This sermon was written to be spoken, which does not always translate into proper

grammatical form for a document written to be read.

I Used to Believe

I Corinthians 13

I used to believe - asparagus is best avoided at all costs.

                   And I still do believe that.

I used to believe - Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life.

                   And I still do believe that.

Certainly I've grown in understanding the richness of that profession. 

          Through the years I've been on a journey with Christ - with other followers ? with doubters ? and non believers

?and still I profess - for me ? Jesus is the WAY- and his way is a way of love encouragement ?affirmation and forgiveness - and if there is any judging to be done, a gracious, creative God will do it.

Jesus is also the Truth. His work and his words are consistent. 

          What Jesus says he also does.  

            And too, he is THE LIFE?. Jesus brings life - affirms life.                         Embraces life. Jesus shows me how to live. 

That's what I believe.

I used to believe - The world was created in six days.

Sunday School teachers whom I respected very much taught me that.

          Then I came to believe -- the world was created in six extended geological ages

                   Now I believe - That the stories in Genesis were told and retold then gathered and told thousands of years ago not to tell HOW the world was created - but WHY. 

                   THEY ARE AFFIRMATIONS OF FAITH. 

          God created - and it was orderly and purposeful -

                   and it was GOOD - indeed, VERY GOOD. 

I used to believe - WOMEN are Inferior to men - I hate to admit that. 

          How could I have had such a notion?

Well, my mother said she simply couldn't accept that the church

           would permit women to be ordained to serve on session.

Men were created first, she reasoned - then woman from man.         (I didn't dare propose, that perhaps God was keeping the best for last)

For my mother there was kind of a God-ordained pecking order -

     Men -Women - Children.  And my father did not seem to object.

My minister, a scholarly Princeton Seminary graduate, explained how in the garden of Eden, Eve was tempted and sinned and so was disobedient to God. Then she encouraged Adam to eat that forbidden fruit.  So they were tossed out of the garden and we've had bad times ever since. 

                             All because of that woman.   

That's what I used to believe - but now I believe 

         GOD CREATED MALE AND FEMALE.

                   IN GOD'S OWN IMAGE, GOD CREATED THEM. 

          That's right there in the Bible - both created by God -

                   Both created good ? indeed, very good.

I saw Jesus --- with women.  Looking closely, I discovered Jesus had followers who were women. They weren't named among the twelve, but they clustered around Jesus and learned from him?and told others about him.

 And Jesus first appeared to women -

         and women were leaders in the early church -

                  they keep popping-up in the book of Acts.

  Not in a few verses taken out of context - not proof texts interpreted in light of cultural presuppositions?but the whole sweep of the Biblical story - is the story of WOMEN AND MEN swept-up in drama of the mighty acts of God.

?So I profess - for me ? Jesus is the WAY- and his way is love encouragement ?forgiveness.

Further, Jesus is the Truth. His work and his words are consistent.

          What Jesus says he also does.

and he is THE LIFE?. Jesus brings life - affirms life.

          Embraces life.

That is what I believe!

I used to believe - that black people are inferior.  It wasn't only my mother who taught me that - but my church and the culture. 

 I was reared in a large downtown Presbyterian Church in Harrisburg.  Immediately adjacent to the church was the Boyd Memorial Building - a recreation building of the church with bowling alleys and a gym with showers, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops met there and there were pool tables and ping pong tables. Oh, also the John Y. Boyd Bible class met there - my father was a member of that class.  The Boyd building was a good place to be.

I recall one evening at the front desk, I was checking out the ping pong equipment ? I saw three black kids being led from the building by the building director.  As he returned to his post to give me the paddles and ball he said something like - "Darkies - Let one of them in here and we'd be over run"

His observation just didn't seem right to me.  Didn't jibe with the love and welcome the church professed.

          But that's the way things were.

There came to be a big stir in our church.  The assistant pastor would always work with the youth and since the assistant pastor would only be around for two or three years, there was always someone new and winsome.  With new and good ideas.

We all liked Deke Smith.  But Deke left before the usual 2-3 years.  We youth wondered why. We were told he had received another call from God.  It was several months later that I learned that Rev. Deke had bought a house in suburban Penbrook and then immediately turned it over it to a colored family.  My parents were outraged.  The congregation was outraged.

And I wondered - where was God's call in all that? And fairness?                 (I really didn't yet know the concept of justice).

The senior pastor - another erudite Princeton man - explained Biblical sources and described the natural inferiority of the black race --

          Well, actually he called it the superiority of whites.

          It had something to do with God's curse of Ham

                   the youngest son of Noah  --

Mr. Williams, our Sunday School teacher tried to explain that to us ? but I could not figure-out in the biblical text that he had us read that Ham was the ancestor of the black race, But that's what the western theological tradition - and the Princeton tradition at that time designated Ham to be.

The curse placed on Ham was then used as the justification for slavery.  And since Ham's son, Canaan, was mentioned, it was assumed that the curse continued beyond Ham and so was justly applied to all of Ham's supposedly dark-skinned descendents.  They were inferior to whites.  They were fit for slavery.

---Sorry - I had difficulty making sense of that when I was a teen.

          Though I wanted to. I thought I needed to --

I was taught to respect my mother and father -

          and certainly to respect the senior pastor. 

But my ears - and my heart picked-up when we sang "Jesus loves the little children ?all the children of the world - red and yellow, black and white"

And we recited, God loved the world so much that God gave his son -

          that whosoever believes in him should not perish -

And before my senior year in High School, at church camp, my Counselor was an African-American pastor --  and six years after ordaination I was called to pastor an integrated - largely African-American congregation ? during a session meeting we received a phone call that Martin Luther King had been assinated. In that ministry, I learned the common hopes and dreams - and dark shadows which surround us all.

It has been a journey - and here's what I believe now -

          We are all God's people.  Red and yellow, black and white - all precious in God's sight. Predjudice may lurk in the corners of my life and at times rears its ugly head, but I cannot wrap it in the cloak of Bible teaching or proof texts.

Nor can I blame it on my mother or father -- or pastors of the past. Rather I must recognize my prejudice.  Name it as SIN.  And ask forgiveness. And open my mind and heart to fresh and empowering winds of the holy spirit. 

?So I profess - for me ? Jesus is the WAY- and his way is a way of love encouragement ?affirmation and forgiveness - and if there is any judging to be done, a gracious, creative God will do it.

Jesus is also the Truth. His work and his words are consistent? that is, What Jesus says he also does. And too, he is THE LIFE?. Jesus brings life - affirms life. Embraces life. Jesus shows me how to live.

           That's what I believe.

I used to believe ? Homosexuals were to be loathed.  Homosexuals?  As a child and youth I didn't even know that word - so I didn't use it. 

          I wonder ? Was "Homo" the same thing?  Fag?  Queer? 

As I was growing up, no one in my church talked about homosexuality. 

          But then, we didn't even talk about sex.

That is to say, my pastors and teachers didn't talk about sex.

          But the guys did.  A lot.

I recall a college class in English Bible where we read and studied the story about Sodom and Gomorrah -- a story in Genesis 19 -- where a host and his family invited traveling men into their home to stay-over. 

The central point of that story is the sacred obligation of hospitality for travelers.  To remain outside through the night, exposed to the elements, could mean death in desert country.

According to the story, an angry mob of townspeople surround the house and demand that the householder turn these travelers - these house guests over to them.  You see, foreigners were clearly not welcomed in Sodom. 

          I won't go further into the details of that story -

                   but here is something I discovered ?

The sin of Sodom is mentioned several times elsewhere in the Bible but never in connection with homosexual acts.  Old Testament references to the sin of Sodom are variously described as greed, injustice, lack of hospitality, excess wealth and indifference to the poor. 

In the New Testament, when Jesus referred to the sin of Sodom (Luke 10:12) and Matthew 10:15) he was passing judgment on towns that refused hospitality to his traveling disciples.  The homosexual aspect of the Sodom story only comes years later in non-biblical literature. First, from the Greeks.

I used to believe -- homosexuality is a sin, and a homosexual person must repent, ask God's forgiveness, and change?.or be celebate?.or spend eternity separated from God.

But for me?there was something about that that just didn't seem to fit with the spirit of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

          As I came to know some gays and lesbians - and the struggles of identify - and trying to change - of hearing their overwhelming sense of shame and guilt - of hearing repeatedly from society, yea,

even the church "you are sinful" You must accept the love of Jesus

Christ in your heart. 

And having met gays and lesbians who had met their hearts true love - who made deep commitments and pledged abiding love.  Or, sometimes who embraced celibacy ?

?. And so found liberation and joy and affirmation and mutual esteem. And forgiveness, Forgiveness -- only because it took them so long to recognize the all-embracing love of God made crystal clear in Jesus Christ.  And that's not their fault - not their failure - It's mine.

Last week I was meeting with a Presbytery committee - we took a break in the middle of that three hour meeting.  I simply wanted to go out and get a soft drink, but the man sitting across from me came over and asked, "What about that Congressional Page scandal? ? He added,

"Another homosexual strikes our children again."

I hate it when that happens ? and I have to be decent and in order.

But I tried this approach with him - "In the first place, that is not a Congressional Page scandal - it's an act of unbridled power, of abuse by a person who wraps himself in the flag of moral superiority, and therefore believes himself entitled to do as he finds self-satisfying. 

"Further, it is an act of complicity and duplicity by those in power who chose to protect the abuser - rather than to protect our children.

And then I looked him square in the eye and said, "Heterosexuals are just as likely to abuse power - actually, statistically more likely to abuse their power ? witness Bill Clinton ? and I'm sure you know others.  You see, it actually has nothing to do about sex - it has to do with power."

So I profess - for me ? Jesus is the WAY- and his way is a way of love encouragement ?affirmation and forgiveness - and if there is any judging to be done, Let's leave it to a gracious, creative God.

Jesus is also the Truth. His work and his words are consistent. What Jesus says he also does. 

And further, Jesus is THE LIFE?. Jesus brings life - affirms life. Embraces life. Jesus shows me how to live. 

That's what I believe.