October 8, 2000

From my vantage point, it was quite interesting to look out over the congregation as this gospel was being read. I saw your looks....nobody left, probably out of curiosity to see what on earth was coming next! At one time, I saw an efficiency report of an officer which said, "His men will follow him anywhere, but mostly out of curiosity."

Last week my esteemed associate ducked the part about cutting off your hands if it offends you and plucking out one's eye and that sort of thing — and I don't blame him one bit. If I had read today's lessons ahead, I would have assigned this to someone else.

The reason we switched the psalm from the one printed is that the psalm we read is actually the preferred one for this day. The other psalm really clouds what's being said both in Genesis and in Mark. The psalmist reminds us in his beautiful phrasing of, "What is humanity; What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you should seek him out?" The psalmist knew the sinful situation of the world and particularly of human beings, since we are the only creatures of God that can sin because we are the ones who are created with free choice, the ability to choose, to care for others, the ability to choose love rather than to just feel it.

We are reminded from the beginning of the scriptures, and the beginning of the story of creation right through to the end of the book of the apocalypse of John, that the story of God and his relationship with humanity is forever a love story. There are two stories of creation. The one we read today is the second story. It is the one that makes God look like a teenager in his creation. The first is that seven day scheme where God creates light, then land, the sea creatures and plants, and then the lower animals and the greater animals. Finally, on the sixth day of creation, he creates man, "male and female," he created them in his own likeness and image; he created them making it clear that it takes both parts, both male and female, to image the likeness of God. Not just men, not just women, but both.

If we are ever to see God perfectly, or at least as imperfectly as possible on this planet, we have to do it looking at both genders with which God has blessed us. He gave us free choice, free will in our creation because without free choice, you can't love. For those of you who have been married for more than a weekend, love is a choice you make in the morning and at noon, in the evening and probably two or three times in between, because it is hard to remain committed. Life changes, just as people change constantly. If we are paying attention, we discover new and wonderful things about our life partners every day of the year. That is one of the joys of living in society.

Here, in both stories of creation, God says humanity has to be in society. We are not created to be hermits. Even the hermits of the faith went off only to hear more clearly the word of God and then came back to the community to relate the word of God to the rest of us. We are created to live in society. That was one of the first gifts God gave us after breath — society, social relationships, to be in relationship with other human beings. He called us to respond not only to himself in love, but to each other in love.

The story is repeated in the calling of Abram out of Ur in Chaldaea to go to a land he has not yet seen, in his middle years with a wife who had no children; to go to a place that he knew not and there to become the father of a great nation so complete that it was like the sands of the sea. You couldn't count the people anymore than you could count the sands on the beach. And so, another gift that reminds us of trust and love — to respond to God out of trust and love.

The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is another reaffirmation of this love story. Jesus doesn't come to the earth to whip us into shape; he comes to the earth to love us, to care for us, to call us to true love of God, and then finally, to remove the sinfulness of human nature in his death and resurrection by destroying death and making all creation new.

The psalmist again reminds us that God has made us but a little lower than the angels, and adorned us with glory and honor, not our own glory and honor, but the glory and honor of God himself. From all of that, both the Hebrew and the Christian cultures have always known that God's story in relation to his people is a story of love, not of authority, not of despotism, but a story of love. We have also known that the story of our relationship with God is forever a story of infidelity and betrayal of trust.

So we live in this striving to become more Godlike, striving to see the world through God's eyes. But, it is our propensity is to do sin, our propensity is to hold grudges, our propensity is to break relationships, our propensity is to allow estrangement to exist among us. So, both in the Hebrew and the Christian culture, we have held up the one relationship that is not required — that of marriage. Our relationship with our children is required; our relationship with our parents is required, but the relationship of husband and wife is held up as the best symbol that we can come up with.

That's where a lot of people fall down and why that other psalm, if we had read it, would have hardened this idea that marriage is the point here, between husband and wife, when the true point is "what is man that you should be so mindful of him; the son of man, that you should seek him out?" The relationship with husband and wife is like an umbrella; it makes for us a symbol; it covers all human relationships and reminds us that a good symbol brings us to the holy, even though the symbol is faulty.

The American flag is a piece of cloth. It's made up of red, white and blue materials, and is not the same flag that was first made. The flag has been changed from time to time. We started with 13 stars; now we are up to 52. How many more will we have? Time will tell. It's just a piece of cloth, but it also represents us as a people. We all know how we react when someone spits on it, steps on it, uses it as a blanket or burns it. We as an entire nation rise up in fury, not just anger, but fury, over the insult to us as individuals!

That is the power of a symbol. If you keep track of that flag and eventually don't pay attention to it, the blue field will turn to purple and the red stripes will fade to pink because of the effect of sunlight and heat. At that point, we can think — well, it's just a piece of faded cloth which is not as bright as it used to be, or we can buy a new flag which is what we do to restore the brightness.

That is why we continue to bless marriages. We know some marriages fade, other fail, some of the failures are blessed by God. Other human relationships also fade or fail and estrangement comes in. The best example we have is this one and so we continue to bless new unions as they come to us; we place new hope in a fresh union to restore ours and to remind us of the joy that we've had in our lives. When a flag is no longer useful for public display, we don't just throw it in the trash; we dispose of it reverently. And, just as human relationships breaking down cause estrangement, it is a call for reverence and care for the other person. Even though the relationship is broken, care and reverence is called for.

We often get all wrapped around the axle. In our country today, there is a big argument over human marriage, whether it's the proper thing to do, and whether the church should continue to involve itself. Obviously, the states and the union have first priority on saying who can get married and under what circumstances. The church offers its blessing, but if we did that without a license, it wouldn't be a valid marriage. And so, we get wrapped around the axle focusing on the wrong things.

We focus on human relationship through the way we have been with God, not the way God has been with us. We have forgotten to forgive each other as Christ has forgiven us. We need to look at the world through God-shaped eyes and see broken people, sinful people (like everyone in this room happens to be) needing care, respect and reconciliation. I think we get wrapped around the axle of human relationships in trying to define what is appropriate and inappropriate because we have forgotten that the symbol doesn't point to us. The symbol points to God's love for the church, not our love for each other.

We promise to support and hold up so that people may continue to be in love and choose love with each other. If it doesn't work out, we don't trash the symbol. If our United States flag falls into defeat, we don't change flags, we simply resolve to do better next time. Understanding salvation is a love story, and is what the scriptures today are wanting to do. If we do that, then we can look at all human relationships — those in marriage, those in business, those in society, those with our children, those with our parents and those with our next door neighbor — as relationships that call for committment, call for equality, call for respect and call for reconciliation in the midst of estrangement. Marriage is not perfect, but it's the best symbol we can come up with.

St. Paul himself was so frustrated when he tried to explain how marriage symbolized the love of Christ for his church in Ephesians. Usually in church, the scripture is cut off before they get to the most important part when Paul says, "How am I supposed to explain this?" which is like Paul saying, "that didn't work out so well, did it?" Then he goes on to say, "Behold it is a mystery!" (The Greek work mysterium does not mean something lost in a cloud, it means a revealed truth). Paul has come to a revelatory understanding of how much God loves his people, how much Christ loves the church, and the best thing he can think of that fits is human marriage, and even that doesn't work as well as he would like. He says, "care for this," but remember as Paul says, "I am not talking about marriage, I'm talking about Christ and the church."

When we condemn people for divorce, remarriage and relationships that we don't like, we do wrong because that is not the way of Christ. We don't change the symbol because one example is not perfect. We hold onto the symbol and send another out in its place — hoping that it may be a better example, just like we change the flag and have added stars from time to time. I love to sing American the Beautiful, not because the words of that song are factual, but because they are not. There are tears in our cities, there are blots all over the face of our great country, but the words of that song point us in the direction of our own national ideal, just as the words of the marriage vows point us in the direction of our ideal of how we care for each other whatever the relationships may be.

And so, I believe that God is calling us today to keep striving, keep working, to add stars when there is a new understanding, or a new state — to refresh and restore that which is faded or torn and to avoid getting wrapped around the axle of facts. In our century, we have come to think of facts as true, but facts are not necessarily true. They do not convey truth. They may convey something, but not necessarily the truth. The greatest truths can not be conveyed by words.

Try to put into words how it is that you love another person. Try to put into words how it is that Christ is in your heart and has brought you to a saving relationship. Try to describe in words today's sunrise. I was heading here this morning when the sun just peeked over the mountains — you can't describe it. Poets and artists, hymn writers and musicians have to do it for us because great truths can't be expressed in words and facts. What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you should seek him out? You have made him but little lower than the angels. You have adorned him with your glory and honor.

The lesson today reminds us that we are created to live in community, to know love and to know unity in both the giving and receiving of love. God forgives us when we fail and he calls us to overcome the estrangements that we have created. The Book of Common Prayer is the source document for the 12 steps of spirituality, by the way; this same book holds up reconciliation, holds up seeking out those we have harmed to make amends when necessary. That is what we're all about in our Christian faith — restoring all humanity to God's place, to God's presence in the power of the Holy Spirit.

In our baptism, God has made us one with Christ and one with each other. It's in those vows, and it's only because of those vows, that the church dares to bless weddings and marriages for always one person must be baptized. It is in the power of that committment that holy matrimony means anything at all. The words of Jesus harken, not just to one institution, but harken back to the vows and promises we have made to each other in Holy Baptism. In closing, his words today don't apply to just Robert and Robbie, the words today apply to all of us who have joined ourselves to each other in our baptismal promises, and what God has joined together in baptism, let no one put asunder. AMEN

The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
8 October 2000