.
The first point to note is that the Bible only has six passages which speak directly to homosexual relations. Others, of course, have implications for the debate, such as texts from Genesis 1-2, which describe God making humankind in his image, male and female, blessing them that they might be fruitful and multiply, making Adam and Eve and bringing them together to be “one flesh.”
This text certainly sets forth God’s blessing upon the union of woman and man in marriage and the bearing of children through that union. An argument can be made that the union of Adam and Eve is indeed the “high point” of the Genesis 2 narrative, the culmination of God’s plan for humankind and the relationship that best portrays his own nature and character.
More about this Scripture in this afternoon’s post.
What about the passages in the Bible that directly address homosexuality? There are six:
- Genesis 19 — the story of Sodom
- Leviticus 18:22 — prohibition of “lying with a man as with a woman”
- Leviticus 20:13 — law stating that lying with a man as with a woman is an abomination, punishable by death
- Romans 1:18-32 — Paul’s description of Gentile ungodliness, including “exchanging the natural function for the unnatural”
- 1Corinthians 6:9-10 — Paul’s statement that “sodomites” (NRSV) will not inherit God’s kingdom
- 1Timothy 1:9-10 — Paul’s statement that “sodomites” (NRSV) are among the “lawless and disobedient”
What do these passages from the Bible tell us to guide us in our moral consideration of homosexuality?
Continue reading “What Does the Bible Actually Say about Homosexuality?”
Where Our Best Dreams Come From
A Moment with Frederick Buechner
“Where Our Best Dreams Come From”
Somebody appears on your front stoop speaking your name, say, and you go down to open the door to see what’s up. Sometimes while it’s still raining, the sun comes out from behind the clouds, and suddenly, arching against the gray sky, there is a rainbow, which people stop doing whatever they’re doing to look at. They lay down their fishing nets, their tax forms, their bridge hands, their golf clubs, their newspapers to gaze at the sky because what is happening up there is so marvelous they can’t help themselves. Something like that, I think, is the way those twelve men Matthew names were called to become a church, plus Mary, Martha, Joanna, and all the other women and men who one way or another became part of it too. One way or another Christ called them. That’s how it happened. They saw the marvel of him arch across the grayness of things — the grayness of their own lives, perhaps, of life itself. They heard his voice calling their names. And they went.
They seem to have gone right on working at pretty much whatever they’d been working at before, which means that he didn’t so much call them out of their ordinary lives as he called them out of believing that ordinary life is ordinary. He called them to see that no matter how ordinary it may seem to us as we live it, life is extraordinary. “The Kingdom of God is at hand” is the way he put it to them, and the way he told them to put it to others. Life even at its most monotonous and backbreaking and heart-numbing has the Kingdom buried in it the way a field has treasures buried in it, he said. The Kingdom of God is as close to us as some precious keepsake we’ve been looking for for years, which is lying just in the next room under the rug all but crying out to us to come find it. If we only had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it.
• from Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons
by Frederick Buechner
Dan Bouchelle: “So You Are Angry?”
Note from CM: This is one of the best posts I have read in a long time. I saw it quoted on another blog and the excerpt was so challenging to me that I knew immediately I had to read the entire piece.
The fact is, many of us are angry. We are angry about a variety of things. Some of us are older, and we’re angry that life didn’t turn out as we’d planned. Youth, on the other hand, has always been characterized by a certain measure of righteous anger, as idealism starts engaging an adult world that is so flawed and crazy. Some of us are pastors, and we’re angry at the people in our congregations. Some of us have been hurt by the church, and one of the key emotions we’re dealing with is anger. We’re angry about the state of politics or the culture wars, or we’re involved in politics and the culture wars, and we’re angry at those on the other side. We’re angry at our families. We’re angry at the people with whom we work. We yell obscenities at other drivers during our daily commute because we’re angry at everything else, and they are safe and easy targets.
Dan’s piece cut me to the quick. He graciously gave permission to reproduce it here so that we can talk about it.
• • •
So You Are Angry?
By Dan Bouchelle
Posted on May 8, 2012, at Confessions of a Former Preacher, Dan’s blog
“Your recent blogs have just seemed more peaceful,” said my friend at the Pepperdine Lectures last week. Just a clue. Subtle, but I got it. It reminded me of other recent comments that let me know the anger I have pent up over the years is dissipating. That would be good news if I could just accept it was ever really there at all.
My wife says most of my negative emotions come out as anger. For men, anger may be the only negative emotion we can express without feeling we need to turn in our man-card. Still, I don’t want to be an angry person. Worse still, I don’t know why I’m angry and I don’t think about being angry. But, my wife also tells me, I am not good at knowing what I’m feeling. I know what I “should” feel. That is what I convince myself I do feel . . . most of the time. But then this anger keeps seeping up out of my cellar. I see signs of it in my over-reactions, my cynicism, and my “prophetic edge.”
Last week, I heard a preacher in his early 30’s describe his generation as “free of the cynicism of the boomer generation toward the church.” I heard several preachers from his generation speak, and I have to agree. They have more hope for the church than my generation and I don’t think it’s just youthful idealism. It is not about their different vision or inability to see current realities. It is about emotion. Perhaps this is why preachers my age are dropping out and the best preaching jobs in our fellowship are going to guys in their late 20’s and early 30’s. We are too cynical.
iMonk Classic: The Jonah 4 Club
Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
from May 2008
Here’s a useful question for me right now. (Maybe it will be useful to you, or maybe not.)
Can you find places in scripture where someone had to drastically revise their idea of God in order to know and follow the true God? If so, why and how?
I’m not asking for places where people just needed to learn some new information. No, I am talking about those in the Biblical story who had to radically revise, even abandon, the kind of God they believed in in order to take hold of the true and living God?
We can call it the Jonah 4 Club, because in Jonah 4, the reluctant prophet had to admit that God was a lot more merciful and gracious than Jonah had previously thought. Actually, in Jonah 4, Jonah is righteously ticked off that God is actually nice to pagans, and expresses pity and forgiveness for them.
Jonah had his idea of God all together on the issue of what bad people deserved and what God should do to bad people. Jonah had, of course, written quite a large check on the “I’m one of God’s truly beloved people” account, and he only found himself outside of Ninevah by the same grace of God extended toward him.
But like many Christians, Jonah prefers the God in his head and his prejudices to the actual Yahweh who is relentlessly forgiving to a whole culture of cruel and violent idolaters. (There were some pretty rotten characters in Ninevah.)
Saturday Ramblings 5.19.12
What a week it has been here at the iMonastery. We’ve had some very good conversations about some very difficult topics, which, I think, have left us all worn out. I think it might be nice if we all get a glass of iced tea, find a spot under the shade tree, and smile a bit. Shall we, my fellow ramblers?
Ok, you can make your beverage a cup of coffee. After all, it’s good for you. Again. Until the next study tells us it’s bad for us. Again.
Oops. Seems the body of a murdered mobster found its way into the crypts in the Vatican. Police want to question the corpse regarding the disappearance of a 15-year-old girl who has been missing since 1983. This brought up the question of why this figure of organized crime was buried with bishops and cardinals in the first place. And why were there many other bones in the tomb of the criminal? So many questions. You may need a second cup of coffee as you solve this riddle.
You may need some Pepto-Bismol as you read this. Seems “Pastor Fashion” is not a joke. Seriously. Ed Young, Jr. is the self-proclaimed Mr. Blackwell of Christian fashion. Oh, but it’s for a good reason. “It’s not just about fashion,” said Young, prescient of his naysayers, ”it’s about looking presentable as we present the timeless message of Christ. It’s about having a healthy self-esteem, which starts with God. That’s why we’re doing this.” Ok …
God’s Script for the Church
Fridays in Ephesus (6)
God’s Script for the Church
During Eastertide on Fridays, we are reflecting on insights from Timothy Gombis’s recent book, The Drama of Ephesians: Participating in the Triumph of God
• • •
“Exhortations fill the second half of Ephesians, as Paul draws out how the church performs its role in the drama of redemption.”
In the doxology that brings the first three chapters of Ephesians to their culmination, Paul prays, “to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.” Timothy Gombis rightly remarks that this text presents the church as “the arena of God’s triumph and the agent of God’s glory in the cosmic realm.”
Ephesians 3 ends on the highest conceivable note, with the church, God’s holy temple, filled with all God’s fullness. It is a magnificent vision, one impossible for us to fathom, but the apostle asserts that God is more than able to bring it to pass. Though we can scarcely imagine how glorious it will be, Christ’s cosmic victory will be brought to completion, and the church will share in its splendor.
Like the Hebrew prophets, Paul sets forth a dazzling, sublime revelation of God’s calling for his people, but he does so for the most down-to-earth reasons. All this talk of “fullness” and “glory,” the “love of Christ that surpasses knowledge,” and God’s powerful ability “to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine” leads directly into Ephesians 4, with its various exhortations to live faithfully with others in the most mundane circumstances.
To be truly heavenly-minded means that we will be of real earthly good.
The Internet Monk Archives 