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| John Milton, artist uknown, ca. 1629. |
Sixth Sunday in Epiphany: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Ps. 119:1-8; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-37
On Marriage: A sermon by the Rev. Raymond Webster
Looking to St. Valentine's Day tomorrow, the Guardian of London had a list last Wednesday, of ten favorite love poems - compiled by poet John Stammers. I enjoy the Guardian's literary lists of ten -- but I was especially moved reading John Milton's great sonnet about his late wife, "Methought I saw my late espoused saint ..."
I think have read to you before the passionate words Milton gives Adam in Book Nine of Paradise Lost, when Adam says he would give up paradise rather than be parted from Eve.
Well, this is rather different. In the poem he dreams of his late wife coming to him, dressed in white. He trusts he will see her in heaven “without restraint” – fully – but in the dream she comes veiled.
The force in the great last line is that Milton at the time he wrote this poem was blind – so when his dream ends at daybreak, he awakes into his own night. With a tip of the preacher’s hat to Valentine’s Day and Holy Matrimony, may I read it to you:
Methought I saw my late espousèd saint
Brought to me like Alcestus from the grave,
Whom Jove's great Son to her glad husband gave,
Rescu'd from Death by force though pale and faint.
Mine as whom washed from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the Old Law did save,
And such as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
Her face was veiled, yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shined
So clear as in no face with more delight.
But O, as to embrace me she inclined.
I waked, she fled, and day brought back my night.
Ah, a great memory of how “Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shined …”
Marriage in today’s Gospel
Jesus speaks of marriage in today’s Gospel. We are reading from the passages in Matthew commonly called the Sermon on the Mount. Today’s collection of verses are an austere and challenging sermon. Jesus gives us these great challenges to be honest and direct and transparent and authentic – let your yes be a yes – to be reconciled to one another, and to commitment in marriage.
Well, the image comes to mind of a having a dinner (Valentine’s dinner) all set and the candles lit and – the window opens to an icy blast. Good to have challenges sometimes, and Jesus always challenges us in the Gospel to not run away but face what comes in self-giving love, as he did not run away, and faced the evil done to him in self-giving love, in which we see the very nature of God who is love.
I believe Christ calls us to follow him as his disciples and friends on his way of self-giving love, making ethical choices as mature free men and women, in a free society and a free church, an ethic based on commitment and the taking of responsibility, on a humble sense of our fallibility, with a sense of openness and honesty and authenticity, seeking to reconcile and forgive and show mercy and make peace.
And in a broken world there are occasions when we make mistakes, when we fail and we ask forgiveness, and move on from the past to the future.
Luther always said to read Scripture in the light of Scripture, and today’s passage should be read in the context of Jesus’ call to us to ask forgiveness and be forgiven – his great unforgettable story in Luke of the father’s welcome home to the prodigal child. And as we read Matthew this month, remember this Gospel is named for the disciple who once was a tax collector, in effect a collaborator. Jesus not condoning what he had done wrong, but calling him to a new life, a new start. And Jesus who forgives us so much – who is God’s Word of forgiveness to us – calls us in today’s Gospel to forgive and be reconciled.
A word about marriage and divorce
So let me in the light of that say a word about marriage, and about divorce. I believe marriage is a sacrament, one of the sacraments of the church. And I also know that sometimes marriages die. I have been a priest for a long time now, and I have been married a long time. I have never been divorced. I come from a family which has a great many divorces in it. Some of my clergy colleagues like to have couples preparing for marriage do charts of family relationships – I think I block the name even – because mine when done looks like a train wreck. My point is I am not throwing stones. I think most people if not everyone I know who have gotten a divorce found it painful and difficult.
I do also know that there are times when it is better for a couple to part than to continue together – and the staying together can be destructive and harmful and thus itself sinful, sometimes even involved in something illegal or sinful. Sometimes it is in the best interests of the children. Not always, mistakes happen all over the place.
But I know there are times when a marriage has died, and the words of Jesus elsewhere come to mind to let the dead bury the dead. I love history, it is good to know the past, learn from the past, but sometimes it is good to let go of the past. We are not to be shackled to the past. We ask forgiveness and are forgiven and go on.
So the Episcopal Church in its pastoral wisdom, allows a divorced person to marry again in the church. With a clear understanding that the couple have read the vows in the marriage service and intend to be married with those vows and intend to live out those vows. Indeed, the couple are asked sign what is called the Declaration of Intention stating they have read the vows and intend to be married by them. And there are people I know, strong marriages, who have done just that.
Marriage is a sacrament and sign
I started by saying I believe marriage is a sacrament. A sign – like the bread and wine in Communion – of God’s presence with us and love for us in Jesus Christ.
Indeed, in our Book of Common Prayer, every time there is a wedding, we read the words about marriage, that --
It signifies to us the mystery of the union between Christ and his Church …
Book of Common Prayer, page 423
Not a new thought either. I looked up the phrase in the 1662 English Prayer Book and found the words that marriage is --
… an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church …
1662 Book of Common Prayer
These familiar passages are quoting from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, speaking of marriage and how a man leaves his mother and father and joins his wife, and they became one flesh. And Paul says:
This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. (Letter of Paul to the Ephesians 5:32)
Need I say that “church” does not mean the building, it is not the union between Christ and the building, nor the union between Christ and the organizational structure – although structure should have, better have, some relationship to Jesus and his loving servant ministry – but to the people who are the community of faith, who are the church. To you and me.
What this is not saying is you have to be married to be united to Christ. In no way. One can be single or widowed or a monk or nun. Young or old, married or single, what is offered is offered to all.
The mystery of the marriage of two human beings is a sign of the mystery of the union of Christ with a human being that is offered to each one of us.
God sent Christ to speak to us God’s Word that God is present with us and loves us in him. That love is entirely gift, all grace. And God calls each person to accept that love and trust that love and return it. The love of any human being for another is gift, to be trusted and returned, always gift and grace – and so is a sign of God’s gift.
I note that in American Protestantism, it is very widespread, in modern times, to speak of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I daresay for me it means the same thing. “Personal” and “relationship” are not Biblical words but modern words. The Bible is packed with stories of relationships, they had relationships in Bible, some rich and wonderful and some destructive, but the word comes from our self-conscious modern times. But yes a couple in marriage are united, and in a personal relationship – just so we are given the gift of union with God, of friendship and love.
We live out the gift of God’s love in Christ – friendship with God in Christ -- in worship together and in loving service in the world. May we follow Jesus on that way.
(This sermon was preached by the Rev. Raymond Webster, Rector, in St. Chrysostom’s Church, Chicago, Illinois on Sunday, February 13, 2011, the Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany at 8:00am and 11:00am)
