Straight marriage, the marriage between a man and a woman, is in serious trouble. Traditionally, the married relationship between males and females found its support and stability in social roles, customs and laws which made relatively secondary the type of direct personal relationship between the parties involved. But all these social supports are rapidly fading away. Clearly, genuine personal love between husband and wife as equals will be necessary to sustain the heterosexual family. In many American communities more than half of all straight marriages end in divorce. Once the children are born, sex frequently drops out of the married relationship. The inequality of the partners frequently leads to anger. And anger is the greatest anti-aphrodisiac going. The traditional model for straight marriage is the patriarchal model based on male superiority and female inferiority. Since women's liberation, there has been a seismic shift in the understanding of the relation of the sexes. Human love in its fullness can exist only between couples who see themselves total and equal to each other. Healthy human love should be love out of fullness and not out of need.
Another major problem with heterosexual marriage is that it is based on gender-identity images. But gender-identity images frequently play a dehumanizing and a depersonalizing role in our culture. If we assume that these heterosexual gender identity images constitute the total mature content of the human personality, serious consequences follow. They result in seeing the human individual, whether male or female, as essentially partial and incomplete. No human person is seen as complete in him or her-self, but as essentially dependent on the opposite sex for her or his completion. The male is required to suppress all the feminine in himself and seek the feminine outside himself in a woman. Women, in turn, must suppress all the masculine in themselves and seek the masculine outside themselves in the male.
Women today, who are more in touch with both their masculine and feminine dimension, and see themselves as whole persons, are increasingly unwilling to play the role of being the mediators of feminine emotional and compassionate needs of men. They want a man who is a total human person in himself. They are demanding, and rightly so, that men get deeply in touch with their own feminine dimension. Many men, in turn, who are becoming in touch with both the masculine and feminine dimensions of themselves, are refusing to continue to play the role of being the mediators of the masculine needs of women for assertiveness and autonomy.
It is this shift in consciousness that has caused the enormous amount of breakdown and divorce when heterosexuals try to follow the traditional patterns of male dominance and feminine submission. Both genders are being called on to develop the fullness of their own humanity, so that they can approach each other as complete, independent persons and not remain essentially dependent on the other gender for their completion.
The new model for a healthy married relationship will come from the emergence of a visible group that can live out fully both its masculine and feminine dimensions without the need to repress either. We need a group that will model the ideal goal of humanity's present evolution; people who can keep their masculine and feminine dimension in good equilibrium and bring forth a balanced synthesis of the two. That, I believe, is the providential role of the gay and lesbian groups that through divine providence have come into being over the past thirty-five years. Every dialectical movement toward a higher synthesis, if it is to succeed, must carry the seed of resolution within itself.
John Boswell, a Church historian, in his book, Same Sex Marriages, discovered that the Church did not celebrate marriage as a sacrament until 1215. Until then the Church viewed marriage as a civil contract. One bought a wife and the wife was the buyer's property. There cannot be a sacrament unless a relation of love is involved. It was not until the twelve hundreds and the Romantic Movement that marriage began to be seen as based on a love relation.
However, gay marriage rituals were universally found in Church documents as early as the fourth century. Boswell argues that these rituals were true marriage ceremonies. Such ritual celebrations of marriage were possible because gay couples saw each other as equal and based their relationship on interpersonal love. Nine centuries before heterosexual marriages were recognized as a sacrament, the Church liturgically celebrated same-sex covenants. Gays are being called on once again to model out the true basis for married love.
As I write these pages, legal gay and lesbian marriages are becoming legalin several states and in many countries around the world.. We must ask why gay and lesbian marriage, which was unthinkable just a few years ago, should suddenly become a reality at this time. Once again, I believe that this is providential. Most gay people are in touch with both the masculine and feminine dimensions of themselves. Gays have an important gift to make to the human community in modeling out a new and different style of interpersonal relations based on equality and the total human person of each partner. There is a desperate need for this understanding of marriage on the part of all --- gay and straight alike. This understanding of marriage is opening up a vast new reservoir of human love .
John J. McNeill
jjmcneill@aol.com
(954) 963-6559
Friday, March 25, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
A Reflection on the Story of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts
The Ethiopian Eunuch
God's Special Invitation to all those who are Sexually Different to be Unconditional Members of God's Community under the New Covenant
A lenten scriptural meditation on the role of LBGT people in the kingdom of God
There is one passage in Scripture that prophetically indicates that the Spirit of God is poured out in a special way on all those gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered who are sincerely seeking to live their lives according to the teachings of Christ. This is the account of the baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch in the Acts of the Apostles (8:26-39).
The Lucan author's purpose in Acts is to depict the work of the Holy Spirit in the formation of the first Christian community, and how that community differered from its predecessor, the Jewish community. He stresses that people who were considered outcasts by Israel for various reasons were to be included in the new community. One of these groups, which included the Samaritans and the Gentiles, symbolized by the Eunuch, are those who for sexual reasons were excluded from the Old Testament community. "A man whose testicles have been crushed or whose adult male member has been cut off must not be admitted to the assembly of Yahwey" (Deut. 23:2).
This prohibition had its origin in the Jewish belief that God made a procreative covenant with his choosen people Isreal, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it.(Gen I:28)" Because of that covenant every Jewish male was under a sacred obligation to bear as many children as possible, since among those children would be the Messiah, the savior of the human race. Any Jewish male who refused to procreate for physical, psychological or spiritual reasons could potentially be denying the human race its savior.
However, in Isaiah (56:3-8), there is an explicit prophesy that, with the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of a new covenant between humans and God, eunuchs, who were formerly excluded from the community of God, will be given a special place in the Lord's house and an immortal name.
No foreigner adhering to Yahwey should say,
"Yahwey will utterly exclude me from his people". No eunuch should say, "Look I am a dried tree."
For Yahwey says this:
"To the eunuch who observes my Sabbaths, and chooses to do my good pleasure and cling to my covenant, I shall give them in my house and within my walls a monument and a name that is better than sons and daughters; I shall give them an everlasting name that will never be effaced."
....................................................................................................................................
These I shall lead to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all people.
Lord Yahwey who gathers the exiles of Isreal declares:
There are others I shall gather besides those already gathered.
Under the symbol of "eunuch" this prophesy includes the homosexual because the word "eunuch" in the new testament is used not only in the literal sense, to mean those who have beeen physically castrated, but also in a symbolic sense, for all those who for any reason do not marry and bear children.
For example, in Matthew (19:120), Jesus, discussing marriage and divorce, says to the apostles "There are eunuchs born so from their mother's womb; there are eunuchs made so by human agency and there are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven."
The first category, those born as eunuchs, is the closest description we have in the bible of what we understand today as a person with a homosexual orientation. It should come as no surprise, then, that one of the first groups of outcasts of Isreal that the Holy Spirit includes within the new covenant community is symbolized by the Ethiopian Eunuch. Note that it is the Holy Spirit who takes the initiative by leading Philip to encounter the Ethiopian Eunuch, who is the treasurer of Candice, the Queen of Ethiopia. The Eunuch, as was his practice, had made a pilgrimage to the temple of Jerusalem, and spent his time there in prayer to Yahwey. He is painfully aware that he is excluded from Yahwey's people.
As he waas riding home in his chariot along the road to Jericho, he was reading Isaiah:
The Spirit said to Philip, "Go up and join that charior." When Philip ran up, he heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He replied, "How could I, unless I have someone to guide me?" So he urged Philip to get in and sit by his side. Now the passage he was reading was this: Like a lamb led to the slaughterhouse, like a sheep dumb in front of its shearers, he never opens his mouth. In his humiliation fair judgment was denied him. Who will ever talk about his descendents since his life on earth was cut short.
The Eunuch addressed Philip and said, "Tell me is the prophet referring to himself or someone else?" Starting, therefore, with this text of scruipture Philip proceeded to explain the good news of Jesus to him.
Further along the road they came to some water and the eunuch said,"Look there is some water here, is there anything to prevent my being baptized?" He ordered the chariot to stop, then Philip and the Eunuch both went down into the water and he baptized him. But after they had come up out of the water again Philip was taken away by the Spirit of the Lord, and the Eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejociing (Acts 8:28-39).
The Eunuch rides on into history "full of joy". I like to think of this Eunuch as the first baptized gay christian. It should be obvious that we are dealing here not just with the story of an individual. The symbolism of the passage is quite obvious. The Holy Spirit takes the initiative in leading the new Christian community to include among its members those who were excluded for sexual reasons from the old testament community. Now that the Messiah has come there no longer is a need for every member to procreate in the hope of fathering the Messiah.
Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit breaking down all the divisions that separate the human family one from another. In this passage we see the Holy Spirit prophetically takes the initiative to break down the division between gay and straight. We have the good fortune to live in an age where this prophesy is being fulfililed by the gay liberation movement which is a continuation of the initiative of the Holy Spirit. We can accept the Eunuch of the court of the queen of Ethiopia as our first gay Christian brother in Christ and the apostle Philip as our special patron. The judgment of the Spirit of God him/herself stands for all time: There is no reason why those who are sexually different cannot be received as fully qualified members into the Christian community!
jjmcneill@aol.com
God's Special Invitation to all those who are Sexually Different to be Unconditional Members of God's Community under the New Covenant
A lenten scriptural meditation on the role of LBGT people in the kingdom of God
There is one passage in Scripture that prophetically indicates that the Spirit of God is poured out in a special way on all those gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered who are sincerely seeking to live their lives according to the teachings of Christ. This is the account of the baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch in the Acts of the Apostles (8:26-39).
The Lucan author's purpose in Acts is to depict the work of the Holy Spirit in the formation of the first Christian community, and how that community differered from its predecessor, the Jewish community. He stresses that people who were considered outcasts by Israel for various reasons were to be included in the new community. One of these groups, which included the Samaritans and the Gentiles, symbolized by the Eunuch, are those who for sexual reasons were excluded from the Old Testament community. "A man whose testicles have been crushed or whose adult male member has been cut off must not be admitted to the assembly of Yahwey" (Deut. 23:2).
This prohibition had its origin in the Jewish belief that God made a procreative covenant with his choosen people Isreal, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it.(Gen I:28)" Because of that covenant every Jewish male was under a sacred obligation to bear as many children as possible, since among those children would be the Messiah, the savior of the human race. Any Jewish male who refused to procreate for physical, psychological or spiritual reasons could potentially be denying the human race its savior.
However, in Isaiah (56:3-8), there is an explicit prophesy that, with the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of a new covenant between humans and God, eunuchs, who were formerly excluded from the community of God, will be given a special place in the Lord's house and an immortal name.
No foreigner adhering to Yahwey should say,
"Yahwey will utterly exclude me from his people". No eunuch should say, "Look I am a dried tree."
For Yahwey says this:
"To the eunuch who observes my Sabbaths, and chooses to do my good pleasure and cling to my covenant, I shall give them in my house and within my walls a monument and a name that is better than sons and daughters; I shall give them an everlasting name that will never be effaced."
....................................................................................................................................
These I shall lead to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all people.
Lord Yahwey who gathers the exiles of Isreal declares:
There are others I shall gather besides those already gathered.
Under the symbol of "eunuch" this prophesy includes the homosexual because the word "eunuch" in the new testament is used not only in the literal sense, to mean those who have beeen physically castrated, but also in a symbolic sense, for all those who for any reason do not marry and bear children.
For example, in Matthew (19:120), Jesus, discussing marriage and divorce, says to the apostles "There are eunuchs born so from their mother's womb; there are eunuchs made so by human agency and there are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven."
The first category, those born as eunuchs, is the closest description we have in the bible of what we understand today as a person with a homosexual orientation. It should come as no surprise, then, that one of the first groups of outcasts of Isreal that the Holy Spirit includes within the new covenant community is symbolized by the Ethiopian Eunuch. Note that it is the Holy Spirit who takes the initiative by leading Philip to encounter the Ethiopian Eunuch, who is the treasurer of Candice, the Queen of Ethiopia. The Eunuch, as was his practice, had made a pilgrimage to the temple of Jerusalem, and spent his time there in prayer to Yahwey. He is painfully aware that he is excluded from Yahwey's people.
As he waas riding home in his chariot along the road to Jericho, he was reading Isaiah:
The Spirit said to Philip, "Go up and join that charior." When Philip ran up, he heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He replied, "How could I, unless I have someone to guide me?" So he urged Philip to get in and sit by his side. Now the passage he was reading was this: Like a lamb led to the slaughterhouse, like a sheep dumb in front of its shearers, he never opens his mouth. In his humiliation fair judgment was denied him. Who will ever talk about his descendents since his life on earth was cut short.
The Eunuch addressed Philip and said, "Tell me is the prophet referring to himself or someone else?" Starting, therefore, with this text of scruipture Philip proceeded to explain the good news of Jesus to him.
Further along the road they came to some water and the eunuch said,"Look there is some water here, is there anything to prevent my being baptized?" He ordered the chariot to stop, then Philip and the Eunuch both went down into the water and he baptized him. But after they had come up out of the water again Philip was taken away by the Spirit of the Lord, and the Eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejociing (Acts 8:28-39).
The Eunuch rides on into history "full of joy". I like to think of this Eunuch as the first baptized gay christian. It should be obvious that we are dealing here not just with the story of an individual. The symbolism of the passage is quite obvious. The Holy Spirit takes the initiative in leading the new Christian community to include among its members those who were excluded for sexual reasons from the old testament community. Now that the Messiah has come there no longer is a need for every member to procreate in the hope of fathering the Messiah.
Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit breaking down all the divisions that separate the human family one from another. In this passage we see the Holy Spirit prophetically takes the initiative to break down the division between gay and straight. We have the good fortune to live in an age where this prophesy is being fulfililed by the gay liberation movement which is a continuation of the initiative of the Holy Spirit. We can accept the Eunuch of the court of the queen of Ethiopia as our first gay Christian brother in Christ and the apostle Philip as our special patron. The judgment of the Spirit of God him/herself stands for all time: There is no reason why those who are sexually different cannot be received as fully qualified members into the Christian community!
jjmcneill@aol.com
A Relection On the Story in Acts on the Ethiopian Eunuch
The Ethiopian Eunuch
There is one passage in Scripture that prophetically indicates that the Spirit of God is poured out in a special way on all those gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered who are sincerely seeking to live their lives according to the teachings of Christ. This is the account of the baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch in the Acts of the Apostles (8:26-39).
The Lucan author's purpose in Acts is to depict the work of the Holy Spirit in the formation of the first Christian community, and how that community differered from its predecessor, the Jewish community. He stresses that people who were considered outcasts by Israel for various reasons were to be included in the new community. One of these groups, symbolized by the Eunuch, are those who for sexual reasons were excluded from the Old Testament community. "A man whose testicles have been crushed or whose adult male member has been cut off must not be admitted to the assembly of Yahwey" (Deut. 23:2).
This prohibition had its origin in the Jewish belief that God made a procreative covenant with his choosen people Isreal, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it.(Gen I:28)" Because of that covenant every Jewish male was under a sacred obligation to bear as many children as possible, since among those children would be the Messiah, the savior of the human race. Any Jewish male who refused to procreate for physical, psychological or spiritual reasons could potentially be denying the human race its savior.
However, in Isaiah (56:3-8), there is an explicit prophesy that, with the coming of the Messiah and the establishment of a new covenant between humans and God, eunuchs, who were formerly excluded from the community of God, will be given a special place in the Lord's house and an immortal name.
No foreigner adhering to Yahwey should say,
"Yahwey will utterly exclude me from his people"
No eunuch should say,"Look I am a dried tree."
For Yahwey says this:
"To the eunuch who observes my Sabbaths, and chooses to do my good pleasure and cling to my covenant, I shall give them in my house and within my walls a monument and a name that is better than sons and daughters; I shall give them an everlasting name that will never be effaced."
....................................................................................................................................
These I shall lead to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house will be called a house of prayer for all people.
Lord Yahwey who gathers the exiles of Isreal declares:
There are others I shall gather besides those already gathered.
Under the symbol of "eunuch" this prophesy includes the homosexual because the word "eunuch" in the new testament is used not only in the literal sense, to mean those who have beeen physically castrated, but also in a symbolic sense, for all those who for any reason do not marry and bear children.
For example, in Matthew (19:120), Jesus, discussing marriage and divorce, says to the apostles "There are eunuchs born so from their mother's womb; there are eunuchs made so by human agency and there are eunuchs who have made themselves so for the sake of the kingdom of Heaven."
The first category, those born as eunuchs, is the closest description we have in the bible of what we understand today as a person with a homosexual orientation. It should come as no surprise, then, that one of the first groups of outcasts of Isreal that the Holy Spirit includes within the new covenant community is symbolized by the Ethiopian Eunuch. Note that it is the Holy Spirit who takes the initiative by leading Philip to encounter the Ethiopian eunuch, who is the treasurer of Candice, the Queen of Ethiopia. The Eunuch, as was his practice, had made a pilgrimage to the temple of Jerusalem, and spent his time there in prayer to Yahwey. He is painfully aware that he is excluded from Yahwey's people.
As he waas riding home in his chariot along the road to Jericho, he was reading Isaiah:
The Spirit said to Philip, "Go up and join that charior." When Philip ran up, he heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, "Do you understand what you are reading?" He replied, "How could I, unless I have someone to guide me?" So he urged Philip to get in and sit by his side. Now the passage he was reading was this: Like a lamb led to the slaughterhouse, like a sheep dumb in front of its shearers, he never opens his mouth. In his humiliation fair judgment was denied him. Who will ever talk about his descendents since his life on earth was cut short.
The eunuch addressed Philip and said, "Tell me is the prophet referring to himself or someone else?" Starting, therefore, with this text of scruipture Philip proceeded to explain the good news of Jesus to him.
Further along the road they came to some water and the eunuch said,"Look there is some water here, is there anything to prevent my being baptized?" He ordered the chariot to stop, then Philip and the eunuch both went down into the water and he baptized him. But after they had come up out of the water again Philip was taken away by the Spirit of the Lord, and the eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing (Acts 8:28-39).
The eunuch rides on into history "full of joy". I like to think of this eunuch as the first baptized gay christian. It should be obvious that we are dealing here not just with the story of an individual. The symbolism of the passage is quite obvious. The Holy Spirit takes the initiative in leading the new Christian community to include among its members those who were excluded for sexual reasons from the old testament community. Now that the Messiah has come there no longer is a need for every member to procreate in the hope of fathering the Messiah.
Paul speaks of the Holy Spirit breaking down all the divisions that separate the human family one from another. In this passage we see the Holy Spirit prophetically takes the initiative to break down the division between gay and straight. We have the good fortune to live in an age where this prophesy is being fulfililed by the gay liberation movement which is a continuation of the initiative of the Holy Spirit. We can accept the eunuch of the court of the queen of Ethiopia as our first gay Christian brother in Christ and the apostle Philip as our special patron. The judgment of the Spirit of God him/herself stands for all time: There is no reason why those who are sexually different cannot be received as fully qualified members into the Christian community!
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