"Seeking Truth" - Sermon for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Seeking Truth
Pentecost 16
September 13, 2015
Grace, Mankato, MN
Genesis 2.4b-25

This past holiday Monday I was “relaxing” by reading my Facebook feed. I was interested in the early buzz on today’s text. However, such relaxation quickly drained with a posting on the Narrative Lectionary page and severely impaired it. The Narrative Lectionary Facebook page is a resource for those of us who use the Narrative Lectionary. One pastor was worried about how he was going to address controversy about sexuality. He was afraid that some people would use today’s text to say, “See, God made ‘Adam and Eve,’ not ‘Adam and Steve.’” In response another pastor said hers was an RIC congregation (Reconciled in Christ, open and affirming to the GLBTQ community) and she was going to deconstruct the text. Deconstruct too often means “tear down” without putting something else in its place. I’ve been stewing ever since, but I decided to put on my big-boy pants and figure a way through.

Both pastors’ comments highlight two unhelpful approaches to scripture, particularly the Old Testament. One way is to take the ancient texts literally and use them as weapons to attack and convince people of our positions. A second way is to dismantle them as being from a certain time and place so much so that they become virtually irrelevant. Now, there is nothing wrong with asking what the “plain sense” of the text is; Martin Luther used that approach as one among many. And it is helpful to ask about the context a text is written. But too often, these approaches result in something unhelpful, literalism on the one hand and relativism on the other.

I think that there is a better way, one that’s important for us especially as we use the Narrative Lectionary moving through the Bible. A more helpful way is to acknowledge scripture as narrative and stories we tell about God and humanity that express Truth (with a capital T) about both. It’s important to recognize that most of the time Truth does not mean Fact. For example, I can say that I love my wife with my whole heart, and that would express a deep Truth. But I don’t literally love my wife with this organ called my heart, so the statement is not factual. Yet, it is True.

So, for today, it’s really not helpful to use this creation story to argue for or against sexuality. Nor is it helpful to dismiss the text as pre-science mythology devised by people who didn’t know better. Ancient peoples understood far more than we give them credit for.  Rather, it’s more helpful to ask, “What Truth is expressed by the idea that God created humanity from soil and breathed some of God’s spirit into us? What is significant about humanity naming animals and tending the garden? What does it mean that humanity shouldn’t be alone? Why didn’t God just make another person the same way God made the first one?” There are other questions we could pursue.

We can’t address all of these today, but I do want to throw out some ideas about the last two questions. First, it seems to me that when God says it is not good for humans to be alone it tells us the importance of community and expresses the Truth that we are meant and built for relationships. None of us can do anything, be anything or achieve anything without the help of others. The building blocks of society is family units, but we know that the definition of family is not “one size fits all.” Here at Grace there are many different kinds of families. Frankly, this is hard for me personally. I have a hard time asking for help from others. So, I need to remember that God made us in God’s image, and God is relational in God’s being: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

That leads me to another Truth I think is expressed here: our relationships are interdependent. When I work with couples preparing for marriage, we read this text and talk about complementarity, how we bring different gifts to the relationship. I usually mention that if my wife and I were both alike, one of us would be unnecessary. But that notion is not just in marriages, of whatever kind, it exists in communities as well. When we were looking for a Minister for Discipleship and Faith Formation, the primary criterion for the person was “not Scott.” As we have done the StrenghsFinder in a staff retreat last year, we’ve affirmed the gifts of John Odegard who complements me with gifts I don’t have. By the way, it’s instructive that God is the one who most often is called helper (ezer) in the Old Testament. Perhaps a better translation for helper would be “sustainer.”

As we move forward through the Old Testament and the stories it tells, can we ask the Truth questions? And someday, when it comes time for us to deal with the sexuality question at Grace, can we involve in the conversation people who may have a different perspective than our own, to hear their stories? It’s important to follow the Participatory Golden Rule: consequence takers need to be decision makers. If it affects you, you need to be in the conversation. That’s the kind of place I want Grace to be, where we can struggle with our faith questions in a safe way, where we can all seek a deeper understanding about who we are and Whose we are. Amen.