Sermon for the 3rd Sunday after the Epiphany

Sunday 21st January 2007

PPreached by Rev Paul Hewitt during a service for Chroristian Unity in Ballygilbert Presbyterian Church

We had a visit one evening in Glencraig from the 1^st Craigavad Scouts, just down the road, who were doing their ‘Faith badge’. And it was great fun; they had loads of questions and whether they had actually planned some of them or not, I’m not sure, but I doubt it. However, one youngster asked this question, “Do you do same-sex weddings in this Church?”

I don’t know about you, but I think these kinds of occasions when we get together in honour of Christian Unity Week, we should perhaps talk more about what’s going on in your denomination and what’s going on in ours.

Our big bit of news in the Church of Ireland is, of course, that we have a new Archbishop of Armagh. The highest office in the Church of Ireland and he is Alan Harper, the present Bishop of Connor Diocese. He’s been called a ‘safe pair of hands’ and, as someone pointed out to me, perhaps that is exactly what we need at the moment.

When the young scout asked me that question that evening, I wondered do our young people actually think about these things or was he just acting the lig? Only last Friday evening, my own daughter asked me, ‘Can you be gay and be a Christian?’ and we had a wonderful open and frank discussion on the matter.

Human sexuality is a huge topic within the Anglican Communion at the moment. I have never spoken about the issue in Glencraig, and when the subject was raised by that young Scout that evening, I wondered was this the time to put some thoughts down on paper, and to present them to you in the “safety” of Ballygilbert Church? (Perhaps not, you, might say?).

Please bear in mind that I’m not expressing an opinion or offering a judgement; this is simply a couple of personal observations.

Alan Harper’s predecessor, Robin Eames was Chairman of The Windsor Report which was published a couple of years ago. That report was not about human sexuality as such, it was about how the worldwide Anglican Communion was going to stay a Communion particularly after the consecration of a gay bishop, Gene Robinson, in the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, E.C.U.S.A. This issue is threatening to split the Anglican Church into perhaps more that two pieces. In very simple terms, it is the American Church on the one hand and the African Church on the other. That really is an over-simplification: The Diocese of Down and Dromore has a link Diocese in the United States, the Diocese of Albany. In Church terms, they couldn’t be further apart. Albany tends to have a very High Churchmanship (smells and bells, and all that) and Down and Dromore tends to be a rather Low Church and more evangelical. They are very strange bed-fellows in many ways, yet when it comes to serious theological issues, they are very close; both officially oppose the lifestyle of the homosexual.

Bishop Harold has made that very clear on more than one occasion, and not long ago in an article on the front of the Church of Ireland Gazette, he even suggested that Satan entered Lambeth 1998, when an agreed statement was made regarding human sexuality and the Church, Article 1:10.

If I were to list the points I would raise this evening, my first point is that although Bishop Harold has deliberately laid his cards on the table, there has never been a proper debate on the subject in Down and Dromore Diocese, at any level. We’re not hearing the ‘other side’ or indeed any other side on the issue. A senior cleric in the Diocese said to me recently, “I just want to hear the argument!” Article 1:10 explicitly states that there should be a ‘listening process’ and even in this weeks C. of I. Gazette Alan Harper says the same thing; nearly ten years later!

We are told that the most so-called ‘successful’ Churches are those which make clear their theological stance on faith, commitment and social issues. I have admiration for people of faith who see things as black and white. They are focused, they are committed. But, I think you and I know that life is not black and white. We had debates and discussions about the ordination of women, the remarriage of divorced persons and it went on for years and years. You were way ahead of us on these issues, yet we had serious doubts and real problems about these crucial issues on biblical, theological and historical grounds. In some places the debate continues. I believe we need to have well-informed debates about this issue also.

If I had a main point, however, it would be the treatment of the Church towards people who are homosexual.

I’m sure you’ve come across the idea expressed about the world being reduced to 100 people. I just couldn’t put my hand on it, but you know the kind of thing, if the world were reduced to 100 people there would be 8 Americans and so many Europeans. There would be so many unable to read and write, and so the list would go on. But also on that list, it is claimed that there would be 11 homosexuals!

This is an issue that is not going to go away and it has always been with us; this is nothing new. How many homosexuals do you think you know? They are present in every occupation, every denomination, and every congregation.

One thing I often don’t find when human sexuality is discussed is Christian love and empathy and understanding. I want you to imagine for a moment that your son or your daughter is a homosexual; perhaps your brother or your sister.

Some of the most awful people I have met call themselves born- again Christians and they scream with almost hatred towards the homosexual. It’s a terrible thing to say, but isn’t it true, however? Would you, would they, still hold such strong views if they had a homosexual within their family, or would they still love their brother or their sister anyway? I have two posters with me. They have been sent to every school in the Irish Republic. ‘Homophobia’, as they like to call it, is rampant and is a typical reaction of ill-informed and ignorant people.

My old friend, Tony Campolo, tells of a true story about a young minister in a dwindling congregation in New York who would do funerals nobody else would take. One time the undertakers rang to ask him to take a funeral of an AIDS victim and all the other ministers had refused. Being the kind of person he was, he agreed, and, as expected, a large group of men turned up. When they got to the graveside, he read out some more Scripture and prayed the committal. As he spoke, the men stood like statues. When he had finished, the men remained motionless and the Clergyman asked, “Is there anything more I can do for you?” And one of them moved forward and said, “Yeh. Don’t they usually read the 23^rd Psalm at these things? Would you mind reading that? And so he read the 23^rd Psalm. After he was finished, another spoke out, “Could you read that bit about the Spirit of God blowing and landing anywhere he wants to land. Could you read that part of the Bible to me?” So he read John Chapter 3. And then another asked would he ever read that bit about how nothing can separate us from the love of God. “Do you know that bit, Pastor?” And so he opened his Bible to Romans Chapter 8 (we read it this evening) ... “Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

And it suddenly dawned on these two men as they spoke about this funeral that here was a group of homosexual men desperately hungry for the Word of God, listening eagerly, indeed listening to words that told them there was nothing – NOTHING – that could separate them from the love of God.

Yet they knew that they couldn’t or wouldn’t set foot inside a church. They felt they wouldn’t because they knew church people would most likely despise them. Isn’t it true?

When a church has seemingly ceased to care, then it has ceased to be a church. I said at the very beginning that this little chat was just a couple of my observations, and this second one is my dismay at a church that fails to love people that God will never stop loving.

So there you have it. Just two observations on a matter that may concern us all at some point, either directly or indirectly. The issue needs much thought, much discussion and all our prayers.