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Bible Readings for Wednesday February 16th, 2011 – The 6th Week of Epiphany *Click on each bible passage to expand the text. Psalm 119:9-16 9. How can young people keep their way pure? By guarding it according to your word.

10. With my whole heart I seek you; do not let me stray from your commandments.

11. I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you.

12. Blessed are you, O LORD; teach me your statutes.

13. With my lips I declare all the ordinances of your mouth.

14. I delight in the way of your decrees as much as in all riches.

15. I will meditate on your precepts, and fix my eyes on your ways.

16. I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. Proverbs 2:1-15 1. My child, if you accept my words and treasure up my commandments within you,

2. making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;

3. if you indeed cry out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding;

4. if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures–

5. then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.

6. For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;

7. he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly,

8. guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his faithful ones.

9. Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;

10. for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

11. prudence will watch over you; and understanding will guard you.

12. It will save you from the way of evil, from those who speak perversely,

13. who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness,

14. who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil;

15. those whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways. Matthew 19:1-12 1. When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.

2. Large crowds followed him, and he cured them there.

3. Some Pharisees came to him, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?”

4. He answered, “Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’

5. and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?

6. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

7. They said to him, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?”

8. He said to them, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.

9. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.”

10. His disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”

11. But he said to them, “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given.

12. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”

I will delight in your statutes; I will not forget your word. – Psalm 119:16

Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path; – Proverbs 2:9

“And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.” – Matthew 19:9

God adores commitment and faithfulness.

As people commit themselves in marriage in covenant relationship before God, so too are is God committed to us and us to God through a covenant relationship. Through thick and thin, rich and poor, sickness and health. But unlike the human marriage relationship, God’s covenant relationship does not cease upon death, but continues throughout eternity in ways we can only imagine. It is the ultimate in fidelity. It is the ultimate in steadfast love.

God abhors infidelity.

Whether it is our tendency for selfish sexual and emotional gratification, or the spiritual infidelity of the idolatry of material things over God, it is all an act of betrayal of the covenant promise to love our partner and God before all others. It is God’s wish that human-kind should grow to overcome the our petty and destructive instincts for personal gratification, and develop a divinely inspired instinct for fidelity.

Matthew 19 12. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.”

A eunuch is a male servant, usually of a queen or otherwise a wealthy woman’s bedchamber attendant who has been castrated and thereby lacks any sense of sexual desire. We should view Jesus’ proclamation both literally in it’s sexual context and well as it’s spiritual context.

Some are born eunuchs: they do not care about the need of “stuff”, the praise of others, or the desires of this world.

Some are made eunuchs: through hardship, war, violence, and oppressive injustice, some people simply lack the ability to be seduced by worldly desire because their daily survival is paramount. If you’re starving in a war-torn and famine stricken land, then sexual infidelity and material lust are the farthest concerns from your heart.

Some make themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom: they realize that they do not have the ability to personally control their lusts for things sexual and material and they choose to “cut them off” in their lives. This is the most extreme of Christian spiritual practices and the exception, not the ideal.

God does not want us to be sexual and spiritual eunuchs, but God does recommend it for those unable to control their sexual and material “fornications”.

God wants us to fully participate in the joyous act of procreation, but with the reverence and responsibility the act of sex requires. Our sexuality is not simply a source of pleasure, but it is embodiment of the pinnacle act of God’s creation: the creation of human beings in God’s image. It is a sacrament because it symbolizes the vulnerability of God when God created us in his image, with all of God’s creative powers and abilities. God’s partner in creation. The ecstasy of sex symbolizes the ecstasy of “at-one-ment” with God. It is the moment when, ever so briefly, two become one.

God wants us to love, and sex also allows us humans to break through the last barriers of personal intimacy so that we may experience what it means to truly love someone else with the utmost vulnerability. Sex is an indispensable element in spiritual practice of love. But when we abuse it and cheapen its importance, it become the opposite: an act of injustice and oppression of others and ourselves.

While some view this passage as a condemnation of frivolous divorce, overall it is a condemnation of our hardened-hearts and soft wills that lead us to not try to be faithful to our marriage partner or to God with all of our heart and soul and strength.

Finally, some may ask, “Does this really end up condemning homosexual relationships?”

I say no.

God is both male and female, and neither, and both. To be in a covenant relationship with God implies I am in a marriage covenant with all those things. I love another man. My wife loves another woman. Even the same-gender relationship is reflected in God.

And while homosexual sexuality does not physically embody the act of procreation, it is still a sacramental representation of the vulnerability and trust of the covenant relationship. It can carry the same amount of blessing and growth in love, or the same amount of destruction and pain, as hetero-sex.

Controversial statements of this blog post aside, I pray that the meaning is not lost in emotional overreaction to what I’ve written.

We are called to be loyal, faithful lovers of our marriage partners and God. We are to persevere in that covenant relationship, and not give in the our desires for selfish gratification. We are called to to be willing to sacrifice ourselves for those we love.

This is to love as God loves us.