Sex and the Spirit

Sex and the Spirit (or Rainbow Religion) A sermon on Genesis 9:8-17 by Dwight A. Moody Providence Baptist Church, Hendersonville NC   Within sight of Interstate 75 north of Lexington, Kentucky, at Williamstown, sits the replica of the ark as described in the Hebrew Bible. It was the brainchild of an Australian immigrant named Ken Ham. He had also built the Creation Museum a few miles away. Who knows why he chose Kentucky for these two testimonies to a literal and narrow reading of the Bible. You can stop there on your way to Cincinnati and take a tour. Joshua Bledsoe did that a few years ago. The ark represents one of the most famous stories in the Bible.  It is one of the most famous stories in world literature. It is one of the first we teach the children; often children’s space in church or home has a mural; in that mural is the ark, the animals, and the rainbow. Today, I take this story as my gospel text. Jesus himself used this story to preach his message of gospel and grace. In particular, I want to focus on that rainbow. It has made its mark, with July Garland singing “Somewhere over the rainbow.” Kris Kristofferson sings the song, “Here Comes That Rainbow Again.” And John Prine wrote and sang a song called “Sweet Revenge” that begins, “I got kicked off of Noah’s Ark.” I. The rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant with all living creatures, everything that has the breath of life. The is the first and most expansive of the covenants. Later, God establishes a covenant with the Hebrew people.  Then God establishes a New Covenant with those connected by faith to Jesus, the Risen Lord. Last week, we celebrated the Lord’s Supper; you recall that some of the words associated with that ceremony are these: Jesus said, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for you.” A covenant is God’s connection to some part of the created order. Here, the rainbow covenant, the most inclusive of all the covenants. It is God’s connection with all people and with all creatures. The rainbow is a gospel message from God. It says to all of us: I created you. I care for you. I will protect you. This is a message the world needs to hear today. God created every human person and even every animal. This rainbow message is the gospel that Jesus preached. Today, we need to emphasize that God has a covenant with all the people of the world: red and yellow, black and white; Christian, Jewish, Muslim and every other religion. North American and South American, European and Asian, African and Australian. We are all one human race, created by God, beloved by God, protected by God, promised by God. This is the gospel. II. This rainbow covenant is the most inclusive covenant described in the Bible. It includes everyone. We need this gospel word because we humans have been in the business of excluding people from the care and concern of God. We segregate people according to language and color and religion. We have judged others who speak differently, look different, and worship different. The rainbow contradicts us—we who prefer this color to that, this religion to that, this culture to that. God created everybody, loves everybody, sent Jesus as savior for everybody, protects everybody, sent the rainbow as a sign for everybody. From the beginning, people use the idea of God, and covenant, and election to divide people: divide those on the inside from those on the outside, those elected and those damned, those included and those excluded, those judged approved and those judged disapproved. This is at the core of most religions, including our own. This began very early in the Biblical narrative. Sarah was approved but Hagar was sent away. Jacob was favored, but Esau was ignored. Isaiah the prophet railed against this spirit of segregation, prophesying a time when the foreigner and the eunuch would be as welcome as the circumcised and the mother and father. Later, those who were carried away into captivity in Babylon were considered true Israelites, but those who remained behind in the land and came to be known as Samaritans were considered half breeds and unfit for the temple. In the time of Jesus, there were many categories of unclean and unwelcome. Zaccheus was drawn to Jesus and his teaching and climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus, but Zaccheus and his brand of people were outcasts. Jesus said to Zaccheus, “I want to go to your house today.” “He eats with publicans and sinners,” they said of Jesus when he crossed these boundaries. This they meant as judgment and condemnation. A highlight in the book of Acts of the Apostles is Simon Peter’s vision of the animals. The Hebrew/Jewish tradition even distinguished between the animals: some were clean, and others were foul, some could be eaten and other not. Simon Peter had a vision in which he was invited to eat but he refused because the animals in the vision were unclean. God rebuked him, and the great apostle summarized it this way, “I now perceive that I am not to call something unclean that God has called clean.” It was the pivotal point in opening the Christian community to non-Jewish people. Shinning against this constant segregation of those on the inside and those on the outside is the rainbow. The Word declares that it signifies God’s covenant, God’s care, God’s protection upon all living things, all people, even all the animals. This is the rainbow covenant. This is the rainbow community. This is the rainbow promise. This is rainbow religion. Jesus was a rainbow redeemer. This is what we celebrate today. III. Years ago, the gay community seized upon this truth and embraced the rainbow covenant. For much of my life, the rainbow has been the sign of the gay community. A movement foreign to me—the movement for gay and lesbian rights—commandeered an image very familiar to me. Some people have taken offense at this. In fact, many people are double offended. First, they are offended by gay life itself. Second, they are offended by the theft of the rainbow. Let me expand upon this a bit. The rise of the gay community is part of the sexual revolution of the last half century. Once upon a time, sexual ethics was simple and straightforward: sexual activity is for married people, between a man and a woman. Not before marriage, not outside of marriage, not even after marriage. Certainly not between two women or two men. But the 1960s brought the revolution of sex, drugs, and rock and roll—then the pill! For many people, sex was disengaged from pro-creation and also from marriage. All of a sudden, pandora’s box was open, the genie was out of the bottle, and the rules no longer applied. Sex was everywhere and, it seemed, all the time. Straight sex and gay sex. Religious people of all kinds struggled to reframe sexual ethics. What is right, and why? What is wrong, and why? In the church, two things happened: first, the rise of purity culture. Young females, in particular, were pressured to remain pure until marriage: no sexual activity, in many places, not even simple signs of romance (like holding hands and kissing). Second, sexual abuse. In homes, families, and churches all of this suppressed sexuality found expression in unhealthy and illegal ways. The Roman Catholic Church was the first to deal with this; but in more recent days, the Southern Baptist Convention has been forced to come to terms with this reality. Just ten days ago, a Baptist minister in Greensboro was arrested by federal agents. While a professor at Southwestern 2Baptist Seminary just a few years ago, he mishandled a sexual abuse case, falsified documents, and then lied to the FBI. He is in real trouble. The seminary dismissed him; he evidently did not tell the North Carolina pastor search committee. The church hired him in February of this year; last week, the church put him on leave. Sexual scandal is everywhere. Sexual confusion is everywhere. Sexual conflict is everywhere: in the private behavior in our homes and also in the public policies of churches, conventions, and courts. III. In the midst of these decades of confusion, remarkable things have happened. Churches like Providence embraced the gay community and gay people. Ministers like me have found themselves in totally new pastoral situations. Never in my wildest imagination did I think of culminating my ministerial career with a congregation of gay and straight people. My testimony is this: praise God and thank you Jesus! And finally, the rainbow: instead of being a sign of community and inclusion, it has become a sign of contention, of struggle, of condemnation, of offense. In some places, the gay community has seized the rainbow and sought to own it. The rainbow was everywhere yesterday at the Pride Picnic. One of the first persons I met at the picnic is a woman who has attended flourish. She recognized me and said hello. We talked about that ark in Kentucky. “I was there,” she said. “I loved the ark itself, but their gift shop was all about rescuing the rainbow from the gay community.” The tussle to control the rainbow is a sign of our times: a sign of confusion, of contention, of conflict, of the lack of community. It is a sign of misunderstanding. I love the rainbow. I want to receive it as God’s gift to all living things: people of all kinds and colors and animals of all shapes and sizes. The rainbow is God’s promise to all of us: I see you. I love you. I redeem you. I forgive you. I protect you. I welcome you. This is the good news that Jesus declared over and over again.  Jesus would have been the star attraction at the Pride Picnic yesterday, not condemning people but loving people. I love this rainbow religion. This the true kingdom of God. This is the work of the Spirit. This is Jesus religion. This is beloved community, where the lamb lays down with the lion, and people of all tribes and traditions care for one another. I love this rainbow religion because it includes and empowers all people: the black and the white, the male and the female, the gay and the straight, the orthodox and the heretic, even the Jew and the Palestinian, the Russian and the Ukrainian, and the citizen and the refugee. This is my religion: rainbow religion. Then God said, I have set my rainbow in the clouds. It will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. When the rainbow appears, I God will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between me and all living creatures of every kind on the earth. Rainbow religion. That’s for me. How about you?