Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (October 6, 2024) (Proper 22, Year B)
Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost (October 6, 2024) at St.James’ Episcopal Church in Hyde Park, NY. View the scripture readings and the Collect of the Day.
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Transcript
I read a commentary for preachers that said about today's readings... Just have a little sympathy for me here! This is one of those Sundays, the commentary said, where nobody hears this Gospel without hearing their own sermon in their heads. And Gospel means good news. But I think that for most of us, I imagine that this is not a Gospel where the good news is immediately apparent and the sermon in our heads might not sound like good news to us.
When we deal with scriptures like this, I think about another story from Genesis, which is one of the stories of Jacob's encounters with God. Jacob's name can be thought of as "wrestles with the Creator." There's a story in Genesis where Jacob is running from some of his family problems and he falls asleep in the desert and while he's asleep, a man or a messenger or somebody comes to him and they wrestle all night and Jacob says to the man or the messenger, or maybe it's God, I will not let you go unless you give me a blessing. And before dawn breaks the messenger or the man or God blesses him and Jacob lets him go. And then Genesis says, as the sun arose, Jacob gets up from his all-night wrestling match, but he's limping forever after because his hip was put out of joint by this wrestling match.
I think this is a very valuable story for reading a difficult scripture because sometimes we have to wrestle with it in order to get some blessing, some kind of good news out of it. And having endured that struggle, we're going to carry some pain with us. It's both. We can wrestle a blessing out of this sacred scripture that has been handed down to us from one generation to the next, and we can wrestle with it when the lectionary requires that we read it because we ought to be able to find good news in this, if only because the church has so often proclaimed bad news using a scripture like this. It is our calling to wrestle a blessing. Okay, so that's what we'll try to do today.
At Jesus' last meal with his friends, he said, I give you one last commandment. What is the commandment? [Congregation: "Love one another."]
Oh! One commandment: that you love one another, as I have loved you. This is the Jesus who opens his arms to the little children, brings them in. Love one another as I have loved you. This is how we're going to look at this Gospel reading today through the lens of loving one another.
One of the first things we need to do if we are to love one another as we wrestle together with this text is we have to remember that among us, there are people who are happily married, people who never married and are fine with that, people who never married and want to be, people who started marriages in great hope and had those marriages crumble. People who are separated, people who are divorced, people who are remarried, people who are not remarried. And we're supposed to love one another. Our bishop Matt says, the most important thing we do is care for each other.
So as we wrestle with the scripture today, we're caring for each other in each of these situations. Every person in this room is wrestling with this text in a different way, bringing a different story of happiness or suffering or pain or loss or grief or hope, and we care for one another. Love one another as I have loved you.
Second thing. I went and looked at the marriage canons for the church, for our church. These are the laws which govern marriage in our church. And here's what stood out to me. First of all, one of the first lines: marriage is the union of two persons. It used to be the union of a man and a woman, but we learned and changed that. Marriage is the union of two persons created by God for mutual joy. Mutual joy. So that's one thing I'm hanging on to.
Second. If two people in a marriage that is troubled, the canon says, if there is dissension in a marriage, it is essential that one or both persons in that marriage should bring that dissension before the clergy. But the duty of the clergy is to first ensure the physical and emotional safety of both people in that marriage. That's in the church law. Before any other kind of counsel, to ensure the physical and emotional safety of the partners in the marriage, and only then to provide other counsel. Okay? So I want you to hang on to that when we hear these words today about divorce.
Mutual joy and safety. Marriage is created for blossoming of joy and relationship. I also want you to know that The Episcopal Church recognizes that there is grace after divorce, that there are chances new, new hope, new life, that when something dies, there is hope for resurrection.
The Episcopal Church allows remarriage after divorce. The Episcopal Church does not turn anyone away from God's table because they have gone through the pain of divorce. So these are the laws that govern my ministry with you and our ministry together and our care for one another. Okay?
Third thing, the religious authorities come to Jesus... they're coming to test him. Are they curious? No. No. They're not curious what he's going to say. They want to catch him out in front of everybody. If he does something wrong, it's like sticking out your foot and tripping him. And then maybe we'll get him in trouble and maybe he'll go away and we won't have to deal with him anymore. So they ask him, is it lawful for man to divorce his wife? They're appealing to the law handed to God's people by Moses. Jesus in his answer, does what he often does. He does not put the law aside, but he says, let's look deeper. Let's look at why the law is what it is and where it came from. And in order to look deeper, instead of looking at Deuteronomy, which is what the religious authorities are referring to, he says, let's look a little farther back in our sacred tradition. Let's go back to the beginning, the Genesis, and this is the lesson that he offers.
In the beginning, God created this creature out of dust. God formed the creature. The creature is called Adam. Adam. It means like, creature of earth. And one way we can interpret this creature. I mean, we hear Adam, he's a man, but we might interpret this creature as being genderless. The creature made from earth is lonely, surrounded by the beautiful creation of God. God brings the birds and the animals and the creature names each one, but doesn't find the relationship that they're longing for. So they go to sleep and God takes a piece of them out and blows the breath of life into that piece. And when the creature wakes up confronted by a piece of its own self, it says at last, this is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.
Literally from the beginning, it was not God's will that a human made in the image of God should be complete as an individual. The image of God is complete in the relationship between one human being and another.
The true nature of humanity is our relationships, our care for one another. The recognition here: my own body—our communion, we are the body of Christ—my own body, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. I see in you the nature of reality: relationship! That God has given us as a gift to one another, and when our heart recognizes that, it sings and we say, at last!
Fourth thing, I think this is the last thing. Marriage is a sacrament. A sacrament is a little microcosm of the world, of the nature of the universe, to teach us how the world is put together, the union between two people that the church consecrates as marriage is a sign for all people: that we are called to love one another. And God.
It's a sign that our true calling, our true nature is to be in relationship and to care for one another. To tend one another. To see in one another: you are the bone of my bone and the flesh of my flesh, the heart of my heart, the mind of my mind, and the soul of my soul. We belong to each other! The marriage, the microcosm, the sacrament, is just supposed to teach us that!
When Christopher and I were married, the preacher at our wedding said, marriage is love school. But life is love school. We can love and care for one another whether we fail this course or pass it. We can love and care for one another because that's what we were made to do. And we can recognize the face of God in one another, recognize our own flesh and heart and mind and soul in the face of one another.
That's what marriage means: to love. And we're all called to love.
There was another time that the religious authorities came to Jesus to test him. Remember we talked about laws, right? They said, Teacher tell us ,which law is the most important? And Jesus said, you shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole mind, with your whole strength, and you shall love your neighbor as your self.
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, face of God for face of God.
You shall love the Lord your God, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On this hang all the law and the prophets. That's the hook. Love one another. Love one another. On this hangs everything, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.