Preaching against the Nashville Statement on Sexuality; Preaching on Love

 

Galatians 3: 23-29 (NRSV)

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until 

faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until 

Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. 

But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for 

in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with 

Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there 

is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you 

belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the 

promise. 

Reflection: 

You may have heard this week about something called the Nashville Statement.

It is a statement that was put out this past Tuesday by a number of conservative

evangelical leaders who belong to the coalition of Biblical Sexuality.  In this 

statement, they have laid out their beliefs on human sexuality, including

 opposition to same-sex marriage and fluid gender identity. The national 

coalition put this statement of 14 articles out in response to what they are 

calling “an increasingly post-Christian, Western culture that thinks it can 

change God's design for humans.” In these 14 articles, these people have 

denounced everything from sex outside of marriage, to people who identify 

as homosexual or transgendered, to even declaring that marriage is solely for 

the purpose of reproducing children.

In a time when their country is reeling from natural disasters, these people 

thought the best use of a public platform was to denounce anyone other than 

straight men and women.

The day after this statement was given, Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber and her

congregation called “The House for all Sinners and Saints” put out a parallel 

statement called The Denver Statement (as that is where they are located). 

Here is a link for anyone who wants to read the whole thing, but just 

to give you an idea of what it says, these are a few articles from both the 

Nashville and the Denver Statements:

Article 1

(Nashville)WE AFFIRM that God has designed marriage to be a covenant,

sexual, procreative, lifelong union of one man and one woman, as 

husband and wife, and is meant to signify the covenant love between 

Christ and his bride the church.

WE DENY that God has designed marriage to be a homosexual, 

polygamous, or polyamorous relationship. We also deny that marriage is 

a mere human contract rather than a covenant made before God.

(Denver)

WE AFFIRM that God has created humanity out of love and for the purpose 

of love.

WE DENY that God intends marriage as a gift only to be enjoyed by those 

who happen to be heterosexual, cis-gendered and fertile.

Article 3

(Nashville) WE AFFIRM that God created Adam and Eve, the first 

human beings, in his own image, equal before God as persons, and 

distinct as male and female.

WE DENY that the divinely ordained differences between male and 

female render them unequal in dignity or worth.

(Denver)

WE AFFIRM that God created Adam and Eve, the first human beings, in 

God’s male & female image, and that all human beings share this image of 

God in common but express it differently in body and spirit. 

WE DENY that we as human beings can fully conceive of the glory of God’s 

image or rightfully believe our language can define its limits. Therefore, we 

deny those who do not conform to society’s gender norms are outside of 

some kind of “divine plan”.

And in this document this goes on for 14 articles.  Needless to say, there have 

been a lot of opinions on both sides of the arguments presented in the 

Nashville Statement. However, as our scripture today reminds us, we are all 

one in Christ, and the divisions that we as a society make for other people 

have not place in Christ’s Kingdom. 

Today in our Summer of Seuss series we have the book The Sneeches written 

in 1961.  It is a book that was written to teach children about 

discrimination, to show that thinking one person is better than another 

simply because of a simple characteristic is pointless. In fact this book even 

goes so far as to show how some people encourage the hating of people who 

are different because they can profit so much off of the hate – sound familiar

 today too?  

Dr. Seuss originally wrote this story with antisemitism in mind, as much of 

the world in 1961 was still full of divisions between Christians and Jews, 

though in this time period, racial segregation was also something that was also 

strongly being fought – unfortunately, this is still true today.   

In contrast with the Nashville Statement and The Sneeches though, today we 

hear from the apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians that God is calling us all 

to be one, and that through Christ Jesus we are all equal. As Paul writes, there 

are no more divisions, for neither Jew, nor Greek, nor free, nor Slave, nor men 

nor women – we are all one in Christ.  In Christ there are no distinctions, no one 

is better than another, and no one is worse in God’s eyes. For neither white 

nor black, nor Christian nor Jew, nor women or men, nor straight, gay, 

transgendered, or otherwise, there are no divisions in Christ.  God loves all 

of God’s children.  

This past week I have begun reading The Book of Joy written by Archbishop 

Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, and Douglas Abrams.  In this book I came 

across Desmond Tutu’s words on sexuality and God.  

At the launch of the Free and Equal campaign in Cape Town he said "I would 

refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. No, I would say sorry, I mean I would 

much rather go to the other place," "I would not worship a God who is 

homophobic and that is how deeply I feel about this."

Archbishop Tutu said the campaign against homophobia was similar to the 

campaign waged against racism in South Africa. "I am as passionate about 

this campaign as I ever was about apartheid. For me, it is at the same level," 

he added. (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-23464694)

“I can’t for the life of me imagine that God will say, ‘I will punish you 

because you are black, you should have been white; I will punish you 

because you are a woman, you should have been a man; I will punish you 

because you are homosexual, you ought to have been heterosexual.’ I can’t 

for the life of me believe that is how God sees things.” – Desmond Tutu

From a man who very well knows about the divisions we humans use, these 

are very strong and compelling words.  

We’ve been hearing about derision in the US, with respect to sexuality and 

especially lately between White Supremacists, and those who vehemently 

disagree with the beliefs of white supremacist. With today’s readings we are 

reminded that in God’s eyes all are equal – regardless of the colour of skin, or 

hair, or eyes, or gender, or sexuality, or any other way we humans have found 

to categorize people into tiny, little boxes. As Jesus reminds us in the Gospels, the 

greatest commandment is to love God and the 2nd is to love your neighbour as 

yourself.  End of sentence.  Jesus doesn’t say to love only our white neighbour, 

or only our heterosexual neighbour, or only your cis-gendered neighbour, or 

only our male neighbour, or even only our Christian neighbour.  We are to love 

and honour each and every neighbour in this world, for each person you meet 

is from God and made exactly in God’s image, made just as God intends them to 

be.  

It’s easy and feels good to point our finger at the United States and say how 

horrible they are with racism, and bigotry, but the truth is racism is all over the world, 

including Canada.  It might not be as blatant as we see south of the border, but 

it’s alive and thriving here – as acts in Quebec City again this week have 

shown us and the poverty seen in our Aboriginal brothers and sisters.

Today we are reminded of our call from God to be united as one in this world, 

not to divide, we are called to love, not to hate.  

There are people hurting all over our world right now because of the hate that 

comes from the forcing of divisions where God sees none.  We are the people 

of Jesus Christ and with that comes a responsibility to be faithful followers 

spreading Jesus’ love to all.  While it may be easier to stand quietly by while 

others preach hate and division, we are called by Jesus Christ to be brave and 

to love our neighbour with our actions as well as with our words. So we can 

stand by while others are being emotionally hurt and often violently hurt by 

these divisions, or we can follow Christ’s lead to be outspoken against hate 

and divisions; to preach Jesus’ words of love and acceptance of all differences. 

We can be the welcoming people we proclaim ourselves to be, embrace those 

who are being hurt by the church today, and stand with them against those who 

would throw stones and hateful words.  

Today and every day let us remind the world that Jesus came into our world 

because God loves the world, that Jesus came to show us how to love one 

another, to love each and every single person, no matter what may seem 

different, for we are all one in Christ Jesus, today and always.  Let us stand 

strong together in our preaching of love and acceptance against the hate and 

rejection that others preach. 

“But McBean was quite wrong. I’m quite happy to say.

That the Sneetches got really quite smart on that day.

The day they decided that Sneetches are Sneetches.

And no kind of Sneetch is the best on the beaches.

That day, all the Sneetches forgot about stars and whether

They had one, or not, upon thars.” (The Sneeches)

Thanks be to God who is bigger and better than we can even begin to imagine. 

Amen.