The Gap in the Sermon on the Mount

And Jesus said unto them, "You have heard that it has been said, ‘You shall not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination.’ But I say to you, if two men or two women come to the congregation and say that they wish to be united in marriage, fulfilling all the responsibilities expected thereof, so be it. Bless and support this union just as you would a union of a man with a woman."

Now before you get too scandalized by this, I am sure you realize that I am just making up a hypothetical scenario to add to the Sermon on the Mount. However, would it not have been a lot easier if Jesus had given us such a clear command? Of course, he could have also given us a command to carry on with that Leviticus 18:22 proscription, but he never did. Indeed, although he got asked about divorce and marriage, he never is recorded as having been asked about non-heterosexual issues.

So, what do we do when we don't have clear guidance from the Lord himself according to what is quoted in Scripture. I think we have to look at what Jesus said about the other commands of The Law he did, if you will, change. At the same time, he said he came to fulfill The Law, so how does that add up? To answer that, we have to look at what God and Jesus are all about as we understand it from Scripture.

In the 1st place, according to the biblical account, God is about creating order, beauty (everything was created good) and diversity (this not only happened in Genesis 1 to 2 but was reinforced in Genesis 11, the story of the Tower of Babel). Nowadays, with the LGBTQ umbrella, we have a lot of diversity in this area. Is there order? Not so much. There is a lot of chaos in this non-heterosexual world, but much of that is because we, the so-called straight society, have driven them underground and removed normal options of order, such as committed monogamous relationships, from them. Much of that is because of our society’s, including the church, tendency to reject these individuals unless they measure up to certain standards. We basically want them to repent of who they are and how they live. Is that good?

God is also about love, but that does not exist in a vacuum. It is love in voluntary committed relationship, whether that is our relationship to God as redeemed sinners, or to one another as married couples or members of a family or community. Indeed, Jesus summed up The Law as loving the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself, which was already stated in the Old Testament.

If we accept that the bottom line for God is a loving relationship, for which we believe he created us, who are we to deny individuals this just because they are different than us? If we accept these brothers and sisters who are Christians as being able to live in fulfilled relationships as we do, we would be fulfilling God's laws of order, beauty/goodness and love.

THE BEATITUDES I

THE BEATITUDES

Introduction

After completing an introductory 14-unit study with 10 units on The Ten Commandments, the Bible’s Old Testament laws believed to have been given by God to the prophet Moses some 3500 years ago, for an ESL Bible class I was teaching some time ago, I went on to the New Testament. I said that I thought it would now be a good comparison to turn to a message Jesus Christ gave as recorded in The Gospel according to Matthew. I am referring to the so-called Sermon on the Mount, chapters 5 – 7. This is often regarded as the greatest summary of Jesus teaching. It is also noteworthy for its linking, its connecting, of what the Hebrew people called The Law, which I had just written on, to what he was teaching. Some scholars think these chapters are not one message or sermon but a collection of Jesus' teachings from several different times and places. Does that really matter? It's the content that counts.

The Sermon begins with a well-known set of teachings that have become to be known as The Beatitudes, Matthew 5:1- 12:

  5:1 When he saw the crowds, he went up the mountain. After he sat down his disciples

  came to him. 

  5:2 Then he began to teach them by saying:

5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

5:4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5:5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.

5:7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

5:8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.

5:10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

5:11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely on account of me. 5:12 Rejoice and be glad because your reward is great in heaven, for they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.

We can't do justice to this passage, deal with it properly, by trying to discuss it all at once.  There is far too much here. For a start, let us just read over the verses and try to think what they might really mean, meditate on them with prayer. Then we'll go on to look into them further.