Sermons

Oct 8 - The Rev. Christopher McLaren - Holiness of Life in Covenant Relationships

Listen to audio version of this sermon.

Sunday Oct. 8, 2006 Proper 22B
Text: Mark 10: 2-9
Theme: Holiness of Life in Covenant Relationships

I must admit that when I saw the readings for this Sunday I became a bit nervous. I thought to myself, wow I get to preach on the painful, controversial, and sensitive subject of divorce with the potential for offending all sorts of people, what fun. And given our current struggles in the Episcopal Church regarding homosexuality and the blessing of same-sex unions the field of risk expands considerably as I’m sure some very different sermons are being preached this morning around our nation and in this city. First, I could offend those who have suffered the pain of divorce even if the decision moved them from a destructive relationship toward a life of health, safety, and wholeness, if I’m insensitive in handling these difficult words of Jesus and they do not hear that God’s grace is bigger than their mistakes and failings. I could offend our gay and lesbian members if I fail to speak to their deep needs for affirmation of their committed life-long relationships. I could easily, through insensitivity or ignorance, or lack of skill mistakenly communicate that their struggles and passions make them somehow second-class citizens in the community of St. Michael’s, which could not be further from the truth.

While all of these and more are in fact real dangers, I want to assure you that I do not intend for any of my words to offend or be harmful, but rather to illuminate the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to bring hope.

So let me begin by attempting to connect us to the passage through several stories. Until I was 34 years old I considered myself from an “intact family.” I will never forget the phone call from my mother around Christmas time that she and my father were divorcing after 36 years of marriage. It seemed my conservative Christian father had simply found someone else. I can remember being stunned and thinking to myself, “what is the point of leaving after 36 years?” I must confess that I am still not really through the pain and grief of the whole ordeal. It has changed me and my patterns of behavior toward my parents in ways that I could not have foreseen.

Just a week ago Archbishop Terence Finlay, retired bishop of the Anglican diocese of Toronto and metropolitan (senior bishop) of Ontario, who retired in 2004 was “admonished and has had his license to officiate at marriages suspended by Bishop Colin Johnson of Toronto for his acknowledging that he officiated at a same-sex marriage of a lesbian couple in a United Church in Toronto.

It was out of a "long journey of love, friendship, support and familial relationship with this particular person and her partner" that Finlay said he "came to the conclusion that their love for one another was part of God's divine love and it was appropriate that that be deeply blessed."

Interestingly Finlay, who made headlines in the early 1990s for firing a priest for maintaining a homosexual relationship, has said in recent years that he has reached a new place in his understanding of homosexuality. He said he was not trying to make a statement or encourage other clergy to defy the church's marriage canon, which allows the sacrament for a man and a woman only. "I'll be quite clear that it wasn't done as a publicity stunt to make waves. I married two people who love each other deeply; they care about the church and I believe their commitment has been blessed by God," he said.

Two weeks ago we hosted a forum here at St. Michael’s on the future of the Episcopal Church at which Bishop Steenson was present. We discussed the threats of division within the diocese in response to the conservative / progressive split in the church regarding homosexuality. I have spoken with many of our parishioners concerning that meeting. It was a painful meeting for many, especially our gay and lesbian members who were present. First, because at times the whole conversation seemed to be in a kind of code language that was difficult to understand to those new to the conversation. Second, because they felt as if somehow we were “making nice” for the bishop (who is a very considerate and kind man) and “talking about gay and lesbian persons as if they were not present.” Third, try as they might it was difficult for them to not feel as if they are the cause of this “impending trouble and division” which opens them up to new feelings of guilt and self-hatred. Fourth, because we failed to make it clear that the discussion about blessing same-gender unions and ordaining openly gay or lesbian Christians is an incredibly personal issue for us at St. Michael’s where we both desire and endeavor to treat our gay and lesbian members just like all of our members, as children of God who are seeking to follow Christ by taking their baptismal covenant seriously, “seeking to serve Christ in all persons” and “respecting the dignity of every human being.”

One member told me that they wished they had stood up and said, “I want every gay and lesbian person to stand up so that Bishop Steenson could see that this issue he is talking so calmly about affects real people who are present in the church.”

Another member wanted to help Bp. Steenson understand that much of the trouble and fear that they have as a lesbian person comes from the church’s positions and actions in our society and that as a Bishop of the church he too is called to respect the dignity of every human being and to use his considerable influence to advocate for those who simply want to be able to live and raise their families in peace and safety and with the same kind of support that others in recognized life-long partnerships enjoy.

For me, and I imagine you as well, this passage is charged with stories and just because the subjects surrounding it are difficult and potentially offensive does not mean that we as Christians should avoid talking about them. I am not here today to make a political statement or to tell you how to vote on a particular issue. I am here to reflect on marriage and divorce theologically and to attempt, however inadequately, to consider our particular community in the process. I believe that we as Christians have something deeply important to say about marriage, holy union, and divorce that our broken and hurting world needs to hear.

In Mark’s gospel we find Jesus in another verbal contest with the Pharisees, his familiar adversaries. The dynamics of the passage are such that the Pharisees ask Jesus a tricky question about divorce and receive a powerful answer about marriage. The Pharisees want to focus on the legal aspects of divorce, not that we can relate to this in our litigious society. In response, Jesus gives the Pharisees an answer that emphasizes not the limits of marriage but the divine intentions behind the marital covenant. The Pharisees want to talk about what is allowable quoting the Mosaic law in Deuteronomy, while Jesus redirects the conversation toward what God intends in marriage by quoting two passages from the creation story and by adding his own admonishment against separation.

Jesus’ response serves to strengthen the Jewish concept of marriage. Jesus understands the marriage relationship to be not only monogamous and exclusive, but also permanent and life-long. Jesus has a very high view of marriage that he makes clear by talking about it in covenant-like terms. Whereas a contract is built upon suspicion, a covenant is grounded in a promise of continued faithfulness. God’s ongoing faithfulness toward Israel despite their failures, forgetfulness, and infidelity is understood as the model for human relationships, including the marriage relationship. Jesus reminds us that we are made for the covenant way of life, and that by living into this faithfulness despite real struggles and pain we discover the joy God intends for us. Marriage then becomes an example of the highest and most enduring kind of human relationships, the kind of relationships that all of us are called to strive for in our lives because they communicate something of the love God has for his creation.

It is important to note here that Christianity has from its very beginning held that both singleness and marriage are holy states. Both are important ways of serving God and living into our human vocation of ever-deepening love for our Creator. We are all called to a covenant way of life regardless of our marital status. I realize of course that I have not clarified my own understanding of the blessing of persons in same-gender relationships. To the question, “Can the relationship between two people giving themselves to each other for life participate in and convey to others the love of the self-giving Christ? I believe the answer to that question is no different for same-gender couples that seek the blessing of their covenant relationships within the community of faith than for opposite-gender couples. What is blessed is the same. What is asked of the couple is the same, namely “fidelity, monogamy, mutual affection and respect, careful, honest communication, and the holy love which enables those in such relationships to see in each other the image of God.” (General Convention 2000). What is asked of the community of faith is the same “prayerful support, encouragement and pastoral care necessary to live faithfully” yet as a colleague of mine has said, “it is perhaps more profound, because the community is asked to stand with the couple in the context of a church and a culture that are often blind and sometimes even hostile to the grace they manifest.”

As Bp. Paul Marshall has said so eloquently, “To bless union is to ask God to make it an experience of the kind and intensity of Christ’s love, both for the couple and also for all who are touched by their life together. Thus blessing a union is not to wish it good fortune or merely to give thanks for it, although both certainly occur; it is to set it aside for a holy use, to perceive it to be grace-bearing, to expect God to use it.”

Thus I believe that what Jesus is saying about marriage and divorce needs to be understood and applied to both opposite-gender and same-gender relationships. I realize there are conditions, stresses, and forces of disruption operating on same-gender relationships that are profoundly different from those experienced by those in traditional marriages. And there is, I believe, a great deal of important work and understanding to engage in order to adequately support these relationships in the Christian community. However, what can be affirmed is that Christians of same-gender and opposite-gender affections are equally called, within their respective modes of being, to holiness of life in relationship with God.

Currently in our Diocese the blessing of same-gender relationships is not allowed by our canons or practice. However this painful reality does not affect our desire to care for and support these relationships and to pray and work for a new understanding that many Christians are coming to in our church. We will continue to seek to celebrate and bless same-gender unions because these exclusive, life-long, unions of fidelity and care for each other have been experienced as holy. We have seen the fruit of such covenant relationships as sanctifying human lives, deepening mutual love and drawing persons together in service to the world.

The passage ends with a small section about divorce that recognizes that sometimes the divine purpose for marriage is not realized. The very fact that the matter needed to be discussed suggests that cases of divorce had arisen in the Christian community and they were working to try to figure out how to understand and address the issues. They are in fact saying something like, “We know that God’s intention is a permanent marriage but when that simply does not work out, and divorce does in fact occur, is remarriage all right?

Jesus’ response to this question is clear and uncompromising. If remarriage follows a divorce it is experienced as an act of adultery against the first partner. However, the words of Jesus are not prescriptive. He does not prohibit remarriage. Rather Jesus describes the situation in the personal terms of pain and suffering akin to that of adultery. If one remarries after a divorce it is a violation of the relationship of the covenant created by the first marriage. Jesus does not create a new law either allowing or prohibiting divorce or remarriage. Rather Jesus reasserts the purposes God intended in marriage. He does not soften the sense of pain and violation that comes with divorce when God’s purposes are not achieved. Divorce is painful even when it is the correct and wise decision, because it means tearing apart two who have been covenanted together. Jesus’ response is also surprising in that he makes provision for women divorcing their husbands, elevating their status and giving them equal control over the marital relationship that was not the case according to Jewish Law.

Perhaps Jesus’ responses to these questions were as shocking and difficult for his disciples as they are for us today. Jesus calls us back to covenant faithfulness to God and one another. He does not limit our lives to what we can get away with through our legal maneuvering, but rather reminds us of the relational dimension of all of life. We are called to live out God’s intentions for our relationships in faithful love, forgiving one another, and endeavoring to help one another grow into ever deepening and loving relationship with God. Jesus reminds us that we are made for each other from the foundations of the creation.

When we see the beleaguered state of marriage in our society, and the bitter contest surrounding extending the blessings and protections of marriage to same-gender couples, we might be tempted to despair. But we must remember that we as the church have the opportunity to offer our surrounding culture a renewed vision of life lived not according to our own selfish wants and desires but rather in covenant faithfulness to one another and in service to the world. I believe that both Christian marriage and same-gender unions are intended to be signs of God’s love for this broken and sinful world. This is made possible through our participation in the life of Christ whose self-giving love is not simply our example, but the source of our life and hope together.

If marriage and same-gender unions are to be different within the church, signs of God’s kingdom to the wider culture in which we live, we need to renew our vision of them as relationships rooted in the covenant faithfulness of God. As Christians we cannot view these relationships as simply existing between two people, but we must see them in a wider way. Life-long covenant relationships are communal events, during which we pledge “to do all in our power to support these persons in their relationship.” The failure of life-long covenant relationships within the church is a cause for great sadness but must not be understood as resting solely on the individuals involved. It must be seen also as a failure of the community that has pledged its support of the couple. We as a Christian community are called to do all in our power to support and encourage and protect those who have entered into life-long covenant relationships. We as the church fail if we continue to see divorce and separation as outside of the church. Within the church we must develop and nurture communities of character that can provide the needed support and care to nurture faltering relationships. Divorce is not simply the problem of the couples threatened by it, but the failure of a community to nurture them in the spiritual gifts of faith, hope and love that ultimately sustain lifelong partnership.

We are also called to live with the understanding that despite our best intentions and efforts not all marriages will remain viable. We as the body of Christ must minister and care for those who have suffered the pain of divorce. We must resist our tendency to isolate those in pain, bringing them into renewed fellowship and healing - sharing their joys and sorrows, and caring for the children involved.

We as the church must deal compassionately with divorce while continuing to hold up lifelong covenant relationship as our ideal and cultivating a community that can both support and nurture their health. By doing so we will give witness to the firm belief that God opens hearts and minds to discover yet deeper dimensions of Christ’s saving power at work, far beyond our limited power to conceive it. And in this way we in this community of St. Michael’s can be a sign of the coming reign of God, as we continue to live and love one another as truly forgiven people.