Gospel For Gays

Transformations, evolution and the Kingdom of God

by Jeremiah Bartram on 18/01/10 at 12:23 pm

Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed…. Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.  He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.  When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom.  He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.  He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down.  The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.  Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 1, 1-4; 4, 14-21; reading for Sunday, January 25.

Commentators

Respecting the opening passage of Luke’s gospel, quoted here, the NRSV notes that Luke is creating a literary prologue similar to the opening of many Hellenistic Greek works, “particularly histories.”  Theophilus means “friend of God” and may have been an actual person – but also may designate any ideal Christian.  Hardy notes that “the fact that Luke wrote such a preface at all, and moreover that he extended his work in the “Acts of the Apostles” to embrace the story of the spread of Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome, shows that he was aware of tackling a more ambitious task than the other gospel writers and that, unlike them, he had at his disposal many of the techniques and literary conventions of a professional Greek historian.”

The main story of today’s gospel is not Luke’s prologue, but rather Jesus’ return to his home town of Nazareth, and his self-presentation there.  The NRSV comments:  “Luke has transposed this incident to make it a frontispiece at the outset of Jesus’ ministry.  The parallel account in Mark 6, 1-6 follows earlier appearances and work in Galilee.”  The NRSV also notes that the details Luke provides are the earliest accounts of synagogue worship.

Hardy notes that the passage read by Jesus was from Isaiah 61, 1-2, with the addition of a phrase from Isaiah 58, 6.  In the time of Jesus, this was understood as “a still unfulfilled prophecy of a new age in which the ‘jubilee year’, ‘the year of the Lord’s favor’, would bring unprecedented blessings and be inaugurated by the appearance of one ‘anointed’ for the purpose.  Luke follows the Septuagint version, which is slightly different from the Hebrew text that Jesus would have read.

Just for context:  in Luke’s account the mood of Jesus’ hearers shifts rapidly, from being initially impressed at Jesus’ performance to outrage:  by verse 29 they are taking hold of him and leading him to a cliff, meaning to kill him.  Also:  Luke softens Isaiah’s text, omitting a reference to divine retribution (“…to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God;”).

Gospel for gays

We find ourselves at the start of Jesus’ ministry here.  He returns to his home town, he proclaims his own understanding of his mission, as described by Isaiah in prophetic words; and he is violently rejected by his former neighbors, who can perceive him only as Joseph’s son (the rejection is not part of today’s text, but follows immediately).

As a statement of vocation, the text from Isaiah is very similar to the mission on which Jesus sends his disciples a bit later in the story:  proclaim the good news that the Kingdom of God is at hand; cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers and cast out demons (Matthew 10, 5-8).

But what does it mean, precisely?  What is this good news?

Does it mean that God’s kingdom is purely spiritual – that the oppressed and the blind and captives should rejoice – and continue in exactly the same condition as before?  No, of course not.  That would be a cruel joke.  And Jesus himself contradicted such a notion:  he intervened to heal, cleanse, and liberate again and again.

Does it mean that justice and peace will prevail from now on – that the secular powers of Herod and Pilate are finished, or at least about to be swept away?  Again, no.  They continued to exercise power (with exceptional cruelty in the case of Pilate), as do their successors today, all these centuries later.

So what is this kingdom of now and not yet?

It is the kingdom of love; of God-with-us; of God-in-us.  Of our being beloved of God.  God’s children.

And when we know that we are beloved of God, our life changes, from the inside.  That is the resurrection experience, and it is transformational.

Sometimes – as in the case of Paul – the transformation is sudden and dramatic.  Mostly, it is painfully slow.  But transformation in and through love is what it’s all about:  that’s the now and not yet of the Kingdom.

And the critical point is this:  transformation is from the inside-out – not imposed, from the outside-in.

**

Pope Benedict made a very interesting and typically daring observation in one of his Easter homilies a couple of years ago.  He suggested that the Resurrection of Christ could be seen as an example of evolution in action.

What a fabulous idea.

In my view, natural selection is one of God’s languages – and that is what’s so interesting about the Pope’s comment.  Because nothing precludes the intervention of God at certain moments in the ongoing process of evolution – whether the moment of intervention is the Resurrection of Christ, or whether it is some other transformative step in evolutionary history, such as flight, or human consciousness (this is not creationist thinking).

But it seems to me that if we as church, accept the idea that transformative change is the law of nature – and that’s what we’re doing – we are obliged to be open to new thinking and new possibilities, since there will always be further transformations that we cannot anticipate.  And, hopefully, these further transformations will bring new solutions for old questions, such as the questions of gender and sexuality.

In particular, we have to be open to the possibility that males may form loving sexual unions with other males, and females with other females; that the notion of sexual complementarity is not absolute and final and God-given after all.

And that in this new dispensation, this kingdom of transformation through love, we collaborate with God in ways only imagined before the coming of Christ.

**

Where does this kingdom of transformation begin?   It begins with recognizing Jesus, inviting him into our gatherings, listening to his voice, letting him undertake his silent transformative work within, particularly through prayer.  It’s an inside-out process.

This is where his neighbors in Nazareth so conspicuously failed.  They saw him only as the son of Joseph; they were scandalized by him; they said “no”.  And in their failure, they cut themselves off from his transformative power.

Isn’t that our risk now?  It’s a risk for the larger church, so rejective of the gay possibility – and we are Jesus for them.  And it’s a risk for us – defensive, carrying a lot of baggage, part of a community that has rejected a church that rejects it, and yet that church is also Jesus.

In such a polarized situation, it’s hard to hear the good news.

Subscribe To Gospel for Gays