(Gen 2:24 NKJV) Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be
joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
The bible is clear in what marriage
means, that is two separate persons by their own decisions are joined
together in one flesh leaving their own families whence they come from.
Reading Gen 2:24 again, it was the decision of the man (and not of the
woman) to leave his family and be joined to his wife. In essence, it is
the decision of the man as head of the household to form this family
unit.
Gay marriage breaks down the "traditional" marriage based on the
power structure of the man as the head and not from an equal perspective
where the commitment is made by both parties. Our modern definition of
traditional marriage is not blibical for in the bible it is about the
man being the decision maker and the head with many wives and not just
one man and one woman. What mattered was the power hierachy and not
whether you were a male or female. That was why Saul in the bible
brought David in to be married to Jonathan when he had liking for David,
for David was subjugate to Jonathan as a wife would to the husband. As
long as the power structure was maintained, there would be no issue for
marriage.
The Jews did have a culture and it was
a strongly Patriarchal and religious culture. Gays were regarded in the
Jewish religious sense as natural Eunuchs and just like the man made
Eunuchs were banned from the Holy of Holies. When Isaiah preached on the
day of Jubilee, the day of the Lord of Host coming down to earth, it
would be marked by grace, a grace that extended to the Kingdom of God
which would now include gays when they were hitherto rejected by the
Jewish faith as being unclean.
Gays were considered unclean not
because of the same sex orientation but because it was the act in a
religious abomination where the Jews have anal sex with the male temple
priests so that we can join ourselves to the principalities. In sex as
part of the faith worship, we are joined in marriage to the gods. Such
associations with the strict Jewish codes against religious idols meant
that gays even though natural and same sex orientated were lumped under
the idol religious worshippers. Why were the man made Eunuchs banned?
Because the temple priests usually castrate themselves as part of the
faith worship. There is a shadow of demonic worship with same sex acts
which were done not because they were gays. They were men having sex
with men yet mostly straight.
Gays were condemned strictly by the law
because the law doesn't account for the context, the purpose of the
action. The law has no grace, and sets a clear bar between right and
wrong for example healing on a Sunday!. Its role was to condemn without
grace or mercy. Jesus Christ ushered in the year of the Jubilee where
the first act of God's grace and mercy was to give gays a name in the
Kingdom of God. ie they will no longer be judged simply because they
were gays but because their worship of God was accounted to them as
righteous. Jesus was God's grace and mercy for those unjustly persecuted
and condemned under the law.
The story of David and Jonathan was not
only an example of gay marriage, it went much further.
(1 Sam 18:1 NKJV) Now when he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of
Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his
own soul.
(1 Sam 18:2 NKJV) Saul took him that day, and would not let him go home
to his father's house anymore.
In order to understand 1 Sam 18:1,2,
the Jewish power construction should be understood. Jonathan was so
in-love with David, as if his soul and spirit was joined with David when
they first met that the two flesh became one. That was why, Saul seeing
that his son has become one with David, recognized their "marriage"
relationship and as King ordered a poor shepherd boy to enter his
household. David was essentially a male "concubine" to serve the needs
of Jonathan even though Jonathan was already married for procreation and
to continue his lineage.
Saul was so supportive of this marriage
relationship that it was him who ordered David as a peasant to join the
household as a servant to Jonathan. It was a master/slave relationship
where Jonathan as the prince would reign over David. It was a marriage
arrangement that was formulated by Saul.
The power structure begins to shift in
1 Sam 18:8, when David begins to be more popular than Saul, and King
Saul no longer had the pre-imminence and was made second to a shepherd
servant boy. Hence, the power construction was turned upside down with
Saul deciding thereafter to get rid of David because the servant has
become King in the eyes of many.
Possibly unknown to Saul, was that
David and Jonathan made a covenant with each other which was not
acceptable under the law. Jonathan was already married to David just
like a man would marry a wife as a property. There was no need for a
special covenant on equal terms as it was a master slave relationship in
the power hierarchal structure.
This covenant was severely tested when
Saul turned against David and tried to kill him. The arrangement of Saul
for David to be married to his daughters as a political ploy of arranged
marriage does not annul David’s relationship with Jonathan. He was a
son-in law twice over.
Without Jonathan there was no David,
as he would have never entered to the royal household. Without David,
there would be no Jesus, the Messiah. Hence, in the queerest of ironies,
it was a gay marriage that God chose to bring His kingdom come on earth.
It was the expression of the grace of God.
The covenant Jonathan made with David
was a blood covenant that whatever belongs to Jonathan became David's
and vice-versa. That was why Jonathan's child remained in the royal
household after Jonathan's death because David acknowledged him as his
own son even though a threat to his own throne.
Blood covenant are sealed and made by
two equal parties, where both had something to offer. It was not meant
for a crown prince to make this covenant with a shepherd boy like David
because David had nothing to offer in return.
For example, the Abrahamic Covenant was
a blood covenant between God and Abraham which could only have taken
place because of grace and looking into the future where Jesus was the
Lamb of God. Abraham had nothing to offer God except for the bread and
the blood which is Jesus Christ. The Covenant was made between God and
Abraham not by the standing of Abraham but by the blood of the Lamb.
Hence, the relationship between
Jonathan and David, went much beyond marriage, even better than the love
with a woman, for they had entered into a bi-directional covenant as
equals whereas in marriage the women looses all rights and join herself
to the man as a procession. It was love at its purest not an arranged
political marriage nor a marriage of fancy (such as Solomon with his 700
wives) but a marriage that surpasses all tests of faithfulness to break
up when even their lives was threatened. The best example of marriage in
the bible ironically is not a straight marriage but a gay one where love
was not just sex but faithful commitment to each other and a joining and
relationship knitted together at the Spirit, Soul and body that the two
flesh became one.
In 1 Sam 20:41 when Jonathan met David the last time, they were
extremely passionate, with sexual foreplay and passionate kissing for it
was a pure eros love between the two. They were having a sexual
relationship all this while because Jonathan as the Crown prince owned
David just as a man would own the women. David belonged to Jonathan and
that was why he came into the royal household to live with Jonathan just
as a wife would.
What made the love between Jonathan and David so incredible was
that the love far exceeds the eros love between a man and a women,
because it was coupled by an Agape love that broke down the power
structures until it was Jonathan and not David who in 1 Sam 18:3-4
who took his clothes and weapons to give it to David as a commitment of
love.
Saul was angry with Jonathan because he
supported David who was becoming a threat to the throne and Saul was
further angered because Jonathan was choosing David over the chance of
becoming King. And Saul in his anger blurted out the truth of the same
sex relationship using the term "shame on your mothers nakedness" (1 Sam
20:30) for although Saul had allowed and encouraged this relationship in
the first place, he knew not the depth of it for Jonathan had chosen
David rather the family name.
The love between Jonathan and David was
so pure, genuine and sacrificial that God honored their marriage and
Jesus came out of the lineage of David. One day, Jesus would come and
sacrifice Himself so that we could join ourselves to Him in a marriage
covenant of love.
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