Sermon – Luke 2.8-20, CD, YC, December 25, 2018

Tags

birth, chaos, Christmas, forgiveness, God, holy, incarnate, intimate, Jesus, marriage, Mary, normal, quiet, Sermon, shepherds, vows, wisdom

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we split up the gospel of Luke.  On Christmas Eve we hear about the registration, and how all the families have to travel to be taxed.  That part of the story is when we learn about there being no room in the inn, and Mary giving birth, wrapping her child in bands of cloth, lying him in a manger.  But today, we get the part of the story I love.  I know the multitude of the heavenly host has inspired many a Christmas carol, but I like the very last part of the story:  the part where the shepherds have gathered with Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus, where others gather with them to marvel at the shepherd’s story and Mary ponders everything in her heart.

I like this last part, because this last part is the most normal, intimate moment we get in the birth narrative of Jesus.  Everything else is so chaotic – people migrating, hustling for space to stay, likely arguing about who gets to stay where.  Then there is the birth of Jesus itself, not only without modern medicine, but in the roughest of conditions.  Birthing children is hard enough as is – I cannot imagine the messy, loud scene of childbirth under such conditions.  And finally, the shock of not only an angel of the Lord, but also the chorus of the heavenly host in the middle of the night where there is usually no sound is mind-blowing.

Instead, I prefer the quiet scene at the end.  That is a kind of scene I can imagine.  Of outcasts thrown together, sharing stories, bonding over the craziness of the night.  Of an exhausted mother and father and shepherds lounging around, wondering what all this means.  Of the moments of silence when everyone’s eyes settle on baby Jesus who has finally drifted off to sleep, watching his chest rise and fall, wondering what else might rise and fall because of this tiny baby.  I imagine the bonding that can only happen at three in the morning, that can only happen through a people filled with hope in a hopeless world, that can only happen when God sweeps through your life in a bold way.

That’s why I love today’s service so much.  Last night was the night of holy chaos – of kids with pent up excitement for Christmas day, of dinners being prepared, trumpets leading us in song, and the loud chatter of old friends and family greeting one another.  But today, we enter the church in quiet, with no music to distract us, perhaps having left behind piles of wrapping paper or needy family members, having turned off our radios so that we can tell the old, old story.  On Christmas Day, I like to imagine we recreate that holy, intimate night, where old friends and strangers gather around the mystery of the incarnation, wondering what Jesus has in store for us today.  All we need is a little straw and sleep deprivation, and we can almost imagine ourselves there.

That is why when Margaret and Jim asked if we could renew their wedding vows on Christmas Day, wanting something quiet and sacred to mark their sixtieth wedding anniversary, I said an emphatic, “Yes!”  Marriage is a sacred institution too – where we welcome friend and stranger alike, where we sometimes meet people who change our lives but we never see again, where we share intimate time, and where we ponder what God is doing in our lives.  So, gathering again, sixty years later, we too gather like a band of misfits, sharing stories of marriage, of Jesus, and of community.  We let down our hair and marvel at the holy mystery of God, holding holy moments of silence like gifts, and giving thanks for the God who makes sixty years possible.

The other reason I love the idea of renewing wedding vows on a day like today is because today is a day of hope.  When God incarnate comes into the world, we are given the gift of hope – the promise that life will change dramatically.  As we ponder the baby Jesus with those in that quiet room, we also slowly fill with hope, knowing that God is doing great things.  The same is true of marriage.  When I marry two people, I never know how the marriage will go.  I am hopeful that the two will get to do things like celebrate sixtieth wedding anniversaries, but honestly, hardship and separation are equally likely.  But we marry people anyway because we have hope – hope that God is doing a new thing between two people, and will make those people better through God.  As Margaret and Jim recommit themselves to one another today, we again claim hope that God will do amazing things through their marriage, bringing blessing to all of us, not just to the two of them.

Our prayers for Margaret and Jim today are not just for them.  They are for all of us.  We need wisdom and devotion in the ordering of our common lives as much as they do.  We need to recognize and acknowledge our fault when we hurt others, and seek forgiveness of others just as they do.  We need to make our lives a sign of Christ’s love to this sinful and broken world, and reach out in love and concern for others as much as they do.  All of that ordering of our lives is made possible by what happens today.  When God becomes incarnate in Christ, everything changes.  In that intimate space where strangers, exhausted, afraid, and full of hope, came together in the mystery of a miracle, life is changed.  Our gathering here today, to honor the incarnation, to celebrate the blessing of long marriage, and to create a sacred moment of intimate community, is the way we take the first step in living life differently – living a life of sacred incarnation.  Thanks be to the God who showed us the way in the incarnation of God’s only, begotten Son.  Amen.

Making it Work…

Tags

blessing, challenge, choose, commitment, God, grace, hard, humility, joy, marriage, strength, widsom, work

Photo credit:  marriage.about.com/od/proposingbeingengaged/

This month, my husband and I celebrated fifteen years of marriage.  Now I know fifteen may not seem like a big deal to some – it is certainly not 25, 50, or even the 64 years that one of the couples at church is celebrating this month.  But having worked with couples in premarital counseling for several years now, having worked with couples who were struggling with the strains marriage can bring, and having talked with couples who have had failed marriages, I know that marriage is not simply a gift.  Marriage is not just something that happens.  Marriage is something you work at, that you choose everyday (even on the days you would rather not), that is constantly tested, and that needs tending and loving care.  While wedding days are lovely, they are only the first day of many days that you will have to return to the commitment you made to make it work.

That being said, marriage is also a tremendous blessing.  It can be the place where you learn about the depths of love; your capacity for forgiveness (in part, because you are forgiven so often); where you can find the most honest, if not brutal, truth; where you can laugh more deeply than you ever have because that person knows what really produces a belly laugh; where you experience affirming, life-giving sexual pleasure; and where you find abiding companionship.  When we got married fifteen years ago, I was not entirely sure how things would go.  My own parents had gotten divorced just three years before our marriage began, and part of me wondered whether marriage could be done successfully.  I am so glad I made the leap anyway because marriage has brought joys (and challenges) that I never could have imagined.

I do not often talk about marriage because I work with a variety of people in all walks of life:  people who want to be married but have not found a partner, people who have lost their spouse to death, people who are divorced or who feel like the marriage is on the brink of failure, people who had abusive spouses, and people, who until very recently, were not allowed to be legally married.  At times, I have considered having a Valentine’s Day reaffirmation of vows celebration, as I have seen in other parishes, but shied away because I did not want anyone to think I was being insensitive to those for whom marriage is difficult.

All of that being said, my hope today is not to highlight how blissfully easy and wonderful marriage is.  Simply put, my hope is to honor how each day of marriage can be both a blessing and a challenge – and to thank God for the strength, wisdom, humility, and grace my husband and I have been given to get this far.  I pray for continued strength, wisdom, humility, and grace, as I pray for each of you on your various journeys in partnered, single, and dating life.  In the marriage liturgy of the Episcopal Church, we offer this petition at weddings.  Today, I leave it for my husband and I and all of you doing the work of marriage:  Grant that all married persons who have witnessed these vows may find their lives strengthened and their loyalties confirmed. Amen.  (BCP, 430)

 

 

Looking for Love…

Tags

death, God, growth, hesed, love, loving kindness, marriage, plant

One of the things you may not know about me is that I am terrible with plants.  Though many people have a green thumb, I am a textbook example of a brown thumb.  My instincts and habits are terrible.  Either I water the plant too much or not enough.  I never know how much sun is enough.  I am lucky if a plant lasts more than a month in my house.  If I am really honest, most of my plants suffer from neglect.  I just get too busy and by the time I remember the plant, the plant is past the point of redemption.  One of my former parishioners was convinced she could convert me to a green thumb.  She even regularly put plants on our front porch – right near the water spigot.  I am sure she mourned many a plant on my behalf.

There is, however, one exception to this rule.  It was a plant given to us as a wedding present almost fifteen years ago.  Of course, when we received it, my immediate thought was, “Great!  There goes another plant in the trash!”  But much to my surprise, the plant was hearty.  No matter how long I forgot to water it, it managed to forgive me and perk back up when watered.  No matter how many new places I took it, it kept on going.  I jokingly started referring to the plant as our “love plant.”  It was a reminder of our special day, and like a loving marriage, it held together through thick and thin.

But during our most recent move, I pretty much killed our love plant.  I left the plant in the car.  It was not that warm in April, so I figured it would be okay there.  But I think our love plant just got scorched over the several-day move.  I had never seen the plant look like it did.  Normally the leaves naturally fell off when it was getting thirsty (my number one sign to water it!!).  But these leaves just shriveled and refused to fall or separate from the stem.  One stem seemed salvageable, but the other was totally gone – shriveled and dry.  I was devastated – not only for the plant that lasted almost 15 years with me, but also because of the significance the love plant had assumed.  What did its death mean?  Was it a sign about my marriage?!?

I refused to throw the plant away.  It just broke my heart too much.  So it sat on a window sill and I just let it be a sad reminder of my failure.  But then last week, something incredible happened.  At the bottom of the “barely alive” stem of the plant appeared new foliage.  I almost cried.  The plant has never gotten new foliage at the bottom – only at the top.  I don’t know what it means or if they will just fade too, but the joy I felt for those new little guys was overwhelming.  And then, today, I noticed some new foliage on the “dead” stem too. 

I do not know if there is any real symbolism in the new growth, but I have to imagine there is.  My husband and I have started new jobs, our kids have begun new schools, and we have begun a new phase of our life.  Almost fifteen years later, love continues to find new ways to grow in our marriage, even on days when it feels like the love is dried up.  That kind of faithfulness is the same faithfulness we see in God’s hesed, or loving-kindness, for all of us.  Even when we feel like God’s love has abandoned us, we find new springs of life bubbling up where we least expect it.  Today, I encourage you to look for the new growth in your life.  Where is love sneaking in and gifting you with joy?

Sermon – Luke 9.28-36, TRS, YC, February 7, 2016

Tags

absent, down, Epiphany, God, hope, Jesus, listen, marriage, mountain, mountaintop experiences, realities, sacred, Sermon, Transfiguration, valley, wedding

Today is a pivotal day in the Church year.  In Advent, we start out the Church year anticipating and then celebrating God taking on human form in the Christ Child.  After Christmas we celebrate the season of Epiphany – a series of moments in which the true identity of Christ is revealed.  We hear first from the magi who devote their lives to finding Jesus.  At Jesus’ baptism we hear God claiming Jesus as God’s son.  In Cana, Jesus reveals his power at a wedding.  And then today, we close out the season of Epiphany with another revelation of the true identity of Christ – the transfiguration.

An epiphany is defined as a sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something; an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure; or a revealing scene or moment – in our case, of the divine.  That is what is happens to Peter, James, and John on the mountaintop:  a revealing of the essential nature of Jesus as the divine son of God.  When they see Jesus standing there with Moses and Elijah, talking about Jesus’ pending departure or exodus,[i] Peter, James and John can finally connect the dots about all Jesus has told them.  And in case the dazzling white light, and the appearance of the ancient prophet and lawgiver are not enough, out of the cloud they hear God’s voice saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen.”  On this last day of Epiphany, we get the epiphany of epiphanies!

Many of us have had our own epiphanies when it comes to God.  Whether we suddenly and clearly hear God’s voice, whether someone says something so profound that it shakes us to the core, or whether we see Christ in the face of a child, we have all had those revealing God moments.  My favorite epiphany story comes from the parish I served as a curate.  The associate had a rare Sunday where he was the only clergy person serving at the altar that day.  Everything had been going along smoothly in the service.  After he pronounced and shared the peace, he started to make his way back to the altar when something caught his eye.  He froze as he realized at the corner of the alter sat a bat.  Panicked, he turned around and looked down the long aisle.  There, he says, standing in the Narthex by the baptismal font, bathed in light from the morning sun stood our Sexton, Walt.  The priest, mesmerized by and grateful for Walt’s presence, briskly walked down the long aisle to Walt.  As parishioners looked on with curiosity, the priest quickly whispered to the sexton about the rodent sitting on the altar.  “Don’t worry,” said Walt.  “I got it.”  The priest walked shakily back down the aisle, giving the bat a wide berth on the other side of the altar.  Before he could even start fumbling at the credence table, Walt mysteriously appeared from the side door with a t-shirt, walked past the priest, swooped the bat up with the t-shirt, and then disappeared out the other side door.  Though Walt would never claim sacred status, the priest that day saw Christ in him not unlike the disciples on the mountaintop.

Most of us have more traditional epiphany moments in life:  baptisms, confirmations, ordinations, or weddings.  Today, we will honor two people who celebrated their wedding twenty-five years ago.  Weddings are not unlike those mountaintop experiences.  The soon-to-be-married couple sees each other bathed in light – if not literally, then certainly figuratively.  That day seems to be a day when the couple sees only the goodness in the other person:  their beauty, their care, their compassion, and their love.  There is a certain clarity that comes on a wedding day:  this is the person who makes the other better.  Together they are better servants of God than apart.  Time almost stands still, noises drop into the background, and suddenly, the couple is offered a moment deep assurance that this is a good and holy decision.  I had fun talking with Bob and Janet about that day for them so many years ago.

I think God knows that we need those sacred moments because God knows what happens next:  we come down the mountain.[ii]  I always like to remind couples about their wedding, especially those married for a long time, because their mountaintop experience may feel far away.  When we come down the mountain, we see the realities of life.  No matter how dreamy someone seems basked in light, all of their imperfections are obvious outside of the light.  In Luke’s gospel, the next verses tell the story of a young man who needs healing.  The disciples fail to heal him and the father of the young man begs Jesus for help.  Jesus is frustrated with his easily distracted disciples and scolds them.  The disciples are definitely not on the mountain anymore.  Jesus is no longer gloriously bathed in light – now he is just a scolding teacher.

We know that feeling too.  For as many mountaintop experiences we have had – whether at a wedding or at a retreat or even in a holy moment of prayer – we also have those experiences in the fields of everyday life.  We may even wonder where that glorious God is in those moments.   In fact, when we stay in the valleys and trenches too long, we sometimes wonder whether we imagined the mountaintop.  How could we have seen things so clearly and radiantly when in everyday life we feel nothing but God’s distance?  We may begin to doubt, to experience anger, or to simply feel like God is absent.

Luckily today’s text gives us some hope in our valley and trench moments.  First, epiphany moments are so strong that they keep revealing themselves to us.  On occasions like an anniversary, we can go back to that mountaintop moment and ask, “Why did I choose this person?”  We do not need long to be flooded with list of reasons.  Suddenly all the little annoyances fade, and what is left are the loving, tender moments, the caring, sacrificial actions, and the joyful, abiding experience.  I imagine that is why Luke tells this story today.  Only three of the disciples were privileged enough to be on that mountain.  But in Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, I imagine they returned to this story again and again, recalling with affirmation how God had said that Jesus is God’s son.[iii]

Second, today’s text also gives us hope through the other part of God’s words.  God says, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!”  We are all going to have hard days.  But those hard days are even harder when we refuse to listen.  No matter where we are, no matter how low the valley, Jesus is there speaking to us.  We simply need to listen.  All the answers to our questions, all our cries for support, all our loneliness and aching is answered when we listen.  When we get caught up in the illusion of self-sufficiency and having everything figured out, we forget God’s words.  The epiphany today – Jesus’ transfiguration – reminds us that God is speaking.  We need only to listen.

This week Janet and Bob will bask in the glory of their anniversary and the renewal of their vows.  They may even experience some of the radiance of that initial wedding day.  But eventually, the anniversary bliss will fade as they come down the mountain.  In that journey back to reality, their hope will be in listening to Christ as God commands.  The same will be true for us.  This week we begin the journey of Lent.  As we step into that time of penitence and fasting, God’s words offer us hope, “Listen to him.”  If God is telling us to listen, we can be assured that Jesus is speaking.  Our journey off the mountaintop and into the valley in these next forty days will be blessed and full when we listen to our Redeemer speaking to us.  As grateful as I am for a retelling of that transcendent day on the mountain, I am even more grateful for the reminder that disciples, like us, came back down the mountain.  But even on that journey down, Jesus is still with them, speaking truth, love, and hope.  Amen.

[i] N. T. Wright, Luke for Everyone (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 114.

[ii] Lori Brandt Hale, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 456.

[iii] Fred B. Craddock, Luke, Interpretation:  A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville:  John Knox Press, 1990), 135.

Sermon – 1 Corinthians 13.1-13, EP4, YC, January 31, 2016

Tags

church, community, conflict, Corinthians, God, hard, kind, love, marriage, patient, Paul, resentful, romantic, rude, Sermon

When I do premarital counseling with couples, I often find that they select the passage we heard today from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  They may not know anything else about the service, but they know they want this text.  Of course, I am happy to oblige.  I think the passage is the perfect passage for a marriage – but the reasons I like the passage are probably not the reasons the enamored couple likes the passage.  The couple usually likes the passage because the passage sounds so dreamy.  If I do not have love, Paul says, “I am nothing…Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful…”  The couple usually looks lovingly at one another and says, “Yes!  That is how our love is.  And we want to always have this love.”  Watching the couple is sweet, really.  Seeing young, hopeful love reminds me of days long ago when I had that same naivety, and helps me remember all the goodness of my partner.

But the reason I agree to read the passage at weddings is because Paul is not describing romantic, dreamy, caring love.  Paul is describing how truly hard love can be.  Do you know how hard it is to not be irritable at 6:00 am after a sleepless night with a newborn and without the blessing of coffee and a hot shower?!?  Do you know difficult being patient is when you have asked that your partner do something a certain way ten times?!?  And love is not just difficult among partners – love is hard among family, friends, and churches.  Who among us with a sibling has not struggled with envy or resentfulness?  So, when a happy couple asks me to read this passage, I am happy to read the passage because I know that five, ten, twenty years from now they are going to need desperately to remember that love is patient and kind, is not envious, arrogant, or rude, and does not insist on its own way.  Because love the way Paul describes love is beautiful.  But love the way Paul describes love is one of the hardest things we do.

Of course, Paul’s letter is not meant for newlyweds.  Paul himself never marries, and truly did not seem to give much thought to or even recommend marriage.  Instead, Paul is still addressing the same Corinthians we have been hearing about these last couple of weeks.  If you remember, Paul wrote to a diverse community deeply embroiled in conflict.[i]  He had already written to tell them that although they each have varying gifts, each of their gifts is important.  Last week, we heard the portion of his letter that reminds them that they are a body of parts, and that each part is crucial to the body.  Into this set of instructions, Paul adds this next chapter about how the Corinthians are to act like that body:  they are to love in a way that is patient, kind, not envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude.  In fact, Paul does not just describe how love looks, he describes how love acts.  As one scholar explains, the original Greek is better translated, “Love ‘shows patience.’  Love ‘acts with kindness.’  Here, love is a busy, active thing that never ceases to work.  [Love] is always finding ways to express itself for the good of others.  The point is not a flowery description of what love ‘is’ in some abstract and theoretical sense, but of what love does, and especially what love does to one’s brother or sister in the church.”[ii]

Of course, we can sometimes be like dreamy lovers ourselves when we hear Paul’s words.  We totally agree that our faith community should be one that expresses, and even actively shows love.  That is, until we are faced with how difficult expressing that love will really be.  This month we are reading Tattoos on the Heart, by Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest who serves in one of the most violent gang-inhabited areas of the country.  Father Gregory tells the story of a tiny kid, Betito, who became a fixture around the Homeboy Industries office.  He was funny, precocious, bold, and only twelve years old.  One holiday weekend, Betito was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was hit by a stray bullet.  Father Gregory kept vigil at the hospital, but despite their best efforts, Betito died that night.  At twelve years old.  But that is not the hardest part of the story.  You see, the police caught the shooters and Father Gregory knew them too.  He says, “If we long to be in the world who God is, then, somehow, our compassion has to find its way to vastness.  [Compassion] would rather not rest on the two in the van, aiming frighteningly large-caliber weaponry.  I sure didn’t.  …it was excruciating not to be able to hate them.  Sheep without a shepherd.  But for lack of someone to reveal the truth to them, they had evaded healing.  …But are they less worthy of compassion than Betito?  I will admit that the degree of difficulty here is exceedingly high.  Kids I love killing kids I love.”[iii]

What Father Gregory is trying to do, and what Paul is trying to teach the Corinthians is how to love the way that God loves:  with compassion, kindness, patience; in a way that is not envious, boastful, arrogant or rude; not insisting on its own way, avoiding being resentful.  At weddings couples can easily profess how they want to love each other in the right way.  What they do not often realize is how incredibly difficult that will be.  In fact, a couple of years ago, a friend of mine celebrated his first wedding anniversary.  We had had long talks about marriage before he even proposed.  He told me in that congratulatory conversation that I had been right.  That first year had been really, really hard.  Marriage is no joke, he told me.  But the truth is love is no joke.  Love is hard to do.  Love takes work, commitment, humility, right-sizing our egos, and patience.  Paul never says that love feels good.

But the understanding that love is hard is not just for newlyweds.  Understanding love is hard is important for all of us.  Paul’s warning is for St. Margaret’s today just as his warning is for the Corinthians.  If we distort what love is, we can be in danger of thinking that the mission of St. Margaret’s is to gather like-minded and likable people.  Doing so would certainly make loving each other easier! “But true love is not measured by how good love makes us feel.  In the context of 1 Corinthians, it would be better to say that the measure of love is its capacity for tension and disagreement without division.”[iv]  Like any family, we are always going to have disagreements, conflict, and tension.  No matter where we go or who we are, there is and will be disagreement and division.[v]  The mark of us being a community of love is whether we can weather those disagreements, sources of conflict, and tension without division.

The good news is that we have the capacity to be a community of love because God first loves us.  In verse 12, Paul says, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.  Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”  We are fully known and loved by God.  That love means that we are not left on our own to develop a capacity for patient, kind, un-rude love.  The love described by Paul “is a love we experience as God’s unshakable grasp upon our lives.  ‘That love’ is the source of our greatest security and, thus, our freedom to actually be patient and kind, to bear all things and not insist on our own way.”[vi]  “We can love because God has already fully known us and [loves] us anyway, and is working to make our lives and our communities look more and more like…busy, active, tireless love.”[vii]  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

[i] Carol Troupe, “One Body, Many Parts:  A Reading of 1 Corinthians 12:12-27” Black Theology, vol. 6, no. 1, January 2008, 33.

[ii] Brian Peterson, “Commentary on 1 Corinthians 13:1-13,” January 31, 2016, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=2734 on January 28, 2016.

[iii] Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion,” (New York:  Free Press, 2010), 66.

[iv] Peterson.

[v] Karoline Lewis, “Love Never Ends,” January 24, 2016, as found at http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4249 on January 28, 2016.

[vi] Jerry Irish, “Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. C, vol. 1 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 306.

[vii] Peterson.

The Truth about Weddings…

Tags

abundance, Anglican Communion, Cana, conflict, Episcopal Church, feast, God, Jesus, joy, marriage, miracle, pain, tension, water, wedding, wine

Photo credit:  http://www.freebibleimages.org/photos/wedding-cana/

Almost two years ago, we welcomed our second daughter, Cana into the world.  We have gotten countless questions about the choice of her name and we find ourselves telling the story about the wedding in Cana over and over again.  Sometimes the repetition is annoying.  But mostly, retelling the story is a gift in itself.  You see, the story of Jesus’ first miracle is a story of great joy.  There is the setting of a wedding – one already filled with merriment and delight.  There is the wonder of a miracle – the amazing ability of Jesus to convert water into wine.  And there is the shock of abundance – not just the enormous amount of wine that Jesus produces, but also the best wine of the evening.  There are certainly questions in the story:  What is happening between Jesus and Mary?  Is this kind of miracle an exercise in indulgence?  Why does Jesus choose this as his first miracle?  But the questions usually fade in comparison to the joy.  Jesus chooses an occasion of joy to bring forth a miracle of abundance and pleasure.  I cannot help but smile every time I read the story.

Attending a wedding this weekend, hearing the story of Cana in Sunday’s lectionary, and thinking about our own daughter Cana, I cannot help but be left with a sense of gratitude for the gift of abundant joy given to us by Jesus in his first miracle.  There are parts of Jesus’ story that are neither joyful nor abundant.  But this first miracle gives us a taste – a literal and delightful taste – of the abundance of God’s love and kingdom.  I really cannot seem to wipe the smile off my face when I think of any of the three of those reminders of Jesus’ abundance and grace.

Perhaps that is why I am so saddened by the continued discord in the Anglican Communion about gay marriage.  In my country, the occasion of the legalization and blessing of gay marriage in the Episcopal Church has been a source of great joy for my gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, as well as their allies.  That, coupled with the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy, has left many in our church feeling a deep connection to the joy and abundance that Christ brings.  And yet, that joy is bringing great sadness to a large portion of the Anglican Communion.  Here we are at the earthly banquet, and instead of a joyful occasion of abundance, we are at a different feast – one where family drama and strife is overshadowing the joy of some of our members.

The irony of the wedding of Cana being appointed for the same Sunday that the Episcopal Church is grappling with the Anglican Communion Primates’ decision to suspend the full participation of the Episcopal Church in the life and work of the Anglican Communion is not lost on me.  But maybe that is the truth of every wedding – the constant tension between heavenly grace and abundance and human sinfulness and frailty.  Behind every dreamy wedding is some glossed over (or sometimes very obvious) family drama.  But even in the midst of family tension, there are usually moments of grace – glimpses of the abundance Jesus wants to shower upon us.  That is what I am grasping onto this week:  in the midst of pain, and facing the ambiguity of these next years in the Anglican Communion, God will keep breaking through with abundance, joy, and miracle.  Though I do not know all the answers to the biblical or the ecclesiastical story, I am grateful for the gift of Cana.

Love and marriage…

Tags

anniversary, church, community, God, love, marriage, sacred, secular, vows

Courtesy of http://www.carbonfiberweddingbands.org/wedding-bands/

This week my husband and I celebrated thirteen years of marriage.  A few friends asked me what romantic plans we had, and I found I had to do some explaining.  You see, twelve years ago, on our first wedding anniversary, we found ourselves at an impromptu family reunion.  At the time, we reasoned that we would just celebrate our anniversary some other time.  But a few days later, as we talked about the reunion, we realized something.  Our wedding was a celebration not only of our love and commitment and the covenant we were entering into, but also a celebration of the community who was vowing to hold us to our covenant – to support us, love us, and encourage us in the good and bad times.  In that light, it seemed completely appropriate that we would celebrate our anniversary in the same fashion as we celebrated our wedding – surrounded by the community that holds us accountable to our vows.

Ever since the first anniversary, we have made a point of celebrating our special day with others.  Sometimes the gathering has been large; sometimes quite small.  Sometimes we have celebrated with family, and sometimes we have celebrated with friends.  We have celebrated our anniversary with people who did not even know us when we got married, and we have celebrated with people who knew us before we knew each other.  Each year, the celebration reminds us of the blessing of friends and family in our lives and how we could not grow and thrive in marriage with the support of a lot of others.

What I like about the tradition we have developed is that the tradition pushes against secular expectations.  Secular expectations tell us that we should have a dreamy, romantic night with expensive gifts exchanged (don’t get me wrong – I am all for date nights and presents!).  Secular expectations would tell us that marriage is private.  But that is not what the Church tells us.  Sacred expectations are that marriage is blessed within the context of a community.  Sacred expectations are that the community should ask how marriages are going – not just to gossip or vent, but to continue to live into the vow that the entire community takes to help marriages thrive.

So today, I ask for your prayers: prayers that my husband and I might continue to find joy in one another, might continue to find love and support in our marriage, and might glorify God in our life together.  In return, I lift up prayers today for all my friends who are married:  those who are in those first years of wedded bliss, those who are struggling with all sorts of marital challenges, and those who are just treading water.  I also lift up prayers for those who long to be married, but have not found a partner; for those who have lost their spouses to death; for those who are divorced; and for those who long to be married legally but still live in places where that is not an option.  We are all the community of faith, and we all need one another.  I thank God for all of you today!