June 8, 2019 Liz
A week before writing this I was prompted by a sermon to consider how the epistle of Jude might apply to me, in particular to ask myself whether I am most like the author (Jude himself), the recipients (a Christian community), or the subject of his letter (certain individuals). The sermon seemed to cast me in the role of a certain individual (v. 4), those against whom the community was urged to contend for the faith. The selections of Jude chosen for the sermon emphasized scoffing, divisiveness, the lack of the Holy Spirit, and the denial of Jesus’ Lordship. To be fair, the speaker acknowledged that it is hard to directly apply this passage to present-day circumstances and find clear heroes and villains.
"Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord."
What I have learned about my sexuality and embraced in my marriage is what some members of my denomination will call disordered, and others would (if pressed) call unnatural and ungodly. People like me are the ones disagreeing with the denomination’s documents, policies, and actions. We are the ones this speaker likely holds responsible for the risks of division, and we seemed to be the ones against whom faithful Christians were meant to contend for the faith. Coming from the pulpit of a church I have attended for nine years, during worship with a community who has supported my family through hard times and tentatively embraced us despite our recent change, this was a blow. Our lead pastor’s history of reminding us that all are beloved and welcome by God– regardless of age, gender, wealth, and political views– had never been extended to sexual orientation or gender identity, but this, coming from someone filling the pulpit in the lead pastor’s absence, was different.
When I worship, I do not hesitate to examine myself. My fundamentalist upbringing, with multiple weekly altar-calls, left me with an anxiety about my state before God that a decade in my chosen denomination has only mostly mitigated. I am still very quick to ask whether I exhibit the sins described in the text, whether I have failed to love my God or my neighbor. In this case, the sermon’s 2 was clear, and my own 2 is out there for my whole church to see; the resulting 4 was public and heart-breaking and weighed me down so that I wept openly for half the service. Never have I tried to join in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper with so much pain. The speaker pulled her punches a bit, but Jude does not, and I could read the rest of the text.
So: does the interpretation apply? Am I one of Jude’s certain individuals? Here is what I can gather about this class of people, the subject of his letter:
So am I a certain individual?
I don’t scoff; I weep. I worship no other God; I claim Jesus Christ as my Sovereign and Lord. In fact, I used to pray to God mostly as Father, but lately I have been drawn more and more to pray to Jesus Christ as a Savior. For a year and a half I have been on the verge of slipping quietly away from my community, anticipating that my faithfulness to a marriage ill-at-ease with the traditional position has rendered my spiritual gifts and willingness to serve an inadequate offering.
I certainly didn’t slip into the community secretly. After attending for a couple weeks I was recruited to serve on the long-range planning commission, and the same night volunteered to fill an empty council position. I joined the church and was officially voted onto council during the same meeting. I served on the revitalization team, where I suggested we adopt what became our new mission statement, “Loving God, Loving Neighbor.” During my second term on council, this time as president, I came to realize that my bisexuality and new understanding of my marriage would likely disqualify me from lay leadership, according to the same Board of Ordered Ministry document by which Judy Peterson had just had her credentials suspended. Fearful of rejection and division, Ellie and I had planned to slip away from the community quietly. The number of people upset at Judy’s situation caused us to instead remain quietly. But we waited for our family pastor’s ordination to be complete, and we waited for Ellie’s interim staff position and my term as council term to end, before we felt like we could share our stories publicly. We were afraid of jeopardizing the family pastor’s credentials or the church’s ministry.
I will confess that we often eat with Christians at the midweek church meal and feed only ourselves. We don’t have much to offer financially. My family’s income has remained close to the poverty line, with the exception of Ellie’s two periods as interim worship director. My anxiety and depression surrounding church-related matters has spiked since my service as Council President ended, and since then I fear I have contributed little by way of water, fruit, or light to the ministry of the church. Encouraged to step down from council and take time to be cared for by the church after coming out, I held out and kept my council position of member-at-large, only to fail at maintaining the morale I needed to actually attend meetings. I told myself it was because Ellie worked council evenings and we had no childcare, but neither did I have the heart to seek it out.
Am I like Balaam? I am certainly not determined to curse God’s people for the sake of money, as Balaam initially was. The people I have spoken with in my own church and at the 2018 annual meeting tended to respond with either a conviction that the denomination could not survive this conflict, or a prayer for my pain and hope for God’s people to love well. I myself have hoped that we could remain in fellowship despite our differences of belief. I will never ask that pastors perform weddings or congregations hire against their convictions. I would ask instead that each Christian identifying as a sex or gender minority be granted space to work out their own faith and follow the Spirit’s leading, and that they not be denied opportunities to serve using their Spirit-given gifts in congregations where they are welcome. Unlike Balaam, I have little to gain from this; I am not leading anyone into sin for money’s sake, or boasting or flattering for my own benefit.
In my conversations with church members I have found some faults in the denominational leadership; because my objections are inextricably entwined with differences of belief and practice, I consider myself a faithful dissenter. I am not, however, unbelieving or murderous like Cain, and I certainly haven’t “polluted my body” in an attempt to abuse celestial beings, rejecting their authority as the people of Sodom and Gamorrah did in their attempted rape. I have been critical of human leaders. I may, in fact, be like Korah, whom Jude cites for his rebellion against Moses. As a Levite, Korah had a small measure of authority, but challenged Moses for more, saying that the whole congregation was holy and the Lord was among them (Numbers 16:3).
Peter’s first epistle claims that each follower of Christ is a priest, an idea which is firmly embedded in the Protestant tradition and the beginnings of the Covenant. I am deeply concerned that the authority of lay leaders has been diminished, with power being concentrated instead in the hands of our superintendents and departments and boards. Christ alone is Lord; the Spirit alone leads. My convictions of the Spirit’s leading bear a weight in the New Testament era that Korah’s power-grab couldn’t. My willingness to question the decisions of human leaders could, however, be construed as a slandering of things I don’t understand by those whose understanding differs from mine.
So where does this put me? Eating without giving back, finding fault with leadership, yes. Slipping in secretly, denying Christ as Lord, scoffing, cursing God’s people for money, no. Not yet examined: a destructive, animalistic understanding, and the possibility of using God’s grace as license for sexual immorality.
According to Jude, the understanding of these certain individuals is animalistic, irrational and instinctive, and will destroy them. They are divisive, follow mere natural instinct, and do not have the Spirit. They speak defiance against God and commit ungodly acts. They are ungodly and pervert God’s grace into a license for immorality.
I claim that I am committed to scripture and its principles, that Jesus is my Savior and Lord, and that I follow the conviction of the Spirit with regard to my marriage and sexuality. I further lay claim to a spiritual and ecclesiological tradition in which differences of belief and practice have been respected. But scripture makes it clear that many people claim to be followers of Christ, faithful believers, when in fact they are not. Jesus said in Matthew 7 that not everyone who calls Jesus “Lord” and claims to have done his work will actually enter his kingdom.
What scriptural basis, then, do I have for thinking that what I believe is faithfulness and conviction is not actually irrational, animalistic instinct, immoral, ungodly, and destructive? Turning to other scriptures for help, Jude’s certain individuals sound much like the false prophets Jesus referenced when he said that they are wolves in sheep’s clothing; Jesus said you would know them by their fruit. Jude’s language is also echoed in 2 Peter 2, where false teachers blaspheme and deceive, carouse in broad daylight, are full of adultery and seduce the unstable, and are so greedy that like Balaam they would contradict God’s word for money. The scoffers in 2 Peter claim that Christ’s second coming is nothing to worry about.
Better scholars than I have well interpreted the “spirit vs. flesh” lesson of Galatians 5 to be about sinful desires vs. God-honoring lives. The Spirit’s fruit in my life should be some evidence for whether I am led by the Spirit or a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I would argue that my marital faithfulness throughout my spouse’s historical depression, transition, and our ongoing mutual growth is an argument for the fruit of the Spirit. I would submit that hormone replacement therapy has provided healing and brought an unprecedented degree of joy and peace in her life, as well as forbearance, kindness, and gentleness between the two of us and towards our children. Our marriage is characterized by sexual faithfulness; we are gentle with one another and practice mutual submission born of love and a desire for the other’s well-being. We are chaste, honoring our marital vows.
I would further argue that the love, care, and support I offer other LGBTQ+ individuals in my life is characterized by love, kindness, and faithfulness. My love of my queer neighbor leads to taking her in for days at a time to prevent suicide. This is sacrificial love; I do not “indulge the flesh.” There is no debauchery, no orgies, no idolatry, drunkenness, fits of rage, or selfish ambition. I have the same high regard for faithful marriage as I ever did, albeit I am now open to the idea that God’s spirit may lead some to marry their same sex/gender.
In truth, I’m hardly an activist. My conviction runs as far as to say that in my own life I experience sexual attraction to my same gender, and that in the context of my marriage vows I believe that to be God-honoring. The clearest word I have from scripture is Jesus’ teaching that what God has joined together, we ought not to separate. I have read enough of the arguments and interpretations of those who believe that God can bless same-sex marriages to regard scripture as less-than-straightforward on the topic. My conviction on this goes as far as my own marriage; with that conviction is an unwillingness to judge others’ sense of the Spirit’s leading.
And what of sexual immorality? Balaam listened to the donkey, and eventually prophesied blessing on Israel. This was shortly before the Israelite men and Moabite women engaged in sexual rituals in service of Baal, ending with a plague striking the people an Israelite priest slaughtering a heterosexual couple. God’s blessing, prophesied by Balaam, only came because people rejected this sexually-driven Baal worship.
If there is some argument to be made for a New Testament perspective permissive of gay marriage, I believe it may be grounded in the Jerusalem Council’s letter to the Gentiles in Acts 15. Sexual immorality along with sacrificial meat, blood, and strangled animals was to be rejected because it distinguished between those who worshiped God and those who worshiped idols. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and the Jerusalem council not to burden the Gentiles with anything beyond those requirements. They were, in short, to follow faithfully the first commandment given to Moses: to love and serve God alone.
Is this a case of God’s grace being perverted into a license for sexual immorality? Paul’s answer to any of the Corinthians who might say “I have the right to do anything” was that being united with a prostitute was a sin against one’s own body, which had been united with the Lord in the Spirit. Corinth was famous for its cult of Aphrodite and temple prostitution.
My wife is a believer, baptized in the Spirit. We were united in marriage before God, and refuse to separate. That our faith has remained intact, we believe, is a gift of God.
I think, perhaps, I am not a certain individual. I am willing to ask questions, to take issue with policies and actions, and to grieve. But I am not a scoffer, I am not rejecting my church, I am not “one of them,” the others, the certain individuals against whom faithful Christians will surely contend. I am one of you, a child of God, saved by the sacrificial love of Christ, led by the Spirit, loving God’s children.