10.3.21 National Cathedral Sermon by Dana Corsello

i ask your prayers this morning in the name of the father the son and the holy ghost amen 48 years ago on october 9th 1973 the episcopal church at its 64th general convention recognized civil divorce no longer would one be subject to excommunication or denied the sacrament and the one-year waiting period for remarriage was abolished as you might imagine this was big news encumbered in newspapers all across the country our church had begun debating these canons in 1808 when it passed a resolution prohibiting remarriage after divorce except in cases of adultery it's been a touchy and messy subject sense the irony of this should not be lost on anyone the english reformation the founding of the church of england are anglican tradition all came into being because henry viii wanted a divorce lord have mercy that man had six wives as the deity goes one died one survived two dewetted two beheaded when henry broke with the pope and declared himself head of a new church in 1533 it was because he wanted to annul his first marriage to catherine of aragon who had failed to produce a male heir perhaps more than any of jesus's pronouncements this one concerning divorce and remarriage has caused two millennia of soul-crushing pain and rejection it begs a scandalous question did jesus miss the mark on this one were his expectations unrealistic his standards too high could he really demand such purity of heart from us mortals dare i ask is he the one whose heart is a little too rough around the edges as far as we know he never married this my friends is tough stuff and i must admit i've had a hard time trying to find the good news in this gospel passage one of the responsibilities of a preacher is to make sure that the gospels of love do not become messengers of shame and despair i appreciate how the new testament scholar amy jo levine wrestles with some of the more confounding things jesus said she compares her struggles with scripture to the conflict one may have with the spouse or best friend she writes and i quote when the love is strong enough then honesty is not a threat we can say i think that's a dangerous comment to make or even how dare you because the love keeps us in relationship at times we have to agree to disagree but the love continues end quote and so it goes with our own wrestling with scripture in the red letter words of jesus so let's begin by asking what might this text have meant in its original context keep in mind that jesus had turned his face toward jerusalem he took every opportunity to declare that the kingdom of god was radically different from fr from first century palestinian and greco-roman culture for starters jesus foils the rhetorical trap set by the pharisees they pose a question they know has no satisfying answer yet jesus manages a positive answer jesus speaks of god's intention for marriage by not proposing the excommunication of any of us followers who divorce instead he seeks to abolish the prerogative of husbands ending their marriages on a whim at the time jewish law stipulated that a man could divorce his wife simply if she displeased him jesus does not deny the current practice of divorce as given to moses in the 24th chapter of deuteronomy instead he trumps it with another passage the oldest of old school passages from the torah jesus takes the pharisees back to the very beginning to the passage from genesis in which god realized that his creation was incomplete one can imagine god fretting it is not good for a human to be alone god wanted to give the very first human a partner a helper a companion in whose very image the first human had just been made so when jesus tells his disciples whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her and if she divorces her husband and marries another she commits adultery he is actually more concerned about mutual respect and equality between the two in his day adultery was understood as a crime against another man's honor and property you see a man could be as sexually promiscuous as he liked as long as it didn't violate another man's property a woman was required to be faithful or chased so as not to bring shame on her husband and father what's more when a woman received a certificate of divorce she lost most of her rights she could find herself begging for food on the street or prostituting herself for income and if she were accused of adultery she could be stoned to death jesus is saying that in his kingdom divorce and remarriage amount to adultery for both women and men while jesus concedes that divorce is something one can do he insists that it is not what god intended the question is not a legal one he tells them not at its heart at its heart the purpose of all human interaction all human communion is spiritual what did god originally intend what is god's enduring dream that the two become one flesh that no one runs asunder what god joins together this is my favorite part in our marriage ceremony in the book of common prayer i love to wrap my stole around those the couple's hands and i say that very thing those whom god has joined together let no one rent asunder so now my friends this is where i need you to open your minds to free yourself from any notion that eve being created from adam's rib meant that she was subordinate in response to the dilemma of adam needing a helpmate god dreamed only as god can my favorite spiritual writer debbie thomas describes it this way the dream of likeness a dream of partnership a dream of intimacy when the dream was realized when god brought eve to adam that first human being cried out in a kind of joy that had never been heard on earth before this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh behold my other half my companion my compliment my friend here is someone i instinctively know someone obviously as precious as singular and as priceless to me as my own bones my own flesh my own self human community began genesis tells us with complete empathy and nurture god's model for the human family was a model of equality and mutuality what adam noticed first was not difference it was similarity bone of my bones it's unfortunate that verse 25 was left off the lectionary because it reads and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed of course times of prosperity and adversity lie ahead but the role of a suitable not subordinate helper through it all is a constant in the beginning the couple stand side by side one flesh and mutuality and equality but not subsumed by the other i think this scripture confronts us with our own cardiosclerosis [Music] our own hardness of heart in other words the reason human relationships fail the reason we wreak such destruction and brokenness on ourselves and innocent bystanders is not that god's dream is naive idealistic or fantastical it's because we humans are hard of heart we're selfish we fall into self-hate and egotism we're lazy we poison and dull our senses with substances we break ourselves we sin to accept that god's desire for human marriage is lifelong intimacy and companionship is not to suggest that god's ideal is always possible or that failing in a marriage is a sin it is not the tension that we feel lies with jesus insisting that the covenant of marriage could not be dissolved but this is where the holy spirit comes to the rescue as well as our own theology as episcopalians which allows reason to coexist with scripture and tradition and no we are not surrendering to modern morays or caving to culture we trust that god's revelation did not end with the bible and that god reveals god's self to us as much today as when the bible was canonized as hard as it is to admit the bible and reality sometimes conflict and we hold on too tight to the wrong thread of faith the holy spirit you see moves and breathes within the pages and guides our reading and understanding of it so that we can find abundance in life rather than shame and despair scripture also makes abundantly clear that god's dream is that all human relationships serve as dedicated lifelong schools for love and that god does not love any dream more than god loves us god's dream for marriage is not meant to trap us wound us diminish us or condemn us even though adam's cry at seeing eve was a cry of pure joy of cry of static recognition we know that sometimes joy dies sometimes the familiar becomes unrecognizable marriage makes our vulnerabilities so familiar sometimes intimacy ends in betrayal when these things happen though there is grace there is mercy and there is freedom grace mercy and freedom always always always don't ever forget that to toward the end of this chapter and mark after jesus reverses the values of the hierarchical status quo in which men are valued over women and adults over children he offers another perhaps the most uncomfortable proclamation of all that it will be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than the wealthy to enter the kingdom of god then who can be saved the disciples fret jesus looks at them and says for mortals it is impossible but not for god for god all things are possible my friends i have witnessed miracles in marriages and in divorces forgiveness openheartedness restored trust just a few years ago i officiated the marriage of a divorced couple who remarried each other they have a daughter one day she confided in her father that her mother never stopped loving him after a few years and a lot of hard emotional and spiritual work they reconciled i cannot begin to tell you how beautiful it was to bless them with their daughter kneeling in between during that final marriage blessing the fact that the marriage took place in resurrection chapel beneath this sanctuary was not lost on anyone this is not a fairy tale this is god with god all things are possible and all things are possible for those who divorce you are loved beyond our finite comprehension and you are wedded to christ for that i am certain for those whom god has joined together let no one rend asunder amen you

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Length: 17min 5sec (1025 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 03 2021