Relationships 
One of the problems with the debate in the Uniting Church is that it has been separated from the people! People have talked about homosexuality as though it was a thing, rather than about people. What is really at issue is people, and how it is appropriate for them to relate to each other. So we might ask what the bible says about relationships generally. Matthew 7:13-23 talks about how to know the people who are really following God: by their fruits you shall know them. Mark 9:38-40 is the story of some strangers using the name of Jesus. Jesus said whoever is not against us is for us. 1 Corinthians 13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal...... . 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. ..... 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. Philippians 2:1-5 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus Galatians 3:28-29 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. Galatians 5:14-15,18-23 the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, 'You shall love your neighbour as yourself.' 15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: illicit sexual behaviour, impurity, licentiousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
The basis of relationships within the church is love; ie wanting the best and seeking to do the best for each other, based on the way Christ lived. What is forbidden, or called sin, is actually the opposite of love. It is the violence, greed, and idolatry which destroys relationships with God and with other people. So the sin of stealing, for example, is rooted not so much in the act of stealing, but in what the act does to others and to the person who steals.
Previously I quoted Rosemary Radford Reuther, asking what is a moral sexual relationship? Radford Ruether said that this norm of sexual morality 'eliminates the neat boundaries between moral and immoral sex' based on gender and marriage. (38) She is basing her conclusions in part on what we can see in texts similar to those above. |