The Scandal
of Love—Part Two
© by the Reverend Dr. Byron E. Shafer
(Rutgers, May 28, 2000; 6th
Sunday of Easter, Year B)
John 15:1–8 (NT, p. 113); I John
4:7–21 (NT, pp. 260–261)
As Hollywood knows full well, the scandal of love is too big and juicy a topic
to be
dealt with in just one 20-minute timeframe.
So as I turned to preparing my sermon
for this week I heard last
Sunday’s sermon on “The Scandal of Love” crying out
for a continuation, a
sequel, a Part II, and, as you see, I’ve acceded to that cry
from within.
So, like all those TV series that feature continuing stories, let me begin this
week’s
episode with a couple of brief flashbacks, to remind you of where
we’ve been
before telling you where we’re going.
First, let me remind you that I’m not using the word “scandal” in its
normal meaning,
which, according to the dictionary, is “an act or set of
circumstances, usually held
to be immoral, that causes offense, outrage, shame,
or disgrace.” Rather I’m using
“scandal” in the much more general sense that characterizes the use in the
New
Testament of the Greek word skandalon,
the word that underlies and gives rise
to our English word “scandal.”
In the New Testament, skandalon can be used
for “anything that causes offense, including
many things not held to be
immoral.”
And second, let me also remind you that last week I dwelled on the scandal or
offense caused by the claim made in the First Letter of John that “God is
love,”
a claim that stands in stark contrast to Aristotle’s claim that
“God is Pure Intellect,”
and to others’ claim that “God is Overwhelming
Power.” Last week I focused, too,
on the scandal or offense caused by the claim that, as love, God acted to leave
the
realm of Pure Love, to take flesh, and to dwell among us in this world of
suffering
and pain in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. It is in Jesus, in his life and death and
resurrection, that we are able
to see the breadth and depth and height of God’s
love for humankind.
It is because of Jesus, and him alone, that we Christians are led
to
proclaim that in truth God’s nature is
love. For Jesus was God’s love
incarnate,
God’s love made visible.
Now, onward to today’s sermon—Part II—for the scandal of love lies not
only in
the claim that God is love; it lies also in the claim that we are to
love others every bit
as broadly, every bit as deeply, every bit as highly as
God, the God we know
through Jesus, loves us.
The commandment from God that we are, in turn, to love others is stated clearly
both
in our Second Lesson from the 1st
Letter of John and in our First Lesson from the
Gospel of John. Listen again to the author of First
John, who says:
“Beloved, since
God loved us so much, we also ought to love one
another” (I John 4:11). And hear
again from the gospel these words of Jesus himself:
“”This is my commandment, that
you love one another as I have loved
you”
(John 15:12).
Because it is God’s nature to love beyond all boundaries or borders and
because
humankind was created to be on earth the image of God, therefore it
ought also to
be our nature to love beyond borders, just as it was Jesus’s nature to love in that
expansive
way—Jesus of Nazareth, he who truly was the perfect image of God.
We humans are sometimes pretty good at loving within
borders—at loving our own
family members, our own ethnic group, our fellow
Americans (well, except perhaps
for Native Americans … and for most recently `naturalized citizens). And also our
co-religionists, we’re pretty good at loving them, too (except, of course, for
those
with social and theological views different from our own).
We’re also sometimes open to a kind of limited love for enemies, if there’s
sufficient
economic advantage to it, it seems.
Yes, we can learn to love the Chinese
because,
after all, they’re a huge market.
But forget about us learning to love the Cubans, at
least as long as
Fidel Castro’s around!
You see, the hard part about loving, the part that creates scandal and gives
offense,
is the part about loving beyond borders, loving without limits, loving
without motives
of self-interest.
But Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:46–47), “… if you
[only]
love those who love you, what reward do you have?
Do not even the tax collectors
do the same?
And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you
doing
than others? Do not even the
Gentiles do the same?”
And Jesus not only said we should love
beyond borders, he also did it.
He healed
Gentiles as well as Jews, welcomed at his table the likes of
tax collectors and
prostitutes, associated with the ritually unclean as well as
the clean, with women as
well as men, the poor as well as the rich.
Jesus, it seems, had no concern for who
deserved
his love, but only for who needed his
love.
And in this way, Jesus showed us that it’s God’s will that we, too, should
develop
our loving natures by loving beyond borders.
This he also made clear in his parable
about the Good Samaritan (Luke
10:25–37), where the hero loves the person in need
nearest to him without
regard for the boundaries erected against it by that person’s
different
ethnicity and different religion. But
Jesus’s teaching and his personal
example of loving beyond borders scandalized
most people in his audience. For
loving beyond borders requires a willingness to suspend old animosities and
presuppositions and to return good for evil, nonviolence for violence, love for
hatred.
Edwin Markham was a poet and educator living in California during the late-19th
and
early-20th centuries.
He was a man of deep religious and social conviction, and a
strong advocate for ending the exploitation of
laborers.
This morning I want to share with you one of Markham’s brief poems, one that
celebrates inclusive love, loving beyond borders.
And I believe this poem has a
particular poignancy
today, especially for
those of us here who are Presbyterians. Listen!
Markham
writes:
“He drew a circle to shut me
out -
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
We
drew a circle that took him in!”
Last Wednesday, the world received the news of important decisions made by the
General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the Supreme Court of our
denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
These decisions came in cases
having to do with gay, lesbian, bisexual,
and transgender
persons.
At stake in these three judicial cases is the matter of whether our denomination
will
seek, unlike Jesus, to practice a love that has carefully defined limits
and boundaries,
or whether our denomination will seek, like Jesus, to practice a love without
boundaries and without limits that exclude.
At stake in these three judicial cases is the issue of whether our denomination
will
draw a circle that seeks to shut out gay, lesbian, bisexual, and
transgender people
and to prevent More Light Churches like ours from operating, or whether our
denomination will
draw a circle of love that seeks to include all people within it, a
circle of
love within which “there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or
female” (Galatians 3:28), poor or
prosperous, healthy or ailing, young or old, gay or
straight—a circle of love
with internal distinctions but no divisions.
The first judicial case, and the one most important for us, involves Christ
Presbyterian
Church in Burlington, VT, which, like us, is a More Light Church
that welcomes
GLBT-people and ordains elders and deacons without regard to their
sexual
orientation.
Its presbytery, the Presbytery of Northern New England, had voted to allow
Christ
Church to follow its conscience and to pursue its More Light convictions,
since those
convictions stand in accord with a number of sections of our
church’s constitution that
call for inclusiveness and that permit
Presbyterians to follow our own consciences in
non-essential matters.
The presbytery had granted this permission even though Christ
Church’s
More Light convictions had also led it to violate, as we also do, one specific
section of our denomination’s constitution, the one that explicitly forbids
the
ordination of gay and lesbian persons who live in sexually active
partnerships.
This permissive decision of the presbytery was appealed by several churches to
the
next higher judicatory, the Synod of the Northeast, which then overturned
the
presbytery’s decision and ordered the presbytery to work to bring Christ
Church into
compliance with the constitution’s prohibition of gay ordinations.
The presbytery then appealed that decision to the next higher judicatory, the
General
Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the final court of appeal, whose
decision in
all cases is final. This
court has the power, if only it has the will, to allow More Light
churches like
ours to receive the permission of our presbyteries to continue acting
according
to our conscience.
Oral arguments were heard by the GAPJC ten days ago, on May 18th.
Then, last
Wednesday, May 24th,
came the intriguing news that the PJC had not been able to
complete its
deliberations at this time and would render no decision until its next
meeting in July. This delay is not the best
possible news for More Light Churches, but
the fact that the PJC did not reach a
hasty decision against us is somewhat good news. We can
now do nothing but wait patiently until July.
The second judicial case concerned the question of whether our denomination’s
constitution bars Presbyterian churches from holding holy union services for
lesbian
couples and gay couples. For
your information, this church has been celebrating such
holy union services for
a number of years.
The case arose over a holy union service performed at the South Presbyterian
Church
in Dobbs Ferry, NY. Various churches and ministers in that church’s presbytery,
the
Presbytery of Hudson River, our neighboring presbytery to the north,
challenged the
constitutionality of holy union services.
After due deliberation, the Permanent Judicial Commission of the Presbytery of
Hudson River advised all its churches that holy union services may be held in
Presbyterian churches if the local Session approves.
Seven ministers and eight churches in the presbytery then appealed that decision
to the
next higher judicatory, the PJC of the Synod of the Northeast.
The synod upheld the
presbytery’s ruling that holy union services are
permitted.
And the same ministers and churches then appealed that decision to the General
Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, the final court of appeal, whose
decision in
all cases is final. Oral arguments were heard by the GAPJC on May 18th.
Then, last Wednesday, the PJC issued a mixed decision.
It said Presbyterian churches may
perform holy union services if they are clearly and formally distinguished from marriages—whatever
exactly that means!For the time
being at least, we have
permission to continue to perform holy union services
here. It is expected, however,
that
conservative groups will try to set in motion at next month’s GA an amendment to
the constitution
explicitly barring holy union services. Stay
tuned!
The third and final judicial case involves the issue of whether a GLBT-person
who has
not promised to remain celibate for life may be added to a
presbytery’s roll of
candidates for ministry, since at present such a person
may not, in the end, be
ordained for such ministry.
Again, the case having worked its way up through the court system, the GAPJC
ruled
this past week that such persons may be enrolled as a candidate for
ministry, since
they might change their minds and come to affirm celibacy before
reaching the end
of the process.
Three cases; two decisions; one still pending.
Is the Presbyterian Church a more loving denomination today than it was last
Tuesday,
before the PJC decisions were announced?
Is our denomination today more open to loving beyond borders, to drawing the
circle
of its love to include all persons?
Is inclusive love any less of a scandal to our denomination today than it was
last
Tuesday?
I leave those questions for you to answer.
But this much I do know from having read and studied this week’s lectionary
passages
from the Bible. The God
who is made known in Jesus has commanded us to love as
broadly, deeply, and
highly as Jesus himself loved. And
God has commanded the
church to draw its circle of love in such a way as to
include all persons, including
those with whom we disagree.
I pray God will help all parts of the church to get past the scandal created
among us
by the commandment to love inclusively, and I pray God will empower us
to embody,
as Jesus did, the fullness of God’s love, a love that knows no
boundaries.
Let us pray:
O God, touch us and our denomination with the Spirit of the Risen Christ that we
may
indeed grow to embody the breadth and depth and height of Your
all-inclusive, truly
scandalous love. Amen.
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