This article is written for truth-seekers, for Bible thumpers and for folks who use the Bible to thump other people’s spirits. This does not try to be a comprehensive article. I want you to know, however, I have no respect for pseudo Bible scholars who know nothing about the critical thought process. I dismiss as frauds those who use the Bible to support their arrogance. I especially loath lazy Bible hermeneutic.* I see a lot of that and it sickens me. If you don’t “get” this paragraph, then you just don’t get it.
*Means scholarly Bible interpretation.
So, back to the title. What does Jesus have to say about gays and lesbians?
I consider this question after researching why the Old Testament laws condemned it. (By the way, the word homosexuality is never used in the Bible. Nothing about homosexuality is in the 10 commandments.) A lot of it had to do distinguishing the nation of Israel from the lands around them — which they intended to occupy through warfare.
I also deliberate on what one would have to do to honor all the rules of the Old Testament. Four examples:
A person would have to kill your son if he is rebellious,
Never put two different kinds of flowers in the same pot,
Never wear a linen/cotton garment.
If you are a woman having your period, you have to live out in our vanishing wilderness alone, until your period is ended.
The above are four of the 366 rules in the Biblical Old Testament.
I reflect on where Jesus lived during his time on earth in Judea. It was a land under military occupation by Rome. It was a cradle of Hellenistic thought, including philosophies of the Jews, Romans and Greeks.
One Jewish view on what we call “homosexuality”: their thousands-of-years-old holiness code (part of the laws I mentioned above) rejected it.
A viewpoint from the Romans: It is documented that Nero forced his male slave to marry him. Said slave was castrated and dressed in women’s wedding attire before the nuptials. In straight or homosexual society, that would fall far short of any description of respectful, mutual love.
Ancient Greeks are recorded as being against homosexuality. The ancient Greeks are also recognized for considering love between an older man and a young boy to be the highest form of love. Was this because historically the males (in all three societies) designated women to be fit only for one role, the role of bearing male heirs?
This is a small part of the context for Jesus’ life and teaching.
One of the reasons I love Jesus is because he was so forthright and radical it eventually got him crucified. He was notorious for not following those Old Testament laws, which were so adored by the Jewish holy scholars. He went about healing people, loving the under-dog, and preaching about a kin’dom totally apart for the Roman Empire. He consistently advocated following the spirit of the Law, rather than the easily perverted letter of the Law. If Jesus had any favorites, it was the undesirables, the rejected, the disenfranchised of society.
Before I end this tiny treatise, I will express an opinion of my own. If you are using God, Jesus, or the Bible to justify your hatred and fear of anybody who is not your gender, not your color, not your religion, not your party or does not have your sexual preference, that proves to me that you have not spent five serious minutes reading the Bible, studying the life and teachings of Jesus or seeking any true Divinity.
Jesus had a lot on his mind and on his agenda. After doing years of study and care, I have a clue why Jesus said what he did about homosexuality.
This is the day I have decided to go to seminary. Already, I have completed 5 years of post-graduate pastoral studies. I have served in three churches, on Michigan Tech campus and now on NMW campus, but still feel unequipped.
Today I know. I must go to Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. I choose Garrett because it is on Northwestern Campus with thousands of students from everywhere on the globe, it is essentially part of Chicago and it is world-class on every level — scholarly and spiritual. I do not want to learn clichés and dogmas. There has been enough of that in my life. I wish to learn how to search for Truth, to know Life, to study ancient texts in light of reason, emotion, tradition and faith. With critical thought. I wish to obtain a three year Master of Divinity degree. To know Christ. To serve.
Life is comprised of cycles:
Relinquishment and receiving.
Exile and homecoming.
Hurts and hopes.
Deaths and resurrections.
I am ready for a new phase.
What I do not know as I write this is how transformative the years at Garrett will be for me. I do not know how enthralled I will be with the Heaven and Nature citizens I will encounter there. My enrollment will occur by the following autumn. The days will be spent like rare coins.
forgodssakeblog 