The Possibility of Difference

I preached the following as a sermon at Worcester College Chapel, Oxford, to mark LGBTQ History Month on Feb 12th 2023.  The New Testament Reading was Mark 10.46-52 , and the college choir sang Brahms Geistliches Lied immediately before I preached. * Sei nur in allem Handel Ohn Wandel, Steh feste! In all thy doings be steadfast And true. In the Spring of 2003 I was invited to appear on the BBC TV show ‘The Weakest Link’. A couple of mornings before the recording, I was walking the dog and it occurred to me that Anne Robinson was likely to ask if I was gay. I was an unmarried vicar, and it was a standard question she threw out in the typical, mean, acerbic manner of the character she adopted to present the show. Of course, I am gay. But at the time almost no-one knew.  As I thought about this, the fun of going to London to be on the quiz became completely overshadowed by the fear of what I would do if she asked this simple question. I mean - my family didn’t know. My ...

But marriage is about one man and one woman. The Bible says so. The Church of England canons say so.  Jesus says so. You can’t just mess with that because the government has changed the law… And somehow we all accept that this is what the Bible says. But does it? The big text normally cited here is Genesis 2.24, and its New Testament appearance when quoted by Jesus in Matthew 19.  In Matthew 19, we’re told, Jesus is really clear - God made people male and female, and a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. That’s marriage. Jesus defines it. End of. Except… Except two things. Jesus isn’t being asked to define marriage in this passage, he’s being asked to comment on divorce. So it’s an answer to a specific question, not a general theology that he’s putting out there. And also - does anyone else have questions about the strange thing that is going on with the quotations? Jesus uses two. Genesis 1.27 and Genesis 2.24. I...