Day 6 - Again with the Sex?
Living Christ Sangha - Advent Ango Practice Period
Readings
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Isaiah 3:8-15
1 Thessalonians 4:1-12
Luke 20:41-21:4
Reflection
Chapter 4 in 1 Thessalonians is the “moral living” chapter of the letter, and the first eight of its twelve verses focus on sex. The last four verses deal in tepid and cursory ways with loving one another, living quietly, minding our own affairs, and honest work.
The Bible speaks about moral living in myriad ways. It condemns greed, envy, injustice, ignoring the poor and vulnerable, gluttony, anger, self-righteousness, waging war, and many other wrongs. Yet far too many of today’s churches cling to and use its anachronistic writings about sex as the surrogate for sin. The Pauline writings in particular—which frequently feature (misunderstood) language about the “flesh”—have been misused for centuries to shame, oppress, and marginalize those who don’t fit into the tidy and culturally conditioned sexual categories that are labeled “normal.” This is blasphemous. It makes my blood boil. As an antidote to the harm I’ve both experienced and witnessed, I wrote my own apocalyptic warnings against the extraordinary sexual abuse that the churches have committed in the name of God.
Woe to you, all churches that take my Name in vain and misuse it to damage and destroy the lives of my sheep who don’t fit into your tiny, arid categories of acceptable love. You must repent!
Woe to you, Roman Catholic Church. You are mired in sexual myopia and proclaiming as doctrine teachings that bring pain, suffering, and brokenness to my sheep. For decades you abused young women and their babies in your Irish “Magdalen houses.” You afflict pain and suffering on couples who’ve realized they are better off apart than together. You seek to withhold the gift of family from those who aren’t able to conceive a child naturally. You force unnatural celibacy on all who hear my call to serve in your church. Your clergy have committed heinous and rampant sexual abuse of young people, and you’ve engaged in a decades-long deception to hide this abuse. What to me is your pious sacrifice of the Mass? You ignore the living Body of Christ in my people, preferring instead to revere it in the Eucharistic Bread. Your sabbaths and synods and jubilee years and calling of convocations have become a burden to me and I am weary of bearing them. You must repent!
Woe to you, transphobic and homophobic Protestant churches1, for you twist scripture to torture my LGBTQ+ sheep. You incite rejection and violence against these vulnerable souls. Your words cause them to be harassed and persecuted from all sides. You afflict my young people, who often live hidden and lonely lives, unknown and unsupported by family or friends. When they do come out, some are rejected by their own parents, causing them to flee into an unsafe and unwelcoming world. You help elect governments to deny them equal protection, and you encourage organizations and institutions to exclude them from full participation in our common life. You have scattered this flock, and you have laid intolerable burdens upon them. You must repent!
Wake up and turn around, before it is too late! You don’t speak for me, and you will not have the last word. You cannot block the power of my love. I myself will gather all the sheep of this flock out of all the barren places where you have exiled them. I will enfold them with love, and they shall no longer be filled with fear. I will affirm that their desires for connection are my gift. They will learn and deeply know that the body is the garden of the soul,2 and they will be made whole and enjoy happiness, harmony, and love.
Prayer
Incarnate God, guide us to turn away from narrow sexual bigotry and recognize the oneness of love in all its complex and myriad forms. Remind us continually that all things are eternally woven into your interbeing life and awaken us to this truth:
Defiled or immaculate
Increasing or decreasing
Are concepts that exist only in our mind
The marvelous reality of interbeing is unsurpassed.3
Amen.
I single out Protestants here because their rhetoric is more often deployed in ways that incite violence. Transphobia and homophobia definitely exist in the Roman Catholic Church, but the rhetoric with which it is usually expressed is less incendiary.
Quote from Angels in America, by Tony Kushner.
This short verse is a gatha, a poem used by Buddhist practitioners during a specified activity to maintain mindfulness. This one was written for recitation when using the restroom. It is by Thich Nhat Hanh, and the themes in it are from the Heart Sutra, a foundational text of Mahayana Buddhism that is recited daily in monasteries.