REFLECTION TWO: WE EXIST IN GOD... yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Corinthians 8:6) This seems to be a sound starting point, from which to answer our questions concening matters of faith and sexuality.
If all things exist through God, then, from our modern perspective, our
sexuality derives from God, too, as it is part of our given, personal being.
The persistent claim, that God created people as heterosexual beings, derives
from a misunderstanding of Genesis. It reflects an androcentric, patriarchal
view that does not stand up to post-modern criticism. It is clear that
the ancient Hebraic understanding was that we are created in the image
of God, as relational, human beings, male and female. Any primacy given to heterosexual
relationships is a secondary association. This understanding is well developed
by Phyllis Trible. (See Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality)
Trible begins with Gen.1:1--2:4a and shows that "male and female"
(humankind) is presented in the text as being "created in the image of
God," where male and female form a unit comprising two creatures that are
distinct but harmonious equals. They have two responsibilities; procreation
and dominion as "male and female". Since the divine command to procreate
parallels the same command given to the fish of the sea and birds of the
heavens, who are not designated male and female, the text highlights the
uniqueness of humankind in creation, as created in "the image of God".
Thus masculine and feminine stereotypes are not imposed and the text gives
freedom to interpret male and female as unique beings. This interpretation
fully accommodates a post-modern understanding of sexuality, as a psycho-social
orientation, and allows for a full expression of male and female, without
stereotypes.
The notion of sexual identity as "male and female," is so tied rhetorically
to the metaphor of "image of God", that it does not serve to differentiate
sexual stereotypes but identifies the relational character of the human
beings. As the "image of God" they jointly bear a unique relationship to
God. This relationship stands on its own and is not dependent upon procreational
activity. Yet as single beings, their relationship to each other is implicit.
They are equals, regardless of role definition in terms of procreation
or any other mark of distinction. It is in our capacity to create loving relationships that we bear the image of God.
In unfolding her interpretation of Gen. 2-3, Trible dispels arkhonic
notions regarding the explicit
and implicit meanings of the text. She describes the narrative as the development
of Eros (love of life), in four episodes of a love story, that began with
the forming of the earth creature (ha-‘adam) and continued in the
planting of a garden, the making of animals, and the creation of sexuality.
The love story had gone awry however, when the fulfilment proclaimed when
’íš
and ’íššâ became one flesh, disintegrated through disobedience.
(Trible, P. God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. p144.)
The Song of Songs is seen to redeem this love story, restoring
Eros and enhancing the creation of sexuality in Genesis 2, and emphasising
equality and mutuality between man and woman as lovers. The main voice
of the Song is female. Thus Trible says, "Women, then, are the principal
creators of the poetry of eroticism."(Ibid. p.145) That is not to
say that the poetry of eroticism stays with women. We are all able to express
the joy of our sexual being, in the poetry of our own lives as well as
in words. In this way we celebrate the joy of erotic relationships, as
a response to the God-given gift of sexuality and erotic intimacy. Our
personal delight in love-making, our body's song or poetry, becomes a responsive
voice, that rises to God in joy and in gratitude. In this sense, love-making
transcends sexual gratification, to become a hymn of thanks and praise
to God, for the gift of our embodied selves. More than that, it celebrates
the relationship between the lovers, in the simple joy of sexual encounter.
That is why God's voice is absent in the Song, as it is in Gen.2, where
poetry of eroticism first appears and ha-‘adam says,
"This, finally, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. This shall be called ’íssâ (Woman) because from ’ís (Man) was differentiated this." (Gen.2:23) Trible's interpretation is post-modern and inclusive. It is not only
erotic, but traces God's initial blessing of harmony, pleasure and fulfilment
in the creation of sexuality, as being prior to the actualisation of procreational
applications to sexuality. In the Song, the seeking of one's lover finds
harmony of encounter and fulfilment in sexual embrace. Sexuality is thus
celebrated in the longing, the pursuit and the embrace. The focus is delight
and joy in relational connectedness. I can appropriate that spirit, for
it is the spirit of mutuality and relational activity that not only celebrates
life but also makes God present in the world, through love-making. It is
relational connectedness that lifts human sexual relationships above those
of the animals.
Love-making possibilities re-envision our own sexuality as well as re-vision God, as an erotic God, full of life and passion. Sexual activity is a relational process of making erotic connections. It is God-given and blessed. The connection of sex and sexuality with The Fall has denigrated sexual activity, robbing it of its blessedness. Through mutual sex we experience personal communication, intimacy,
the harnessing of desire and sexual truth. We touch our own erotic strength
and liberate that of our partner. We share erotic power, transcending the
self in the full inclusiveness of love-making. In this way it is also justice-doing,
for it empowers the other. Carter Heyward expresses this dynamic empowerment
as "godding", presenting 'god' not an abstract noun but as a verb, an active principle, pointing
to the existential-ontological truth of God's erotic activity. Of this, carter Heyward says:
"Godding, we experience our personal lives as profoundly connected
at the root of who we are, rather than as separate and disconnected from
our professional lives and from one another's places of deepest meaning.
Godding, we share how we really feel about our body selves-in-relation,
in our living and working, our living and dying. We share, we act, we are
together."( Carter Heyward, I., Touching Our Strength:" p.189-190.)
Gay and lesbian Christians apply a hermeneutic that seeks to interpret
the Scriptures from a position of erotic justice-seeking, interlocked with
resistance, conflict and a quest for liberation. Through critical hermeneutics
of suspicion, we see all biblical texts as social constructions of heterosexist,
androcentric, patriarchal culture and history. ( Goss, R. Jesus Acted
Up. p.88.) We uncover nuances of same-sex relationships, with new sensitivity
and celebrate the intense love relations that we recover in those relationships.
(Boswell, J., Christianity, Social tolerance, and Homosexuality.
p105.) Saul and David, Jonathan and David, Ruth and Naomi, the Centurion
and his slave boy, Jesus and the Beloved Disciple speak to us from our own experience,
just as Hagar, Tamar and Jephthah's daughter speak to feminist theologians
from the position of rejected, raped and sacrificed women. We appropriate
feminist interpretations and launch our own, queer interpretive model.
We see God's revelation in the lives of the oppressed and interpret the
Bible as revealing God's praxis of compassion, justice, and freedom for
the oppressed. (Ibid., p. 90)
This existential and biblical understanding of revelation and faith
opens up the way to new meaning, through God active in the lives of people,
bringing justice for all. In this erotic way we celebrate our existence
by imaging or making known the God through whom we exist, draw our solidarity
and make our relational connections. The God known to feminist and gay
and lesbian Christians is a passionate God, ( Carter Heyward, Touching
Our Strength, p.71) whose passion is for life that is expressed in
a spirituality of connectedness, of mutuality and of justice-making. The
Spirit of this God moves within gay and lesbian Christians to affirm them
as relational beings, created in the image of God. The same Spirit also
provokes the church, through its queer members, to address the moral deficits
that its structures have created. Like black Christians, Latin American
Christians and Feminist Christians, homosexual Christians are participating
in the modern work of the Spirit, in converting the church to the practice
of justice. Matthew's Gospel teaches us that the proper test of Law is
its capacity for justice and mercy (Matt.12:1-8). If the Law does not promote
justice and mercy, it needs to be put aside, as Jesus demonstrated, repeatedly.
The one model of the church that has the potential to be free from oppressive structures, is the image of the "body of Christ." As Andrew Dutney has written: "In the devotion to God which grows from a spirituality of connection and which is expressed in the practice of solidarity, being Christian is necessarily communal. Being Christian involves identification with the community of the Spirit, the body of Christ, the people of God, the church. However, this 'church' has come to have uncertain, diaphanous boundaries." ( Dutney, A., Food Sex & Death. p.166.) Exploring the meaning of the 'body of Christ', as used by Paul, will
also explore the "diaphanous boundaries" of church inclusivity. For if
all are one in Christ, there is also no longer differentiation according
to sexuality. That means there is a new relationship in Christ, grounded
in the love and grace of God. It is the quality of the relationship that
ought to determine ethical standards and questions of acceptability and
not arbitrary division, according to sexual preference for one sex act
or another, or for one type of relationship over another. Humanity is diverse
and rich. Part of that human richness finds expression in gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgendered experience, just as it does within heterosexual expereince.
Where love is experienced and relationships are built upon mutuality and care for each other, in good faith, the partners to that love are already following the ethic of Jesus, to love one another (John 13:34-35). They are already his disciples. Can such ones be excluded simply because their love is homosexual? Not if one understands the Gospel as being inclusive, one can't: no way! REFERENCES John Boswell, Christianity, Social tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century. (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980.) Carter Heyward, Touching Our Strength: The Erotic as Power and the Love of God. (Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1989.) Gary David Comstock, Gay Theology Without Apology. (The Pilgrim Press, Cleveland, Ohio, 1993.) Andrew Dutney, Food Sex & Death: A Personal Account of Christianity. (Uniting Church Press, Melbourne, 1993.) Robert Goss, Jesus Acted Up: A Gay and Lesbian Manifesto. (Harper, San Francisco, 1994.) Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. (Fortress Press. Philadelphia, 1978.) wla 6/98; 5/2004 Glossary
 In the other reflections, I explore the questions raised above, by looking at Old Testament models of the 'image of God' and Pauline visions of inclusivity under the grace of God, in Christ.  
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