It
may be that we don't really understand what the New Testament is saying
about men being attracted to men and women to women. In Romans 1, Paul
is talking about the blindness of all society to Jesus, to the suffering
servant. Because of this blindness, God hands all society over to its
own latent sins and thus, we have women being attracted to women and
men to men. For Paul and the apostles, men
not loving women and women not loving men is worse than fornication,
worse than covetousness, worse than murder. Read that list of vices for
yourself. The rabbis always put the most serious transgressions first.
But those who do any of these things, from the most weighty transgression to the
lightest, are "worthy of death." Paul has a big surprise for us though,
because for the "judge" (Romans 2) to condemn to death those who are
caught up in these sins is to "do the same things," that is, to be blind
to the suffering servant, the savior who saves us from our spiritual
enemies, who saves us from the fires that we can't escape. As the song
says, "I can't change, even if I tried, even if I wanted to." That's
the way it is, we are too deep in, we can't change. But Jesus was raised
from the
dead to save people like that, people like you and me. And he does and
he did and I know he
will. Because let's face it, all of us are prey to these vices that are
listed here in Romans 1, at least one, if not a whole bunch. Now, we
might have a question. Why is it that men going with men and women with
women, heads Paul's list of transgressions? The reason is that Paul is
simply following the Bible, in the very beginning God made Adam and then
made Eve and Adam saw that Eve was the only one for him. That's
Genesis, but we are constantly attempting to destroy Genesis. God
generates, God gives the growth. We as sinners want to destroy life and
growth. We want "de-generation." And here's the thing: the most
destructive form of de-generation is when men don't like women and women
don't like men and that describes a lot of us, a lot of the time.
Women don't really see men these days and men don't really see women
either. We just don't "get" why marriage and romance and men liking
women and women liking men is very important but that's only because we
don't see like God does. In fact, we don't see at all. It's only in
God's light that we see light. Only he reveals what love is, what faith
is, what is important and what is not important. All our reasoning,
all our philosophy, all our science comes up with precisely nada,
nothingness, chaos. In the early 20th century we reasoned and
philosophized our way to eugenics and the holocaust. And we haven't
changed one bit. Our way is always toward destruction. Jesus said, "I
am the way and the truth and the life." He also said, "Come to me, all
ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest." The Good
Samaritan came to the man who had fallen among thieves, and who was
pretty much as good as dead, beaten up by sin and death and the devil
and he had compassion on him. We are that man. We are the ones who
hate God and in so doing destroy ourselves and are destroyed. But God
still loves us, he is crazy in love with us, he came to us while we were
yet enemies. He is here, "the home of God is among men" and one by one
we are lifted up in his arms and healed and saved. And as if that were
not enough, to save us is his joy, his delight. We learn in the Bible
that he sings with joy over what he has done through his only begotten
Son. This is the entirely unexpected and undeserved face of God's
justice and nothing can stop that justice now.
(Note: I follow the theologians William Orr of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and N.T. Wright of St. Andrews in this article, the song quoted above is "Same Love" written by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis)
(Note: I follow the theologians William Orr of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and N.T. Wright of St. Andrews in this article, the song quoted above is "Same Love" written by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis)
