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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastor Gary Schick.
Gary Schick
Well I'll tell you what, I really wish that I had my cohosts with me today, because I got, I guess really not a very difficult question. But one that's culturally relevant and yet one that many of us, I guess, wanna shy away from, because there's so much war about it in our times. Nevertheless, here it is. I got this in an email from Russ Garrett the station manager, and here is what he wrote, "Hello Gary, I was wondering if your team would like to address this issue. This is an email I received requesting an interview with 'this' artist. Maybe you can help our listeners know how to respond to such people and what the Bible has to say about this issue. Thanks. Russ/Hope Radio KCMI." Alright, so the email that Russ received was this, and this is, I don't have a name with this, just an anonymous listener, "as we are well into pride month," which ended yesterday by the way friends, it was in the month of June. "As we are well into pride month, Rito Rhymes has been trekking his way through gay clubs as a cis-heterosexual man, and has experienced something he never expected, but needed...validation from the gay community. As someone struggling with evidence of his own attractiveness, based on persistent rejections from cis women, he noticed drastically more acceptance and validation from gay men as he immersed himself into the community's nightlife. Rito can delineate and/or rap the following: ---His own experience of more acceptance and love from the LGBTQ+ community. How an embrace from the LGBQ+ community helped him rebuild his confidence, and finally, how he is working his way to the top as a visionary nerd rapper." This email that was forwarded on to me from Russ left me with several questions, and maybe you as some of our listeners. And by the way, if this is one of those topics that you don't wanna be talking about in the home among younger children, this might be a point to either send them out of the room or come back and listen to this one later. But, it left me with a lot of questions. I guess I'm not fully culturally up to date, I didn't know what cis heterosexuals were (cis men, cis women). So, first of all, even to begin to respond to this listener, I had to do a little digging for myself. So, the definition I found online is essentially this, "A cis heterosexual, be it man or woman is a person who is identified at birth by a doctor as either male or female, and feels like that is what they are, male or female." Which, kind of interesting, the way it was phrased there. As if doctors are sort of randomly putting these titles on people based on some genetics, when the Bible's pretty clear, "In the beginning, God created them male and female. So, we already see the tension that we're going into, because as Christians we have a biblical worldview that says, "No, it's not doctors that assign us anything at birth. It's what God has created male and female, those are the two categories that we see in the scripture. Nevertheless, we live in a time where we just kind of want to gloss over that, and for a variety of reasons we live in a world that is redefining. And so a cis heterosexual is a person who would identify themselves, just in the good old fashioned way, Male or Female. Nevertheless, it is called, in our times, as what is identified by, at birth, by a doctor and then feeling in accord with that. Whether that person is of an orientation that is heterosexual or homosexual, but they would identify themselves with the sex gender of their birth. Next, I had to just dig in and ask the question, what is a nerd rapper? I knew what rap was, what rap music is. Apparently it's rap music that includes topics like technology and science. And then finally, I'm not even up to date on the Christian contemporary music chart, so I'm sure not up to date on the secular scene. Who is Rito Rhymes? Well, he's obviously a contemporary nerd rapper who seems to have been surprised by and appreciative of how he was received in the gay community, though not part of it. And finally, just in case anybody out there is not quite sure, although I think we probably all know about by now, what is pride month? Well, it's a month that's been designated as the month to promote, celebrate and affirm the LGBTQ+ community. Their lifestyle and the contributions to society of people who are identified with that movement and way of life. And certainly, you know, as with every month designation, we're talking about celebrating people who have come out from under an oppression of one kind or another in society, and yet have made positive contributions toward it. And then finally, in answer to the writer of the initial email's question basically is, he's wanting an interview with this person, some kind of a response. What can we say about the acceptance that Rito Rhymes says he has experienced in the gay community? Well, in a sense, we can't say anything good or bad, it's simply his experience. A person who's had his own struggles, a person who's struggled with his own identity, perhaps apparently not his sexuality. He identifies himself as heterosexual, yet he's kind of struggled to find his niche there, for whatever reasons. And I don't know him, I don't know how he treats others, but he hasn't felt well received by the women that he has reached out to. Nevertheless, he appears to have been received well by gay men. And I don't know enough about the gay community to really respond to that other than what I have heard, which is just hearsay, but that they are an accepting community, not only among their own, but among those who come among them. And particularly it seems, and again, this is probably a stereotype, but that the gay community in particular, often associates itself with the arts. And so, maybe not too surprisingly that a heterosexual rapper would find appreciation and acceptance when he has reached out to them and gone in among that community. But also this is posted to me and my co-hosts--who are not with me today--and from Russ asking, "So what's a biblical response to this topic and this issue in our times? And to this lifestyle in our culture, especially, perhaps to the mainstreaming of the gay lifestyle in our culture?" Well, the biblical response is twofold, and it's very simple. Number 1: The Bible calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves, whoever they may be, regardless of all the things that divide us in the world today. Whether it's race or creed or even sexual orientation, the Bible says, "love your neighbor as yourself." And when Jesus was pressed on this question, He brought up the hot topic of His time. He gave us the parable of what we call The Good Samaritan, which in our culture seems pretty mild. In fact, there's even a Good Sam's Club out there. But if you were living in the Israel of Jesus' day, you would not call any club a Good Sam's Club, because the Samaritans were those people that the Jewish people of Jesus' community felt most distant from, most disconnected from, most at odds with. They did not even cross the line into each other's territories. There was, in the Jewish mindset, no such thing as a good Samaritan. And yet Jesus uses a Samaritan to describe someone who is being neighborly and kind. Without affirming what Samaritans believed or what they did on Mount Gerizim where they worshiped. Jesus used this; a person of a different life, a different belief, a different faith. It would've been regarded, and we would still regard it, as a cult offshoot of Judaism, which was not Judaism. We would not have probably wanted to use this as an example, but Jesus uses this very intentionally to say, "Look, this is how you treat people: you treat them with love, you treat them with respect, you treat them with support, you treat them with kindness. You share with them the good news of the gospel that washes away sins and truly changes lives in radical ways." Samaritans were so looked down on and it's interesting that when Jesus even addressed a Samaritan, the woman at the well, and here is a person who is in sexual sin. She's been married seven times, she's living with a guy now--she's not even married to him--and Jesus is treating her gently. And she brings up the topic of the whole Samaritan/Jewish divide and Jesus, He doesn't affirm what the Samaritans believe anymore than He affirms what she's doing sexually in her life. But He keeps bringing her back to the salvation question, which will change all of the other things in her life, and used the gospel as the powerful thing to change life. You know, this is a great one for us because we are living in a world where these issues are not pushed away in the closet anymore. There is so much that once upon a time, we all agreed: This was right, this was wrong, and if it was wrong, sure didn't do it, and there are some things we didn't even talk about. Now it's all on the table, it's all being talked about. And more than that, it's all being accepted culturally. So how do we respond to that? You know, we live in a time of what we might call, culture wars and slowly as Christians, I think we are learning that when we take up the sword of the state for the cause of Christ and just try and outlaw everything that we see in the Bible to be wrong, it comes back to bite us. It's not working out well. And maybe that's the reason that Jesus told us, and the scriptures told us, and Paul tells us in his letters, "we don't war with the weapons of this world. Those who pick up the sword of the state," as Jesus put it, "those who take up the sword end up dying by it." That's not our weapon friends. We take up the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. And friends, I just want to give you a comforting thought: The gospel is far more powerful than the sword of the state. And really it is the only method capable of bringing lasting change, not only to a culture, but to the hearts of individual people and those that we love. And this again, is a topic where once upon a time you might have said, "I don't know anybody of that lifestyle. I don't know anybody of that orientation." Well, today you do, and you're in school with them, and you're at work with people of that lifestyle, and you probably have people in your extended family who are there.
Gary Schick
And so, how do we respond? Jesus has told us how to respond: You love your neighbor, you pray for your neighbor, you do good to your neighbor, you work for their good, and you share with them the good news of the gospel. All of that said, this does not mean that the Bible condones all lifestyles and all life choices, concerning marriage and sexuality, the Bible is very clear. In Genesis 1 and 2 we read, "In the beginning, God created them male and female," and I camped on this a little bit just as we were sort of even getting into this topic. Biblically, this is not something that a doctor decides. They're just identifying what God put there to begin with. Now, I know there are some genetic variations and things that can lead to some confusion, but essentially there from creation are what is called male and female. And interestingly enough, in the first marriage God brings together a male, a female, and calls this, "that relationship in which to become one." And Jesus comes along, and when he's asked about divorce, which was a hot topic in his time, (And it's still a hot topic in our day), and He affirms marriage, not as God allowed it. "Yeah, it can be broken under this circumstance," or whatever He says. But look at what God's intent was at the creation. That that should be our goal as well. What did God intend? And Jesus takes us back to Genesis 1 & 2 and He says, "in the beginning, He created them male and female and the two shall become one." And then Jesus says, "what God has made one flesh, let not man put us under." So, in that statement, Jesus is reaffirming everything that Genesis 1 and 2 tells us, not only about our sexuality, but also about the nature of marriage, that it is between one man and one woman. And He reaffirms what the Bible says about sexuality, which not only cuts out the LGBTQ+ approach to sexuality, but even the way many heterosexuals treat it. This is not something that you move into or try out for a while. "If it's good, if we like it, if we like each other. If the relationship seems good, then we'll sprinkle a little holy water on it and get married, tie the knot." No, no, no friends, sexual activity of any kind outside of marriage, the Bible prohibits, calls it sin. When we come to the topic of marriage, the Bible says it's between one man and one woman. And that is where the sexual relationship is to be, it is to be a monogamous union, not including anyone else's faithfulness within the relationship. And why is this? Because it reflects the relationship between Christ and his other counterpart, which is His church, His bride. And so marriage in scripture is taken to a very high place as to be this holy, monogamous faithful woman, or union representing the relationship of Christ and His church. So, even within the Christian Church there's many who are gonna balk at this, because this is God's ideal. And that it is to be a lifelong and healthy and beautiful and upbuilding relationship between one man and one woman. And we'll go farther with that. It is also to be a procreative union, or at least open to that gift. And again, this is not where our culture has taken it. We have made it all about personal pleasure, personal choices personal decisions; personal, personal, personal, if there's one thing that defines us as Americans, which is, we are people of choice. And yet the Bible says, "No, God actually has some other intentions for these things." So, nevertheless, that's what the Bible says, same sex relationships, living together relationships, relationships that were less than monogamous. This is not unfamiliar to the writers of the Bible. This was rampant, all of this. Everything that's going on in our culture today was fairly rampant in the culture of the Old Testament, the pagan cultures of the Canaanites, the Ammonites, the Hittites, the Moabites, the Egyptians. I mean, it happened among them. When we come to the New Testament era, the Greek and Roman cultures we're very accepting of all of these lifestyles. The only thing that's really different today, is that today in our culture the same sex partnership has been raised to the status of marriage. We did not see that in the ancient world. While these relationships were common, what was also still agreed on then was that the marriage relationship was for the purpose, essentially, of being a procreative union. And that can't happen in a same sex union. Male and male, female and female do not procreate, something else has to happen. And so, that is a sense in which we have gone a step beyond in our culture, but nevertheless, the Bible speaks to all of this. And again, rather than going to war with those who are different from us, and don't have the Bible's perspective, it talks about what the gospel can do. And it also takes sexual sins and it does something else we don't intend to do. For some reason, we tend to elevate those things. It levels them out with everything else. When Paul writes, in his letter to the Corinthians, who lived in a city that was very sex saturated. I mean, right there in Corinth was the temple to Aphrodite in which I guess there were something like a thousand prostitutes; that was how they worshiped Aphrodite. So talk about a sex saturated culture. This is what Paul writes, he says to the Corinthians, "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God. Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral." That is, those who take sexual activity outside of marriage be it heterosexual or otherwise. "Neither the sexually immoral nor idolators, nor adulterers." Those who break the marriage vow. "Nor men who submit to or perform homosexual acts. Nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunker, nor verbal abusers, nor swindler will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were, but you were washed, you were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, and by the spirit of our God." So Paul does everything that we don't like here. Number one, he does identify this sin as a sin, and there's a reason he didn't just randomly come up with it because he wanted to give a hard time to people in that community. No, this sort of sexual activity was very normal and accepted in the Greek culture, it may not have been something they would've called marriage, but it would not have been unusual. And he's bringing these people around to the biblical perspective and saying, "No, this is sin," but then he does something else that a lot of us don't like. He's not raising any sexual sin above other sins. He's putting it right down among those who are unkind to each other verbally. Something that unfortunately, a lot of Christians have no problem with, what today in the culture is called hate speech. And the Bible says, "you know what, hate speech is not acceptable either." He just blanketly gives a catalog of many sins: some that we would frown on, some that we would turn a blind eye toward and say, "you know what, God doesn't turn a blind eye toward any of this stuff." And then he says this, "and by the way, some of you found yourselves in each of these categories. There were some among you, Christians in Corinth, who at one time were among those who were sexually immoral, who were idols, who were adulterers, who performed sexual homosexual acts, who were thieves, who were greedy for money, who were drunkards, who were verbally abusive, who were swindlers. And you were among those who are not inheriting the kingdom of God, but you came to Christ. You heard the gospel, you received Jesus, and you were washed not just with baptism, but you were sanctified inwardly. You were made a new person, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the spirit of our God, and you have taken a new path in life." Culturally, we're told that people can't change. They can't come out of certain lifestyles. And I'll say it: a lot of things that Paul talks about in this list are hard things to break off of, setting aside the sexual identity question. I know of people who struggle and are dying under the addiction to alcohol. There are some things that are hard to break ways with. There are hard things to part ways with and take on a new path. But Paul is telling us that through the gospel and the power of the spirit, all things are possible. So what does the Bible say? Though it may not be politically correct, continues to call anything, but the marriage of one man, one woman in a monogamous relationship, open to the gift of children sin. On the other hand, for all those who don't fit that category who have fallen short, and Jesus says, "Remember, even anyone who has looked at a woman less fully has committed adultery." So guess what? We all fall into that category. At some point, the gospel says "yet, there is forgiveness, yet there is a way out. Yet, there is a new path, back to God's plan from the beginning." So, probably ruffled some feathers today. Love your neighbors friends, pray for them, have a close eye toward your own life and how well you are measuring up to the biblical ideal. And together let's be receptive of the good news of Jesus. What he died on the cross to cleanse us from. And seeking by the power of the spirit to honor Him with our thoughts, with our words, with our deeds, with our eyes, with our actions, with how we respond to one another, how we treat one another, how we accept one another and how we then in Christ choose to live.