Hilton Head Island, SC – April 25, 2021
The Chapel Without Walls
Philippians 3:1-11; Galatians 3:19-29
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. – Galatians 3:28 (RSV)
The letters “LGBTQ” have been strung together only in recent years. They indicate the following categories of people: Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, Transgenders, and Queers.
Having said that, perhaps it is best to explain those terms further, so that everyone knows exactly what I will be talking about in this sermon. Lesbians are females whose sexual orientation is toward other females. Gays are what used to be called homosexuals, and both terms means males whose sexual orientation is toward other males. Bisexuals are people of either sex who have sexual relationships with people of both sexes. Transgenders or Transsexuals are people who are born as either males or females, but who in childhood or post-puberty years come to believe they are in actuality members of the opposite sex.
When I was a teenager and well into adulthood, queers connoted only male homosexuals. Most definitely it was a pejorative and derogatory term. Now I deduce that either it includes all of these folks collectively or it means people whose sexual orientation is not “constant,” but rather is slowly in flux. In any case, it no longer is perceived as pejorative by those who see themselves in the category denoted by this odd word. I have never read anywhere that is what “queer” means in 2021, but it is what I surmise, rightly or wrongly, the term means. Perhaps it is a self-proclaimed positive description. I Googled it, but I was more confused by what Google said than what I concluded by myself, so I am stickin with my explanation and not Mr. Google’s.
This sermon focuses on the perhaps 10 to 20% of all people who are in a group of males and females who, together, represent a sizeable sexual minority. Those numbers come from extensive reading about this subject over the years, and I speculate the percentage is fairly accurate. LGBTQs have existed as long as humans have existed, but until our lifetime, they have not been widely recognized as a large, oppressed, genetically-determined collective minority, nor have they been widely accepted as a socially marginalized group.
Many people claim they have never known a single person in any of these categories. That means either they have chosen consciously never to recognize the existence of such fellow human beings or they have consciously or subconsciously chosen to blind themselves to the reality of such fellow human beings. To repeat, LGBTQs have always existed, no doubt, but most societies in most periods of time have never known quite how to respond to their existence. Either they refused to acknowledge them, or they treated them very badly for what they supposed was a faulty existential choice of their part. In other words, they believe that LGBTQs choose their sexual orientation. They never saw these sexual orientations as a genetic “given” the way sexual orientation for the rest of us is supposedly a God-determined (by means of genetics) reality.
Attitudes toward matters of sexuality tend to change very slowly. It is therefore astonishing that tens of millions of Americans changed their minds fairly quickly about one form of sexual orientation. On June 26, 2015, the US Supreme Court declared that all state bans on same-sex marriage were unconstitutional. For years before that, two-thirds of Americans strongly believed that same-sex marriage should be illegal. Within two or three years of the court’s landmark decision, two-thirds of Americans said same-sex marriages should be legal. Baptist News Global says that now, 70% of Americans favor same-sex marriage, while only 28% oppose it. In my opinion, that is the most important attitudinal swing for the betterment of society among Americans on any social issue. If we got that quick a shift on Black Lives Matter or gun control or civil rights or voting rights, what a splendid world and nation this would become. According to the Religious News Service, more than 80% of Americans favor laws to protect LGBTQ citizens, and Baptist News Global says it is 83%. Figuring out the exact wording of such laws, plus the inherent reactionary views of many state and federal legislators, is the next major challenge.
The Public Religion Research Institute published the results of a poll they took in 2020. It indicated that 76% of Americans favor laws that protect LGBTQs from discrimination in jobs, housing, and public accommodations. That figure had jumped 4% from a similar poll taken just a year earlier. Support was highest among white Mainline Protestants and the religiously unaffiliated, at 82%. It was lowest among white evangelicals, at 62%. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Southern Baptist Convention in particular expressed the strongest institutional disapproval of any sexual relationships that are not heterosexual.
What is the basis of that opposition? It probably derives from three sources. First are two verses in Leviticus that strongly disapprove homosexuality, plus a few other verses which refer to other far less frequent same-sex practices in biblical times. Second is an inherent conservative aversion to anything outside the norm of perceived human behavior. Third, there is a fairly widespread conviction among social conservatives that any sexual relationships other than heterosexual ones are a matter of choice. They reject the idea that a same-sex orientation is genetically determined.
Increasingly, scientific research suggests that both the sexuality and the sexual orientation of every individual human is the result of genetic factors. We are who we are because our genes determine that, in the same way that they direct the color of our hair or eyes, or whether we are tall or short or have big feet or hands. Hair or eye color can be changed, but only by dye or by different-colored eye contacts. An act of will cannot accomplish such an alteration. Nor can we choose to become taller or shorter. Apparently sexual attraction is genetically programmed before birth, and there is nothing anyone can do to alter it by will. A small percentage of people have an attraction to both sexes, but that is much more uncommon than same-sex attraction.
Sadly, it seems natural for many people to fear or avoid or abhor what nature makes uncommon. Birds of a feather flock together, as do people of common types. But if there is someone whose type is uncommon and different from us and “our kind,” we may be wary or even hostile toward them. Such unease or hostility comes from the fallen nature by which all of us are afflicted. Too many of us are too upset by the great variety of human beings around us.
God created all of us, and he made half of us female and the other half male. On the surface that seems like an outstanding divine arrangement. But how we respond to our gender varies from individual to individual, and it manifests itself in various ways. How do we deal with what “God hath wrought,” as it turns out? Do we accept it, or do we fight it?
The Bible has two verses, both in Leviticus, that clearly oppose homosexuality. It has nothing at all to say about Lesbians, bisexuals, transsexuals or queers as those terms are currently understood. The reason for that is because Lesbians, Bisexuals, Transsexuals and “Queers” seem to have been virtually unrecognized in biblical times. Gays (or homosexuals) were known, however, and they were to be sentenced to death if those two dreadful verses were followed.
At the present time it is transsexuals who are facing the greatest sexual discrimination in the LGBTQ community. Conservative laws have been passed in many states which prevent transsexual boys who become girls from participating in girls’ sports. The premise is the untested theory that they have an unfair advantage over heterosexually-oriented girls. According to the Humans Right Campaign, over a hundred bills in 33 states have been proposed to deal with this and similar issues. The Arkansas state legislature just passed a bill that in effect prevents transsexuals from transitioning at all. That represents the epitome of anti-transsexual legislation. The Arkansas legislature and their governor have gone beyond the pale against those who are not acceptably heterosexual in their benighted eyes.
You may wonder how anyone can transition from being a boy to becoming a girl, or vice versa. By far the most common means is hormone therapy. A much less common means is surgery.
You may also wonder why anyone who is was born as either a male or female would want to become a member of the other sex. That is inconceivable to nearly everyone except trans people. It never occurs to most of us even to consider wanting to become someone of the opposite sex. That is because genetically we are irreversibly heterosexuals. Nevertheless, that is a common and sometimes overpowering desire in those who question their sexuality from an early age. Because this is relatively such a rare genetic phenomenon, most trans people feel highly excluded by the rest of us, especially if some key aspects of their behavior is obviously out of sync with the vast majority of people in their birth sex.
Because trans children and youth feel so socially ostracized, they are much more likely than most other young people to be overwhelmed by depression. Thoughts of suicide are tragically common among them, and unsuccessful or successful suicide attempts may be much more likely among them than among any other group of people. The CDC’s latest Youth Risk Behavior Survey stated that 35% of trans students attempted suicide in the prior year. The survey also said that 2%, or 300,000 high school students, identify themselves as trans. That figure doesn’t include those not in high school or who are unsure of their true sexual identity.
Of the five types of people represented by the letters LGBTQ, the “T” letter is the hardest for most of us to comprehend. Likely we all have seen or known trans folks, but we may not have picked up on it. Furthermore, we may think we are incapable of fathoming how anyone would want to change his or her sex. That is primarily because that has never personally been an issue of genetic variation that even occurred to us. But as Christian people, we need to extend ourselves in compassion and empathy to people who for years have confronted that pain-fraught dilemma. We especially need to support legislation written for their wellbeing, and not to oppose it.
There are two scripture passages from the letters of Paul which may speak tangentially and analogically to the concerns raised by this sermon. The first is Philippians 3:1-11. In these verses Paul is contrasting a position granted by birth and behavior compared to one granted by God’s grace. Paul, who had been a Super-Jew, became the quintessential Super-Christian through his Damascus road conversion. He warns the Philippian Christians against thinking themselves to be superior to others by birth, as he had once thought of himself in that light. In his time, perhaps most Jewish men thought they were special because they had been circumcised. Circumcision, which God commanded of Abraham and his descendants, addresses male-ness in a particular fashion. But that is not what really matters, said Paul. If it did, he would in like Flynn. Well, maybe not Flynn, but Friedman or Feldmann or Feiner.
I have more credentials than most, Paul said. “Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, as to the law a Pharisee” etc. etc. (Phil. 3:5). Compared to the LGBTQ community, we may consider ourselves the essence of propriety and normality, and thus we think of ourselves as being superior to them by both nature and exemplary behavior. Not so, said Paul. It is God’s grace that alone draws all of us into God’s presence. All people are God’s people, including those whose sexual orientation is not the “normal” (in quotes) orientation. Paul obviously didn’t say that, but in 2021 hope he might say it, were he here to make that point.
Then there is Galatians 3:19-29, which is even more of an analogy to how we should treat those whose sexual identity is unlike that of most of us. Paul was convinced of the primacy of faith. We must believe the right things if we are to do the right things. “Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith could be revealed” (Gal. 3:23). Might it be that until that Supreme Court decision in 2015, many people were under the impression that if they were straight, that’s all that really mattered, but now they see things in a new light? Might it be that Ls, Gs, Bs, Ts and Qs, who are not straight, are also fully children of God, and therefore they are fully our brothers and sisters?
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you Christ’s, then you are Abrahams’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:28-9).
All people who are born with every imaginable sexual orientation, and some orientations that are unimaginable to many people, are children of God! No one who is born under any conditions is excluded by God! All are in; no one is out!
The USA has come a long, long way in the past six years since that amazingly transformative Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage. We still have a long way to go to include everyone who theretofore was excluded, but we’re getting there; we’re getting there. Attitudes toward sex can divide us, but with love in our hearts and minds, they can also unite us.
Be kind; be kind; everyone is fighting a hard battle. That is especially true for all of God’s people who were not born “straight,” and for whom a different kind of life is the only kind of life they can possibly know.