First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis

Sex and Superstition

All human beings live their lives somewhere on a continuum between safety and risk. Some of us - like me - gravitate to the safe end of the spectrum. We like things to be reliable, familiar, secure; we are easily made anxious; we like to know what's going on, and we prefer our universe to be orderly. At the other end of the polarity are the folks who find my comfort zone intolerably boring. They like the rush of adrenaline and the lure of the unknown; they prefer the possibility that something unexpected will happen, and they don't mind confronting danger in the service of adventure. But of course, whatever the tendency of our particular personality, each of us has both needs in order to create a truly fulfilling life. We all need enough novelty and creative tension to keep us alive, to challenge our resources and stimulate our problem solving capabilities. At the same time, we all need a sense that our world has some dependable rules, and that we are at least to a certain extent in control of what happens to us. Not only do we each have both of these needs, even though our preferences vary from one individual to another, but cultures and societies also need both of these elements in order to function well. A society without some degree of stability becomes chaotic, disintegrates into anarchy; but a culture without new ideas and creative thinking becomes stagnant and eventually anachronistic.

This polarity has confronted human civilization from the beginning, and it is with us still today. I want to suggest this morning that when we are made anxious as individuals, when we perceive more risk and change in our environment than we feel comfortable with, we often respond by reaching for greater control. The more it feels like some external forces are determining your future, and the less it seems that you have to say about it, the more likely you are to want control over *something*, even something relatively unimportant, or unrelated to the actual content of your fears. And it looks to me as though this principle applies at the larger level as well. The more free-floating anxiety there is within a given community or culture, the more change or challenge that is being confronted, the greater will be the collective interest that group is going to have in finding things to control - even if that control doesn't always make a lot of sense in the circumstances. I'm thinking that this applies not only to our contemporary culture here in the United States in the early years of the 21st century, but also to the society in which some of the texts of the western religious traditions' scriptures were originally formulated. In ancient Israel, as well as in modern America, a lot was going on, and the powers that were supposedly in charge didn't feel very secure about it. One of the places we often go with that sort of anxious need for more control, is to the issue of sexuality. In order to get a better handle on the problems that confront us in our own day, we might find it useful to trace the roots of some of our historic perceptions about what constitutes a well-ordered culture of human sexuality.

This is urgent in part because one way that the anxiety of cultural change in our own day, partly from the attacks of 9/11 but mostly from more organic and subtle causes, is currently expressing itself is through efforts to impose a rather rigid structure on the possibilities of sexual relationships and sexual self-expression. The coming spring session of the Minnesota state legislature will make the third year in a row that Minnesotans have been confronted with a proposed constitutional amendment to ban marriage, civil unions, and all other forms of legal recognition for same-sex couples. We are all no doubt aware of the current turmoil in the Roman Catholic church, as the new pope moves to eliminate practices of welcome and toleration that have evolved particularly within the American Catholic community. And of course, many of the main line Protestant denominations in this country continue to be convulsed by political efforts to force either supporters or opponents of openly gay clergy out of those movements. While I would suggest that the current general climate of intolerance and crisis is a function of a larger cultural unease, it is also clear that it is being legitimated by reference to what the Bible says, or allegedly says, about sexuality in general, and homosexuality in particular. If we as liberals would seek to be a voice of calm and reason in this conversation, it behooves us to understand the source of these claims, and how they may best be understood within the context of their own times.

Accordingly, I want to spend a moment exploring what it is that the Bible actually says, even though it may carry no authority for us personally one way or another. The first important fact to grasp is that the Bible has no word for homosexuality, and no understanding of what we would today call sexual orientation as an enduring facet of an individual's character. It recognizes the existence of male homosexual actions, and male as well as female prostitution, but nowhere does it address or consider the existence of on-going, mutually consensual, emotionally fulfilling, sexually active relationships between two people of the same gender.

The next significant understanding in dealing with the Hebrew scriptures in particular, is that they are produced by a culture that is itself highly anxious, and striving to achieve a higher level of control over the world. The writings that we commonly refer to as the Old Testament consist of an extended series of arguments about how this very small nation in a highly vulnerable location surrounded by menacing superpower neighbors might best sustain itself in some state of freedom and unique identity. Part of why the society was anxious was that they constituted a thin veneer of conquering power over the indigenous inhabitants of the land that they proclaimed their god to have given to them. The native Canaanite culture was present everywhere they turned, and it had any number of attractive features, including long established religious cults. Many of the rules about what was pure or proper for the Israelites are developed from opposition to the religious practices of the indigenous people. For instance, we know from archeology that both pigs and snakes were sacred in some of the goddess cults of the early fertile crescent; both pigs and snakes are unclean for the Jews. "Seething the kid in its mother's milk", which may have been a ritual meal in some of the fertility religions, gives rise to the Hebrew prohibition against mixing meat and dairy foods. The sun and the moon were regarded as deities in some traditions; the opening chapter of Genesis manages to make it clear that the Jewish god created both of them, without ever actually mentioning the nouns 'moon' or 'sun'. And so on it goes. One of the ways in which this beleaguered society attempted to exert some control over its world was by trying to maintain a clear and absolute differentiation between their religion and the practices of the people who had lived in the land before them, and who lived and worshiped there still. The laws of ritual purity were intended to support this crucial distinction, clearly identifying all those actions which risked looking, sounding, or feeling like something that the indigenous people did in their religion. It's sort of like one of my favorite how many UUs does it take to change a light bulb? joke. The answer is, none; they do that in other churches. Well, the ancient Hebrews took that reasoning seriously; whatever those people did in the Canaanite fertility cults, was strictly off limits to the Jews; it was disloyal, impure, disgusting - the favored translation in many English version is the word 'abomination.'

Today we are likely to think of something that is abominable, or an abomination, as having a quality of ethical evil - and in fact, some of the things that the Hebrew scriptures identify as un-Jewish, as defiling for the people of Israel, we would indeed find morally reprehensible - like having sex with your mother-in-law. There are other things that we might agree are 'yucky', but we wouldn't give them moral weight, such as touching a dead body, or coming in contact with menstrual fluids. Still other provisions merely leave us puzzled; what's wrong with growing two different crops in the same field, or wearing clothes made of two different kinds of fiber? Where would we be without our poly-cotton blends, after all? And if you don't like shrimp cocktail, fine, but it hardly constitutes an abomination in our modern eyes.

It is in this context that one must examine the scriptural statements concerning homosexual activities. Take Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, for example. A word-by-word analysis of these two verses by the National Gay Pentecostal Alliance (NGPA), has shown that the passages in their literal original do not prohibit all same-sex behavior; they do not even prohibit all male same-sex activities. They merely control where male-male intercourse is allowed. It cannot be performed in a woman's bed, because that location is sacrosanct. Only the woman, and under certain circumstances a man, may occupy it. Otherwise, a serious defilement would result.

The New International Version (NIV) currently translates Leviticus 18:22 as:

"Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable."

The New Living Translation (NLT) widens the translation to also include lesbians:

"Do not practice homosexuality; it is a detestable sin.

Imagine what would happen if some translator decided to be accurate to the original Hebrew and render this verse as:

"Two men must not engage in sexual activity on a woman's bed; it is ritually unclean."

By reading various translations of the Bible, generations of Christians have been conditioned to expect this verse to forbid all homosexual behavior -- or at least all male same-sex activity. They expect that it will be morally condemned as "an abomination" or at least as a "detestable" act. But the more literal translation does not prohibit male with male sexual behavior; it only limits where such acts can be performed. And it does not even say that this conduct, if done on a woman's bed, is to be morally condemned. It only says that it is ritually unclean, like coming near a dead body, or eating shellfish, or getting a tattoo. Modern readers would assume that such a new translation was distorting the original meaning of the passage in order to be politically correct and not offend gays and lesbians, when the reality is that the distortion has been built into our expectations by long-standing mis-translation.

Similar kinds of textual analyses of other passages long translated and generalized so as to condemn all homosexual activity are often equally intriguing. It is certainly clear that the Hebrew scriptures unequivocally forbid ritual temple prostitution as a form of spiritual practice, whether performed by men or women. They also disapprove of homosexual rape as a practice of war, although they appear to have very little objection when women are raped. And there is a sense in which any sexual practice, including masturbation, coitus interuptus, and even celibacy, as well as homosexuality, that does not result in pregnancy and children, is seen as irresponsible to the future of the community, and therefore deplorable. It should also be remembered that many sexual practices that we would likely find highly immoral and objectionable today are either implicitly approved or actively enjoined by these same scriptures. In short, the Bible is neither the guide to proper sexual practice, nor the unequivocal condemnation of homosexuality that many people claim it to be, or think that it is. And it is important that those perceptions be challenged, so that they are not left to reinforce the intolerance and prejudice of our own day.

There is a visible circularity in the argument when it takes this form: Why does the Bible condemn homosexuality? Because it's wrong. Why is it wrong? Because the Bible condemns it. If we can offer a more sophisticated response to the first question, we may be able to shift the terms of the conversation. Why does the Bible condemn homosexuality? Because of a concern for certain kinds of ritual purity, in order to distinguish the faith of the Israelites from the cults of their neighbors; this is both a more accurate and a more interesting answer, that might invite us to consider what issues of cultural identity and security are at stake for us, here in the 21^st century.

You are never likely to find me sky-diving, or playing for high stakes at the Treasure Island blackjack table, or joining the CIA; my personal tolerance for risk, change, and chaos is pretty low. And I do think that there is a great deal of uneasiness and shift in our cultural foundations just now - I still believe we have barely begun to fathom the relational and informational impact of computers and the internet, just for one example. There is a part of me that yearns for a more simple, predictable, secure world; for a shared moral order that wouldn't constantly require me to reason things out, or to advocate for potentially unpopular positions. But one thing I do know, and that is that there is little enough love in the world to fill the hunger of our hearts, and that the earnest promise of life long loyalty, trust, and mutual devotion, whatever the gender of the people making it, can never be other than holy. We have the opportunity, in this time of social ferment and shift, to create a new culture of acceptance, equality, and freedom for people of differing sexual orientations. We have available to us an unprecedented intellectual understanding of the biological and psychological bases of human sexuality; a level of knowledge that no society before ours has possessed. Our challenge is to bear witness to that knowledge and understanding in a way that will help others, each in their own ways baffled and anxious about the extent of the changes we must navigate together. Our sexuality is so close to the bone of our identities, of how we understand ourselves and others, and how we are supposed to relate to each other, that it can't help but become the focus of anxiety. Am I okay? Am I doing it right? If someone else does it differently, is that wrong? How are we to know how to answers these kinds of questions?

There is a classic Unitarian benediction that invites us to seek to live according to our hopes, rather than our fears. Never has that intention been more urgent than in regard to this issue, in these days. This morning, downstairs at the Ask Me table in the social hour, there is a petition sponsored by Outfront Minnesota, calling upon our legislators to preserve our state Constitution as a document guaranteeing the 'security, benefit, and protection' of all its citizens; to reject any proposed amendments that would diminish the civil or legal rights of homosexual couples. I invite you to add your signature, if you wish to stand in solidarity with our gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and trans-gender brothers and sisters and children and fellow-members of FUS. Our society is facing challenges, to be sure, but this is no time to let the superstitions of the past, or of the present, become our collective security blankets. To condemn authentic love and commitment between two people will not serve to make any body any safer; it never has, for it can not. And in the end, the safety and the moral order of our world must lie in our acceptance of one another as a path to spiritual growth. For truly, the only measure of our words and our deeds, will be the love we leave behind us when we're gone.

Closing words:

For human liberty and community;

For all who have labored and suffered for a fairer world,

Who have given of themselves that others might live in dignity and freedom,

We give thanks this day.

Let us strive to live not by our fears, but by our hopes;

Not by our words, but by our deeds,

That our lives may bear witness to peace, justice, and the transforming power of love.

Intro:

Welcome. Let us center ourselves,

And enter into this hour in a spirit of listening and appreciation.

Words of Gathering:

Love is the spirit of this church,

says one classic statement of Unitarian Universalism,

which continues,

and service is its law.

This is our covenant:

To dwell together in peace,

To seek the truth in love,

And to help one another.

Let us, here in this temple of the human spirit,

Gather together in love.

Let us learn to measure our lives by the law of service,

to dwell with one another ever more profoundly in peace,

and to seek the truth with integrity in the bonds of love.

Once again this morning we recognize the unusual confluence of holy days

For our neighbors of the Jewish and Islamic traditions.

In the spirit of Ramadan, let us examine our own obedience

To the sacred requirements of love and service that we, too, acknowledge.

In the spirit of the Days of Awe, let us turn our hearts again

Toward our true values; seeking reconciliation and offering forgiveness

For our mutual failures of fellowship and right relation.

In this hour of rest and reflection, let us refresh our spirits,

And renew our commitment to make real in our daily lives

The larger love that casts our fear, and makes all humanity one;

That love which is, in the end, the measure of our days

And our only lasting legacy.

May the flame we kindle in this chalice be for us a symbol

Of the power of love to warm our lonely hearts and light our way

On the journey toward the community of kinship and more abundant life.