I find these two principles — that perspectives are informed by contexts, and that no perspective is normative for all others — to be incredibly important for dialogue of any kind. And in my work as a biblical scholar, I find that these two principles are crucial to our shared hermeneutical work with the biblical text, as well. These principles affirm both the important differences between cultures and their non-hierarchical relationships. I take these principles to extend to ancient Israel, too: their sexual ethics are not normative for our sexual ethics, whatever our context.
We must shape our ethics by grappling with these texts and our traditions in light of our current contexts and experiences. This claim is nothing new, as one finds it throughout the biblical text. In fact, it defines the way ancient Israelites understood their law.
Whereas modern North Americans generally understand law in a static sense, based on the concept of monolithic and enforceable law ― codes, ancient Israelites has a very different concept of written law. Moses, introducing the second enunciation of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:3, gives an insight into the Israelite conception of law:
‖ YHWH did not make this covenant with our ancestors, but with us, ourselves, these ones here today, all of us who are living. ‖
On the level of the narrative, Moses‘ statement is a bald -faced lie:
Moses speaks these words to the ― new generation, ‖ the people who most certainly were not present at Horeb. And yet Moses says that the ancestors were not there — it was in fact the as-yet unborn new generation who was truly there in the flesh.
Here, Moses claims that the true addressees of the covenant are ― us, ‖ the ones ― here today. ‖ But who are―we, ‖ and when is ― today ‖ ? This text in written using ― indexicals, ‖ words that shift based on the time and place of their enunciation — now, today, us, you, here,ourselves — in order to claim that you — whoever you are, wherever you are,reading this text — are given this task.
You must struggle to appropriate the covenant with YHWH as something not frozen in the past but alive, vibrant,responsive to your life, right here and now.
And in order to make this clear,Moses in the following verses repeats the Ten Commandments, but he changesthem to fit the new context of the people, as well. Among other slight changes, Moses includes the word ― land ‖ in the list of things that one should not covet (Deut 5:21; cf. Exod 21:17). Here, Moses updates the law to reflect the new reality of life within the land that the Israelites were about to begin.
We find many other examples of the law responding to new situations in theTorah and beyond. In Numbers 27, for example, the daughters of Zelophehad, adeceased Israelite, confront Moses with this problem: Zelophehad did not haveany sons, and law and custom deemed daughters unfit to inherit. So his possessions would simply filter out of the family. So these bold daughters, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah, decided to ask Moses to see if the lawcould change to accommodate these new circumstances and to recognize people who had not yet been recognized.
And Moses immediately ― brought the case before YHWH‖ (Num 27:5), and YHWH replied, ― Zelophehad‘s daughters are right. ‖ And then YHWH changed the law for everyone in order to reflect and support this group who, until that moment, the law had not recognized or respected (Num 27:6-11), saying, ―this is to have the force of law for the Israelites, as YHWH commanded Moses.‖ (Num 27:11)
We can see that God decrees that the law must change in order to work in new circumstances. In this instance, thelaws, ethics and cultural practices surrounding family inheritance law change inorder to give standing to people whom the law had not yet protected.
Biblical law is a tradition, and like all traditions it is not a static entity but a dynamic and evolving process. In our own contexts, we must be open to the ways in which our cultural contexts and our own traditions are changing, and our ethical and theological principles must remain in constant dialogue with the changing world. This is, I believe, how God has always worked in the world.
And we can see this principle at work in Isaiah 56, wherein the prophet declares eunuchs and foreigners to bepart of the assembly of YHWH, and it is also at work when David requested consecrated bread from Ahimelek the priest at Nob (1 Sam 21), and again when Jesus refers to David‘s use of consecrated bread as he and his disciples picked grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28), and yet again when gentiles began to joint he community of Jesus worshippers (cf. Acts 10).
And I believe that we must continue this task of reassessing our ethical and cultural heritages in light of the actual human realities in our communities.
This is, I believe, the authentically biblical way for my culture to engage our history, our neighbors, and our living, dynamic God. Over the last century dramatic changes have impacted North American conceptions of human sexuality. One important site of change has been ourconception of gender roles, and specifically the relationship between genders. With legal changes that gave women, at least in theory, equal standing before thelaw, including the political recognition of their right to vote, combined with cultural changes that led to more women seeking employment and higher education, American women and men have for the most part renegotiated thei reconomic, domestic and child-rearing responsibilities.
Men rarely call themselve sthe head of the household, and they can no longer take for granted that they arethe utmost authority in the family. Men no longer assume that their career path isthe most important one, and they must be willing to share chores and childcare. People in my generation and younger generations simply accept this, but in theprevious few generations this was a site of considerable conflict.
Many Christian denominations in the United States, such as the Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church, had an intense struggle over the ordination of women that led to fractures within these denominations that remains today. But even such things as typical marriage age, family size, and the possibility for women to initiate divorce proceedings have changed over the past century. While these changes are often cast as evidence of moral decline –and to be sure some of the mare, such as the rapid increase in child exploitation -- many of them are simply changes. Some of them are changes, in my opinion at least, for the better.
My point is this: the Bible does not offer simple guidance when it comes to the issue of human sexuality. Instead, as Moses testifies, God‘s word calls us to grapple with our tradition in the midst of our present context. At the core of this calling are the commands to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves.
Quite often, the discussion about human sexuality is characterized as ― he biblical conservatives against the liberals, who abandon the Bible and go with the cultural current.
But as I have tried to show here, there are two different senses of the word ― biblical‖ at work here – for conservatives, ― biblical‖ often means replicating ancient sexual ethics, at least to a degree. I am proposing a liberal position that takes the Bible very seriously, especially in its call to continue the process of crafting our ethics in relation to both the changing world as well as God‘s continuing involvement in it.
To conclude with a comment on the current issue most responsible for the discussion of human sexuality: I myself am supportive of gay and lesbian relationships primarily because I have come to know many wonderful people who love God, and each other, more strongly because of their relationships.
I have seen them raise wonderful children. I have heard their testimony and I have seenthe fruits of their faith manifest in their lives and the lives of others. Of course,there are individuals in every community that abuse the gift of human sexuality, but the gay and lesbian couples that I happen to know love and cherish each other. To me, this is the witness of my current context. Like David approaching the priest of Nob, I realize that these actions transgress old and traditional boundaries.
But I see a great human need that developing new boundaries wouldaddress. Gay and lesbian Christians, much like the daughters of Zelophehad, have approached the church in the United States and asked that their case be broughtup before the LORD, because the old law does not have a place for them. And,like the prophet in Isaiah 56, I believe that God is calling me to proclaim acceptance of these men and women who have not, until now, fit in to the categories that my culture accepts as normative.
