A New Map: Navigating the Path of Scripture and Sexuality

 This weekend is the first weekend of Lent, as we follow our path of “Joining Jesus at the Margins.” You can engage in the season in many ways: We have a Text Study of the Gospel of Luke; a Book Study of Jesus and the Disinherited by Dr. Howard Thurman; and are walking this path of discipleship with our sister community, New Hope Presbyterian Church in Anaheim. You can order a copy of Thurman’s book here and sign up for the book discussion here.

Have you ever wondered why it is that Christianity is supposed to be a love-driven way of life, but seems to be nasty and hateful when some people present it? Do you tire of always having to clarify something like, “When I say I am a Christian, I don’t mean like those people”? Do you even shy away from the word “Christian” or “church” at times, simply because you don’t want to be associated with exclusionary speech? If so, please know that you are not alone. There are books for sale entitled, They Like Jesus but Not the Church and Love Jesus, Hate Church. I haven’t read them, so this is a reference, not a referral. Just the fact that people have felt the need to write books trying to distinguish between Christ and the church – which is called to be “the body of Christ” – is disheartening. 

I suspect one reason many people have left the church through the last few decades has to do with the way the church presents the Scriptures as warrants for exclusion and bigotry. It is one thing to see how some church leaders are manipulating the Christian message to legitimize their bigotry. It becomes another thing they start citing Scripture to defend their exclusionary or demeaning stance. That is exactly how many of us were taught that Christians are supposed to act in the world – to know what the Bible calls sin and to oppose it in the name of Christ. So, if someone is taught (wrongly) to read the Scriptures as being anti-gay, the question is, “Can I be a faithful Christian if I am gay, or I am not anti-gay?” It leaves us asking if the Bible is true, or, at least how to read the Bible and not be a bigoted person as a result. 

If you have struggled with how to be open and loving while being faithful to the Scriptures; or if you know that you are following Jesus but don’t always know how to express your faith when others cite “chapter and verse,” I invite you to a workshop here at St. Mark called “A New Map: Navigating the Path of Scripture and Sexuality.” The workshop will take place Saturday, March 25, from 9:00am to 2:00pm and includes lunch. A production of our Adult Discipleship and Nurture Commission, in conjunction with Christ by the Sea United Methodist Church, our workshop’s featured presenter will be Dr. David Lull, retired New Testament professor at Yale Divinity School and Wartburg Theological Seminary, who will lead us in a deconstructive project of disclosing how the Scriptures are often misread and misused, before turning to a more constructive project of how to read the Scriptures more faithfully and lovingly. Dr. Lull’s presentations will be followed by a panel discussion from a variety of perspectives, as well as some Q&A opportunities. You can register for the workshop here or send questions here, and we will be providing more information as we get closer to the event. 

Whenever God’s people fall into using God’s name to legitimize their conventionality or prejudices, God raises up prophetic voices calling us back to doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly. I genuinely feel that God has given that prophetic voice to St. Mark for many years, and continues to call us in that way. This workshop will be one way to strengthen our resolve to be a capacious and welcoming community because we are faithful to the way of God that Christ makes known through the Scriptures. 

See you in worship,

Mark of St. Mark

Lenten Plans

 Note from Mark Davis: Today I have asked SueJeanne Koh, the Director of Adult Education and Resident Theologian for both St. Mark and New Hope Presbyterian Churches, to write our Friday letter. SueJeanne has done great work in bringing the journeys of St. Mark and New Hope together, and has coordinated ongoing meetings between me and Rev. Chineta Goodjoin from New Hope. Much of our attention of late has been preparing for the season ahead, as SueJeanne’s letter will show. 

It is hard to believe, but the season of Lent is starting in a few weeks, with Ash Wednesday on the 22^nd. I grew up in a church that did not pay attention to liturgical rhythms apart from Christmas and Easter, but increasingly, many of us have seen the formative value of Lent and Advent for our communities. If Advent is a season of waiting and hope, then Lent has typically offered us a time of personal reflection, abstinence from indulgence, and remorse about individual sin. 

One way to approach this liturgical season is by turning intensely inward. This year, we invite you to approach it a bit differently. Throughout Scripture, the word “repent” has different valences, referring to the emotions of regret, the conviction of sin, or a change of mind. It also describes a turning back to God, as in John the Baptist’s cry, “Repent, for the reign of heaven is near.” To say that the reign of God is near is to suggest that the matter of repentance is not only a spiritual posture, but also one that asks us to orient ourselves in the world differently – seeing God at work, and seeing the need for God among us. 

This year’s Lenten theme is “Joining Jesus at the Margins.” It is an invitation to both St. Mark and New Hope communities to cultivate this vision of repentance. This vision is both about seeing the world, and being present in it, in ways that recognize God’s solidarity with those on the margins of our society. It is to decenter ourselves by joining those people at the margins, and to see the world from those margins. We will have some familiar events–like our Ash Wednesday service and weekly text study focusing on Luke’s fourth chapter. But we will also read Scripture alongside Howard Thurman’s prophetic book, Jesus and the Disinherited. And to bring both Scripture and Thurman’s words to life in our context, we will plan a couple of site tours in Orange County using A People’s Guide to Orange County by Thuy Vo Dang, Elaine Lewinnek, and Gustavo Arellano. Finally, through the season we will ask you to share your own observations and experiences of God at work among us, through words and art.

We hope that these Lenten rhythms, both familiar and newer, will bring us closer to seeing worship and the work of justice as intertwined. And we hope that these opportunities will help reveal God’s hope and heart for our world, and open our eyes to the histories of marginalized communities among us—to use Thurman’s words, whose “backs are against the wall.” We live in a visual age—a stream of images emanates relentlessly from our smartphones, tablets, and computers, amusing us with memes as well as haunting us with images of grief, brokenness, and all-too-familiar violence. To see the world as God would have us see it, and then to be as God would have us be, is what we hope to do by joining Jesus at the margins. To cultivate this vision is spiritual, creative, and tangible work, and orients us to the God whom we worship.

SueJeanne Koh

Director of Adult Education and Resident Theologian