Understanding With the Heart
My last entry is me struggling to come to terms with how God feels about homosexuals, and accordingly how I should feel about the same-sex marriage bill that just passed the Maryland senate. I have no qualms from a secular perspective (separation of church and state, freedom of religion, non-discrimination inherent in the Constitution, for example), but the religion side made me pause. Well, I now have an answer that satisfies me.
Matthew 13:13-15: "This is why I speak to them in parables: 'Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. for this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'" (emphasis mine)
This is Jesus quoting Isaiah to explain His use of parables. He knows our human understanding is imperfect; there's a long history in the Bible of people not "getting" what Jesus was talking about. My high school Sunday School teacher frequently talks about how even the disciples were pretty darn clueless at times.
The underlined portion of this passage was what really stuck out to me. People are often blind and deaf to what God is trying to say. And then we get "understand with their hearts," instead of their fallible senses. This jumped out at me, this notion of understanding Scripture not with human logic and rhetoric, which muddies the waters, but with our Christ-filled hearts.
And my heart is telling me that God loves all His children, regardless of sexual orientation. And He made them that way, so I don't think He would do that if He disapproved. Given what science has said about homosexuality not being a choice, I don't think the argument that it's not natural can be made, and thus I don't think it is going against God's natural order.
And then I found a passage in Mark (I generally don't like Mark... go figure.) 15:17-20 "'Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts-murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.'” What comes out of the mouth, when it is spurred by a human heart, not one centered on Christ, makes man unclean- i.e. sinful. Acts done with love and kindness, then, stem from a Christ-filled heart and are pleasing to God. This would include same-sex love.
Why do I think so? One of my favorite passages, 1 John 4:16-17: "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus." God is love. No qualifications, no categorizing, just love. God is love, and love is God. ALL love comes from Him; it is His gift to us. I believe that we can only love one another because God bestowed that gift on us. And God's gifts are good. I find it impossible to believe that love- actual love, true love, as an analogue of God's love for us- could be bad, no matter to whom it's directed. It is when people mistake lust for love, or manipulate someone's love for them, that it gets to be an issue. Loving, caring same-sex couples who don't do this aren't, in my opinion, going against God.
I am humble enough to admit that I am a human, and have all-too-human biases and failures in my understanding. I very well might be wrong. But that no longer terrifies me like it did. Romans tells me, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (8:1-4)
There is no condemnation in Christ, since the law of the Spirit rules. We as humans are hopelessly lost to sin if we rely on our our merit alone. The pastor in his sermon on Sunday talked about this; God gave the Ten Commandments, and humanity is like "yep, we've got this!" and then a few miles down the road they turn to the golden calf. We don't "got this." We never can, because of our sinful nature. That is why God sent Jesus to us, to bridge the gap and forgive us our sins once we follow Him. I do; therefore, my sins are forgiven. So, if I am wrong, that's okay. I am earnestly trying to do right by God, and He sees this in my heart and will forgive me if I am not following his will on this issue (or any other, actually.) And, as a side note, I think it's rather less severe to be sinning by being too generous with love and acceptance than to be too stingy.
By admitting that I am a fallible human being and prone to sin, God has given me peace about my decision. I am trying to be perfect, and I can't be. Only Jesus is perfect in His own right. But He makes me perfect, and for that I am truly grateful. He erases my mistakes, even ones I'm not sure I'm making. And that gives me the confidence to follow my heart and my gut and support same-sex marriage in Maryland and everywhere.
Matthew 13:13-15: "This is why I speak to them in parables: 'Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. for this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'" (emphasis mine)
This is Jesus quoting Isaiah to explain His use of parables. He knows our human understanding is imperfect; there's a long history in the Bible of people not "getting" what Jesus was talking about. My high school Sunday School teacher frequently talks about how even the disciples were pretty darn clueless at times.
The underlined portion of this passage was what really stuck out to me. People are often blind and deaf to what God is trying to say. And then we get "understand with their hearts," instead of their fallible senses. This jumped out at me, this notion of understanding Scripture not with human logic and rhetoric, which muddies the waters, but with our Christ-filled hearts.
And my heart is telling me that God loves all His children, regardless of sexual orientation. And He made them that way, so I don't think He would do that if He disapproved. Given what science has said about homosexuality not being a choice, I don't think the argument that it's not natural can be made, and thus I don't think it is going against God's natural order.
And then I found a passage in Mark (I generally don't like Mark... go figure.) 15:17-20 "'Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts-murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.'” What comes out of the mouth, when it is spurred by a human heart, not one centered on Christ, makes man unclean- i.e. sinful. Acts done with love and kindness, then, stem from a Christ-filled heart and are pleasing to God. This would include same-sex love.
Why do I think so? One of my favorite passages, 1 John 4:16-17: "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus." God is love. No qualifications, no categorizing, just love. God is love, and love is God. ALL love comes from Him; it is His gift to us. I believe that we can only love one another because God bestowed that gift on us. And God's gifts are good. I find it impossible to believe that love- actual love, true love, as an analogue of God's love for us- could be bad, no matter to whom it's directed. It is when people mistake lust for love, or manipulate someone's love for them, that it gets to be an issue. Loving, caring same-sex couples who don't do this aren't, in my opinion, going against God.
I am humble enough to admit that I am a human, and have all-too-human biases and failures in my understanding. I very well might be wrong. But that no longer terrifies me like it did. Romans tells me, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (8:1-4)
There is no condemnation in Christ, since the law of the Spirit rules. We as humans are hopelessly lost to sin if we rely on our our merit alone. The pastor in his sermon on Sunday talked about this; God gave the Ten Commandments, and humanity is like "yep, we've got this!" and then a few miles down the road they turn to the golden calf. We don't "got this." We never can, because of our sinful nature. That is why God sent Jesus to us, to bridge the gap and forgive us our sins once we follow Him. I do; therefore, my sins are forgiven. So, if I am wrong, that's okay. I am earnestly trying to do right by God, and He sees this in my heart and will forgive me if I am not following his will on this issue (or any other, actually.) And, as a side note, I think it's rather less severe to be sinning by being too generous with love and acceptance than to be too stingy.
By admitting that I am a fallible human being and prone to sin, God has given me peace about my decision. I am trying to be perfect, and I can't be. Only Jesus is perfect in His own right. But He makes me perfect, and for that I am truly grateful. He erases my mistakes, even ones I'm not sure I'm making. And that gives me the confidence to follow my heart and my gut and support same-sex marriage in Maryland and everywhere.