GA sermon: Aymer says faith transcends sexual identity
By Jason P. Reagan, The Layman, July 12, 2012
PITTSBURGH, Pa. — Recognizing the faith of the unrecognized was the focus of the July 3 worship service of the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s 220th General Assembly.
Dr. Margaret Aymer, associate professor of New Testament at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Ga., delivered a sermon based on Mark 2:1-12, the account of Jesus acknowledging the great faith of several unnamed men who lowered a paralyzed man through a roof in order to be healed.
“The ones who do the heavy lifting in this story are loyal to the paralyzed one. They could have abandoned their burden in order to press closer to Jesus, but instead, they carry the paralyzed one with them,” she said.
Aymer said the most important aspect of the heavy lifters lies in their anonymity, especially when compared to the modern obsession with identity.
“We live in a time when who we are matters. We polarize ourselves by means of our identities: Confessing or More Light; Emergent or Mainline; Palestinian or Israeli; first generation, 1.5 generation, or second generation; conservative or progressive … and the list goes on,” she said.
“Mark doesn’t use so much as an adjective to describe these unidentified heavy lifters, these bearers of the paralyzed one,” she added.
Although the text in Mark (in the New International Version) states the heavy lifters were men, Aymer said the Greek noun could indicate a mixed crowd of people.
“And we remember from the long ago or not-so-long ago days of our struggles with the Greek language that the masculine plural autoi, autwn, autois, autous – the word ‘they’ in English can include men and women. No, we don’t know the gender or sexuality of those doing the heavy lifting, but if Mark knows he’s not telling. All Mark tells us is ‘When Jesus saw their faith …’” she said.
Aymer said the point of the passage is that Jesus is not interested in classifying the heavy lifters but is more concerned with their actions.
“They act with loyalty to the paralyzed one, the one whom they will not leave outside. They commit themselves to getting that paralyzed one to Jesus by any means necessary, even if it means tearing the roof apart,” she said.
Aymer equated the paralyzed man in the Gospel account to people today who are “paralyzed by fear or by hope … by the -isms and phobias that have always threatened to tear [the Church] apart … by theological rifts and financial tears … by the call for justice or by the clamor for self-preservation … by the call to tomorrow and the longing for yesterday.”
Tying her sermon in with the later reading of the necrology during the service –the names of those associated with the PCUSA who died in 2010 and 2011 – Aymer said, “They too were heavy lifters, loyal to their charges, committed to giving the world access to Jesus, trusting that Jesus Christ could offer healing, forgiveness and empowerment to those whom life had paralyzed.”
Aymer concluded with a challenge to the church to become a “universal union of the unidentified faithful, heavy-lifters and the paralyzed moving together in solidarity and determination toward our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, trusting when He sees their faith, our faith — the faith of the church militant and triumphant.”
She added that, if the church would follow such a path, “Jesus will still say to us, to all whom we bear with us, and to the whole God-beloved paralyzed world: Your sins are forgiven. Take up your pallet and walk.”
Aymer’s GA sermon did not seem to invoke the same degree of controversy that has been present in her previous sermons and writings.
In 2011, Aymer wrote a response to the “Deathly Ill” letter, released by the Fellowship of Presbyterians. The letter called for the formation of a new Reformed body, which would eventually become ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.
Aymer opposed the group’s goals and said the PCUSA had arrived at that point in history “by suffering the creation of fellowships (like the Layman) in opposition to the Confession of 1967 and silently enduring the refusal of churches to live into their financial obligations to the whole denomination.”
In 2006, Aymer penned an essay for a book about the Bible and same-gender sexuality published by the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, a group that has advocated inclusion of gay and lesbian people into the PCUSA for the past 15 years.
“Questions about same-sex relations simply are not very important to writers trying to pass on the Good News,” Aymer said.