Sermon Tone Analysis

! Introduction

            There is a significant issue facing Canadian society today that will also have an impact on the Christian church.

For the last number of years, Canadian courts have ruled that marriage, recognized under the common law as “the union of one man and one woman” is inconsistent with constitutional values in modern Canadian society and offends the equality rights of homosexuals under section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Two of the courts acknowledged the unique role of Parliament in formulating a proper response to this question.

They gave the federal and provincial legislatures until June 2004 to rectify the situation.

In order to accomplish this, a parliamentary task force toured the country to gather ideas and wisdom from the people of Canada.

On June 10, however, the Ontario Court of Appeal acted unilaterally.

It pre-empted further discussion by Parliament by striking down the common law definition of marriage and reformulating it as "the voluntary union for life of two persons."

The court ordered that this remedy take effect immediately.

Since then, the government has written legislation to enact this change.

In so doing, they are changing the traditional definition of marriage.

Instead of marriage being defined as the exclusive union of one man and one woman, it will be changed to the voluntary union of two persons, opening the door for all kinds of relationships being defined as marriage, including homosexual relationships.

That legislation has not yet been passed, but is in process.

At the same time, there is also other legislation that deals with including sexual orientation in the hate crimes laws.

If this legislation passes, it could become illegal to say that homosexuality is sin.

If these become law and are not challenged in the Supreme Court or struck down by parliament, it could have serious implications for us as Canadians, many of which we do not yet understand.

It will certainly have implications for us as Christians.

At this point, the government is assuring us that our religious rights will be protected, but if we as churches are forced to solemnize homosexual marriages, or if it will be against the law to say that homosexuality is sin, we will have to face the likelihood of civil disobedience and its consequences.

At a time like this, it is important for us to renew our Biblical understanding of marriage, recognize what the Bible has to say about homosexuality and think together about how we can respond to the current situation.

That is what I want to do this morning.

!

I. Biblical Definition Of Marriage

Part of the issue has to do with the traditional definition of marriage.

Biblically this is very clear and we need to remind ourselves of that Biblical truth.

!! A. God’s Idea

            In a statement made by the Canadian Conference of Catholic bishops, they included the saying, “Marriage understood as the lasting union of a man and woman to the exclusion of others pre-exists the State.”

I would agree with that statement.

In fact, from the Bible we understand that marriage as the union of a man and a woman for life is God’s idea right at creation.

In Genesis, we see that God created human beings as male and female.

He gave them the command in Genesis 1:28 to "Be fruitful and multiply."

Then in Genesis 2, in an expanded statement about having created them male and female, we read in verse 24, "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife and they become one flesh."

Marriage as an institution in which a man and a woman become one flesh is rooted in creation, it is founded in the plan of God.

That understanding of marriage does not change as we go to the New Testament.

Jesus reinforced what was there from the beginning.

In Matthew 19:3-12 and in Mark 10:6-9, Jesus pointed to the texts in Genesis and affirmed once again that marriage is for one man and one woman, for life and that in marriage they become one flesh.

The apostle Paul spoke and wrote in the pagan society of Corinth.

It was a society in which homosexual relationships were quite common.

Even though that society accepted them as normal, Paul continued to uphold the Biblical standard that marriage is the union of a man and a woman for life in a one flesh relationship.

As we read any of the marriage texts, whether Jesus or Paul or anywhere else in the Bible, we find that there are only two options.

Kaiser in Hard Sayings Of The Bible says, Jesus… “gave people only two alternatives: faithful marriage or celibacy.”

He goes on to say, “Turning to Paul, we find the same alternatives offered.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9–20 he rules out “sexual immorality” by which he means sexual intercourse with a person who is not one’s spouse, especially a prostitute.

He makes the alternative clear in 1 Corinthians 7:9 : if one does not have the gift of celibacy, then one should marry.”

God’s will is clear.

Marriage is for one man and one woman in a union which forms a life long, one flesh relationship.

!! B. Reason For Marriage.

Why is this so and why is it so important?

When God instituted marriage in Genesis 2, the phrase that is used is “the two shall become one flesh.”

The concept of one flesh expresses a relationship that is unique and cannot be expressed in any other union.

It is relational, physical, social, economic.

It is a relationship that uniquely bonds male and female.

It expresses the free consent of man and woman to live together.

Although we see all kinds of aberrations, it is universally recognized when a man and a woman make a covenant to live together that there is no other bond that is like that bond.

Although there are all kinds of other relationships, there is no relationship that expresses all the different aspects of the one flesh relationship that defines marriage.

There is no other relationship that unites male an female in such a unique bond.

One writer says, “Marriage serves the vast and complex social-sexual ecology of male-female bonding.

Secondly, it is only in the relationship of male and female from which children can come.

One group writing in defence of marriage says, “a man and a woman is the only social union that can be a reproductive union.”

To give up the uniqueness of that relationship degrades the importance and uniqueness of the male female relationship in procreating.

As male and female is the only union from which children can come, it also provides the only appropriate setting for raising children.

Although single parents, adoptive parents and grandparents sometimes raise children and do it well, it is most natural and best when the couple who begets children is also the couple who raises those children.

Another group defending marriage writes that it is “the birth-right of children to know, to be connected to, and to be in stable relationship with, their natural parents.”

“Marriage, as an institution, has a child-centred dimension; it directs mothers and fathers to the care and support of their children.”

It is also only such a relationship that connects the generations.

Someone has said,

“Marriage is generational and genealogical; it binds together the past and the future.”

One group, and I don’t think it is a Christian group, has written that if the definition of marriage is changed, “it imposes a new and disputed ideology of ‘close relationships’ upon marriage.

On this view marriage (for legal purposes) is reduced to the public recognition of committed relationships between two adults.

This theory bleaches out the significance of sexual difference and dismisses any "rational connection" between marriage, gender complementarity, procreation, and the rearing of children by their biological parents.

It renders a very pale concept of marriage with a doubtful claim on the public interest.”

As Christians, we recognize God’s truth and need to affirm once again that we believe in marriage as "the voluntary and lawful union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others."

!

II.

Response To Homosexuality

Behind the issue and related to it is the issue of homosexuality.

Therefore, we need to examine Scripture and affirm once again what the Bible has to say about this aspect of the issue.

!! A. It Is Sin

            Once again, the Bible is unequivocal on this.

The Old Testament is straight forward.

Leviticus 18:22 says, “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.”

In all other Old Testament expressions, the same truth is demonstrated.

Several times, such sin is condemned and is part of what brings God’s wrath, as for example, in Sodom and Gomorrah.

God’s point of view is also quite clear in the New Testament.

Paul, describing the spiral into sin of those who have rejected God, writes in Romans 1 that homosexuality is a part of the movement away from God.

It begins with the rejection of God as we read in Romans 1:21, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

Then we read on in Romans 1:24-27, “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.

Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.

Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones.

In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.

Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.”

In 1 Corinthians 6:9, 10 we find homosexuality in a list of those who will not inherit the kingdom of heaven: “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”

This is the message of scripture throughout and there is nothing to the contrary.

Engaging in homosexual acts is sin.

However, we need to specify.

The Bible does not condemn homosexual temptations, but rather acts.

Just as in the rest of the Bible, we are not condemned for our temptations.

Jesus Himself was not condemned for being tempted.

The list of those excluded from the kingdom of God in I Corinthians 6 includes adulterers, greedy people and slanderers.

If that is the case, we recognize that many of us struggle with these temptations.

If God rejected us just because of our temptations, we would all be lost.