Some Thoughts On Sexuality

MON., FEB. 10, 1992, 6:37 AM
FARM, STUDY

For the second week you have been in the group that is reading and having interpreted your Church’s position paper on sexuality. It tries to portray the ideal in this realm of human life as adhering to the standards of justice-love and right relatedness. You are comfortable with these standards, and the report seems to be compatible with your view of these relations, but because you feel sure that your concepts are not normative for your congregation…you need My advice and guidance.

You perceive that I, the Holy Spirit, have led the majority who wrote this document with conviction. This is true, but, as you also suspect, I also am with those who pulled away and wrote the minority report. It is well for you to wonder how I favor those with two interpretations so far apart. I can because each is sincere and is using Holy Scripture as the base for recommendations. Not surprisingly, their conclusions conflict fairly clearly.

You are comfortable with the conclusions of the majority, based on the premises they used, but you feel that, even within your Presbyterian church the majority is with the minority report. You know this is the nature of your denomination – to be made up of people with a rather wide range of beliefs and convictions about Me and this world of Mine… and what I, as Almighty God, want of them. You are right, and you, even at your age, would be counted as a “liberal,” so you have to devise ways of “being acceptable.”

As you commented yesterday both “sides” are using Scriptural passages to bullwork their positions, along with interpretations of original wording and of the culture of Biblical times. This actually helps to make them both legitimate, and, positively, shows that the Bible story is applicable in many cultural settings.

You know, rightly, that the Holy Spirit Who comes to you is He or even She who favors equality between the sexes, being equally supportive of justice and mercy. In your culture, particularly, it is no longer right to see women as subordinate to men. I like marriages such as yours where there is much feeling of equality. You also know that I have averred for years that I am calling Matthew to be one of My servants, your son Matthew whose sexual orientation is homosexual. You also know that I love and bless Nancy, Laurette, and Terri, even as their natural strong affections are for other women. How then can I be with those who hew to a patriarchal, heterosexual preference for sexuality?

While some have to innovate, others must hold to traditions. As Jesus I took a fairly middle ground. True, I went against the strict interpretation of commandments on a few occasions, but I also affirmed that I was here in your midst to fulfill the Law, not to nullify it. There were women in My “Company,” but none among My chosen twelve, and I’ve told you why. I couldn’t go that far against the tradition of My time. In traditions there is stability, but often that conflicts with justice.

You know I have given Christians and Jews two creation stories, one implying equality and the other picturing the woman as merely a help-mate for the man, My original creation. Equality is a kind of justice, but not the only form. And I shall continue to bless those who hold to tradition, as well as those who seek to establish new traditions. (7:31) Your position is a good one, so hold to and develop it. You shall have compatriots, but a relative few.

As problems in relation to sexuality are currently described and defined this seems to be a rather serious dilemma for this era. Yet I see that behind the headlines and lurid stories men and women are living together as well as they ever had, and in a range of relationships. The “right” relationship is whatever seems right for individual people. I just tell you what I see, from My “vantage point.”