The Living Waters

"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them."

This verse echoes the one in Leviticus 18 and presents the same problems: It is part of the "Holiness Code" that sets the Israelites apart from others by prohibiting customs associated with neighboring cultures. It objects to homogenital activity because it is an idolatrous practice of ritual prostitution. It is not referring to a loving, life-affirming same-gender sexual relationship. Neither does it refer to women's relationships, which were of no consequence in that culture.

Clearly for the writer of Leviticus, this "idolatry" – lying with a man as with a woman -- is a serious offense, warranting the death penalty. But before one embraces a "God says kill all the fags" attitude, scripture literalists ought to look at the other verses in this section. The death penalty is certainly for some serious offenses: for those who commit adultery and incest. (It is noteworthy that father-daughter incest is not prohibited – a father owns his daughter and may do with her what he likes.) But the death penalty is also for those who curse their father and mother, which puts a fair number of ordinary adolescents in peril if one takes it literally.

And a number of other behaviors ordinarily accepted today are condemned in this section of Leviticus: for example, certain hair styles, tatoos, clothes made of two different materials, and eating shellfish. So, how many biblical literalists have you seen out picketing at the local seafood place or condemning adulterers to death?

Jesus puts the holiness code, and indeed all the law and the prophets, in their place. A lawyer, after a set of trick questions, asks him which commandment is the greatest. Jesus responds: "‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets" (Matthew 22:37-40).

If something in the law of scripture doesn't support -- or even contradicts -- loving God and neighbor, Jesus himself lets it go, as he did whenever the Sabbath law conflicted with an act of love. This is biblical recognition that secular social norms and taboos change and that the standard for Christian behavior is not a set of laws, but love.

So we are left to decide for ourselves which actions that are written about in Leviticus are loving, which are neutral, and which oppose the love. Perhaps, to help us decide, we could invite a few biblical literalists to join us for dinner and discussion at the Red Lobster?