In our Gospel lesson,
Jesus overturns a
millennium of Jewish law
to
ban divorce entirely.
For those who have lived through a
failed marriage,
this
lesson is hard to hear.
But there may yet be something helpful
in it.
First, we have to go beyond the literal
legalistic reading.
In 1st Century Galilee,
marriage and divorce
were quite different
from today.
Women were property. Men owned them.
For a woman to divorce her husband
was
inconceivable.
Property cannot disown its owner.
But the owner can disown his property.
No courts dispensed justice.
The man just handed his wife a note
saying, “Get out.”
And that’s what she did.
No property settlement. No alimony. No
child support.
There were few, if any, jobs for
divorced women.
Their parents might or might not take
them back.
For most, there were just three
options:
begging, slavery, and
the sex trade.
That’s what Jesus rejected in 30 A.D.
Today, trapping someone
in an soul-killing marriage
might
conform to the letter of Jesus’ teaching,
but
it would go 180 degrees opposite to the spirit.
When Jesus condemned divorce, as it was
back then,
he
rejected the property ownership model of marriage.
When he said “the two become one flesh”
and “God has joined
them together,”
Jesus re-defined
marriage as a sacred relationship.
That opens a window on the place of
relationship
in
Christian spirituality.
Simple basic point: It’s all about the
relationships.
When Christians say the word “God”
we mean the source of
reality,
the destiny of reality,
the basis and the
meaning of reality.
The word God then gets really
interesting
when
Christians say God is not a Being.
God is not the cosmic CEO giving
orders.
God as Trinity is a network of
relationship.
Theologian Elizabeth Johnson says the
point of the Trinity is:
“At the heart of
holy mystery is not monarchy but community; not an absolute ruler, but a
threefold (partnership),”
The
source, destiny, foundation, and meaning
of life resides in mutual, caring
relationships.
That’s
why our central act of worship is Communion,
We join
our hearts to God by joining our hearts to each other.
We
cannot get closer to God than we are to our neighbor.
That’s
what Jesus means when he says
the second commandment is the same as the first.
We love
God by loving each other.
Theologian
Patricia Fox says the first Christians discovered that
“to become fully a person... is to break through
the isolating boundaries of
individualism
into a life of inclusive
communion with persons
valued for their uniqueness
and differences . . ..
Arriving at full personhood in
this way . . .
is what it means to
be saved.”
Our salvation does
not depend on doctrines,
religious feelings, mystical
experiences,
loving Jesus, or being upright
individuals.
Our very salvation
depends on how we relate
to one another
Family
relationships are part of our salvation.
How we treat each
other as a city, a state, and a nation
is part of our salvation.
Between the family
and the state lies the Church.
Educator Parker
Palmer says the Church
is where we cultivate the
habits of behavior
and qualities of character
that we need to do two things.
First, in the
Church we learn how to be better at family life
-- how to set
healthy boundaries, to be patient,
to appreciate another person.
Second, in the
Church we learn the skills we need
in order to function as a
democratic society.
We learn how to
care for people more than projects,
to listen, to think fresh
thoughts, to learn for each other,
and to compromise.
In his book,
Healing the Heart of Democracy,
Palmer says government is not
working today,
democratic society is coming
apart at the seams,
because institutions like the
Church
are not teaching the necessary
skills
and instilling the kind of
character it takes
to be a democracy.
To put a point on
it:
how we treat each other in
Church matters.
Sometimes we get in
bad habits in our relationships.
We can get in bad
habits at home.
We have clearly
gotten into some bad relational habits
in the public square.
Name-calling,
ideological rigidity, and partisan gridlock
keep us from having a
functional government.
We get stuck in the
choreography of a bad dance.
No one’s having fun
but we don’t know how to change it.
At the first Church
I served,
the vestry didn’t think they
could adjourn
until there was sufficient
blood on the floor.
They couldn’t do
their mission because they were stuck
in old grievances and grudges.
That didn’t change
during my time.
But later it did
change.
Today, they are a
flourishing congregation, a fun Church,
with a lively youth group,
active social ministries,
and a spirit of delight in
their diversity.
Their story proves
that it is possible
to re-choreograph our dance,
to change the habitual
attitudes and behaviors
that define our
relationships.
But just how does
that happen?
It starts with our
imaginations.
I recently went to
Le Reve for the third time.
I love that show.
Le Reve presents
human beings
doing acrobatic feats
I had not imagined
possible.
It fills the room
with lights, colors, shapes, and textures
-- wild forms of beauty I had
never dreamed of.
In the midst of
that is something even more wonderful.
The cast practices
incredible mutual trust
– repeatedly placing their
lives in each other’s hands.
They practice
gripping tightly and letting go
–
each at the right moment.
If that can happen
at the Wynn, how about the Church?
Becoming the kind
of trusting community
that will nurture families and
democratic society,
not to mention transforming
and healing our own souls,
begins with imagining a
congregation
where trust, compassion, and
mutual appreciation
are the prevailing
attitudes.
But it takes more
than imagination.
It takes practice.
There are ways to
intentionally re-choreograph our dance.
These are just a
few examples:
Faith based
community organizing
like Nevadans for the Common
Good
teaches us how to cooperate
for a mission
with people we might not enjoy
personally.
Continuing Indaba
is a process from African village councils
that uses issues and
differences to deepen relationships
instead of breaking
them.
Parker Palmer’s
Circles of Trust process
creates safe places for deep
and vulnerable conversation.
Finally,
transforming our community
takes the will to change.
We need these three
things: imagination, practice, and will.
Our diocesan slogan
is “Together We Can Change The World.”
This is true.
Together we can
transform our characters, our families,
and our society.
But first we have
to leave the world alone for a moment,
and just read the first part,
“Together we can change.”
That is the core of
Christian spirituality.
We change; we grow
into the likeness of Christ,
not through private study, not
through individual devotions,
not through solitary prayer
disciplines
-- all those things
are good and helpful
– but they aren’t
where the action is.
We change; we grow
into the likeness of Christ
in the crucible of our
relationships with each other.
