Gifts of Marriage, Gifts of Pentecost: A Homily for Pentecost and the Wedding of Helena and Chris

Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, on Sunday, 24 May, the Feast of Pentecost.

Readings for this Sunday: Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:25-35, 37; 1 Corinthians 12:3B-13, John 20:19-23

Send forth your Spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. 

I can’t think of a more fitting time to have a wedding than on today, the Feast of Pentecost.   This is the day when we celebrate God’s creative activity, God’s promise as we heard in this morning’s psalm to “renew the face of the earth”.    This is the day when we celebrate God breaking down barriers and bringing people together.    This is the day when we celebrate Jesus’ giving his friends the gift of the Holy Spiriit, a spirit of peace, companionship, and comfort.    

Chris and Helena are hear today to claim these things that we celebrate.   They will receive God’s enthusiastic blessing for the family and the home that they have created.  They will receive God’s blessing to live in unity.   And the gifts of the Holy Spirit will be given to them as they seek to make their lives together lives of peace, companionship, and mutual comfort and aid.  

These gifts will be needful and appreciated on those days when marriage is hard work.    In his words to his disciples in today’s gospel, Jesus tells his friends that they can either withhold forgiveness, or they can seek reconciliation.   Marriage can be lovely, but there are moments when it requires forgiveness and a commitment to always rebuild and always make new.    The gifts of Pentecost are especially necessary in such moments.

While it is a rare occasion, it is fitting that celebrate this marriage in the midst of our Sunday worship.   The gifts which Chris and Helena claim are in many respects that gifts that God gives to God’s church: renewal, unity, peace and mutual comfort and support.     

Just as God’s people come together at baptism to support the new Christian in their earthly life, so we come together now to support our fellow parishioners, Chris and Helena, in their new life together.     We give thanks for their love, we give thanks for God’s love for God’s church, and we give thanks for the Pentecost gifts of Pentecost - unity, peace, comfort and mutual support - that are given to us today.

A Wedding Sermon for Jacob and Amanda

 

A Sermon for the Wedding of Jacob and Amanda, Sunday, October 23. Preached at All Saints, King City, Anglican Diocese of Toronto. 

 ⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”  (Mk 10.9).

When an engaging young couple called Jacob and Amanda approached me about helping them with their wedding, I jumped at the chance.     Even before Covid, it seemed an increasingly rare thing now for young adults to seek a wedding in a church and in the Christian tradition.  In my conversations with Jacob and Amanda before today, we talked about both the beauty of marriage as its defined in the language of today’s service, and the seriousness of this high calling that these two will enter into today, in your sight and with your support.

Much of the language that you will hear today comes from Christian scripture, which shapes how we have thought about marriage over the centuries.  The tone of this service is joyous, but there are also parts of it that what happens today is also profoundly important, perhaps even the most important choice that two people can make together.

Let me direct your attention to one of these centres of gravity in this wedding service.    Towards the very end, I will say “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”  These are not my words.  They were spoke by Jesus, and are found in Mark’s gospel  (Mk 10.9).  As the capstone of the marriage service, these words of Jesus underscore the seriousness of what the couple are entering into, although to be sure the vows themselves speak eloquently of the stakes of marriage:

“… for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, for the rest of our live, according to God’s holy law.  This is my solemn vow.”  (BAS 544).

There’s honesty here, isn’t there?   Those of us with some experience of love know something of the myriads of catastrophes that any newlyweds are vowing to face together: temptation, betrayal and forgiveness; job loss and economic ruin; life changing illnesses and accidents; dementia and slow, undignified decline.  In part, the marriage service is saying to the newlyweds, buckle up, because you’re going to need God’s help to get through this ride.

Of course, for each of these potential tribulations, the wedding vows point to a concomitant blessing. Sickness and health, joy and sorrow, poverty and wealth are all bound up together in the fullness of our lives.  As the psalmist writes, “Weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning” (Ps 30.5).    In his earthly life, Jesus had full experience of the variety of human experience, from sharing the joy of the wedding at Canaan and the hospitality of friends’ houses, to his tears at the grave of his friend Lazarus.   Indeed, the incarnation of Jesus is God’s promise of commitment to our earthly life in all its hills and valleys.   In all this, God says in Christ and in the Holy Spirit, I will go with you and be there for you.

Jacob and Amanda, where will this journey take you?   I pray, indeed, in a few minutes, we will all pray, that this journey will take you to many good places.    We will pray that God blesses you with rich long lives, with children, and grandchildren.  We will pray that you will grow wise, patient, and kind with one another, as we heard in today’s readings from scripture.  We will pray that your home will enrich the human community as a place of joy, warmth, and hospitality.   We will pray with confidence that God’s Spirit will go with you, guide you, and even protect you.

I say protect you because I know, as many of us do, that the marriage vows do not guarantee you a smooth ride.    Some years ago, I had the opportunity to spend many hours in an oncology ward, observing patients spending long hours receiving chemotherapy.  What always caught my attention were the couples, some younger than others, but many you could tell whose marriages had strengthened and prepared them for this moment.  I saw loving glances, hands being held, those quiet moments when a spouse’s quiet presence is the greatest gift of all.  The chemo word is one of those places where we see that marriage is a gift of God, part of God’s design for the well-lived human life.

All of the things we see in this marriage service – friendship, partnership, community, parenthood – are part of the created life and order that God gives us to enjoy, and are also resources that God gives us to help us endure the challenges of life.  Jacob and Amanda, may God bless you and go with you through the days and years of this high calling and wonderful gift that you enter into today.

 

Marriage and Creation: A Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost

A Sermon for Sunday, October 3, the Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost. Preached at All Saints, King City, Anglican Diocese of Toronto. 

Readings for Proper 27B:  Job 1.1, 2:1-10; Ps 26; Heb 1:1-4,2.5-12; Mk 10:2-16.

 ⁹Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”  (Mk 10.9).

If these words from today’s gospel reading sound familiar to you, it’s because they are used at the end of the marriage liturgy of the Anglican church (BAS p.545).   A few weeks from now, I’ll be reading them to a young bride and groom who will stand before me as they enter into this remarkable state of being that Jesus here describes.   In my experience, it’s a remarkably rare thing now for young adults to seek a wedding in a church and in the Christian tradition.   I suspect that your experience, perhaps with your own adult children, is similar.

That young people seem to have largely abandoned Christian marriage is an index of the predominant secularity of our age.   Civil unions and co-habitation offer other alternatives for life together.  Weddings on beaches and in gardens, with self-written vows, cater to our society’s desire for authenticity and self-expression.  No-fault divorce laws and the idea of the “starter marriage” provide off-ramps for those who become dissatisfied.  

We’ll get to Jesus’ teaching here on divorce towards the end of this homily, but here in the first part I want to talk about what Jesus’ comments say about God’s creative intentionality, and about how Jesus frames marriage as God’s design.

“Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”  (Mk 10.9).  As the capstone of the marriage service, these words of Jesus underscore the seriousness of what the couple are entering into, although to be sure the vows themselves speak eloquently of the stakes of marriage:

“… for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, for the rest of our live, according to God’s holy law.  This is my solemn vow.”  (BAS 544).

Think of the myriads of catastrophes that the newlyweds are vowing to face together: temptation, adultery and betrayal; job loss and economic ruin; life changing illnesses and accidents; dementia and slow, undignified decline.  In part, the marriage service is saying to the newlyweds, buckle up, because you’re going to need God’s help to get through this ride.

Of course, for each of these potential tribulations, the wedding vows point to a concomitant blessing. Sickness and health, joy and sorrow, poverty and wealth are all bound up together in the fullness of our lives.  As the psalmist writes, “Weeping may spend the night, but joy comes in the morning” (Ps 30.5).    In his earthly life, Jesus had full experience of the variety of human experience, from sharing the joy of the wedding at Canaan and the hospitality of friends’ houses, to his tears at the grave of his friend Lazarus.   Indeed, the incarnation of Jesus is God’s promise of commitment to our earthly life in all its hills and valleys.   In all this, God says in Christ and in the Holy Spirit, I will go with you and be there for you.

 “Therefore, what God has joined together …”.  In saying that marriage is God’s agency, Jesus is saying something profound about the created nature of our experience.  In quoting Genesis 2:18-24, Jesus God’s desire that marriage is part of the life that is God’s gift to us to enjoy, as well as a participation in God’s work of Creation by continuing it from generation to generation.   All of the things we see in our marriage service – friendship, partnership, community, parenthood – are part of the created order that God gives us to enjoy, and are also resources that God gives us to help us endure the challenges of life.

“… let no one separate”.  These words remind us that Jesus’ teachings here on marriage are within the context of a discussion on divorce.  Here I think the church needs to tread carefully and pastorally, sensitive to the lived experience of many of the faithful.   Some of the alienation from marriage that I described earlier may be attributable to defences of “traditional marriage” mounted by religious conservatives fighting culture wars.   I have no interest in these battles.   If everyone in church had to raise their hands honestly if asked if they were ever divorced, my hand would be first in the air, even though the admission does me no credit and is still a shameful memory.  We are human, and liable to err, as St. Paul writes (Rom 3.23).

It’s often said that Jesus in Mk 10 is speaking up against male-dominated divorce practices of his day which saw wives easily cast off and forced into lives of poverty and prostitution.   I myself think this context is important, because it is entirely congruent with Jesus’ concern for the dignity of women as children of God, seen throughout his ministry.   It would thus be a perversion of the gospel to read Mark 10 as a being a blanket prohibition against all divorce, even in cases of violence or neglect.  My wife is on the board of a shelter for women and children escaping abusive relationships.   Would Jesus condemn her for thus undermining marriage?   I don’t see how any reading of the good news of God in Christ could require a spouse to remain in an abusive relationship.

Our Anglican Church has evolved its thinking on divorce and on marriage.  We have moved towards an understanding of marriage as a means of knowing God’s grace, love, and the communion of the Trinity within matrimony, regardless of the gender of the participants or whether one or both parties have been divorced.  To be sure, these changes break with Christian history and tradition of marriage, and only in the fulness of time will we know if we are right to alter our concept of marriage.  I pray that we are right in these things.  What I do know, with absolute certainty, is that in the mystery of marriage, we are given the power to love, to forgive, and to stand by one another through the darkest hours, all the while within the fulsome love of God in Christ who calls us to renew creation in the communion and community of this mysterious and wonderful way of being.

A Eulogy For My Wife

 

 

 

Kay Leslie Brown

6 July, 1952 - 25 November, 2017

Funeral Eulogy

St. Margaret of Scotland Anglican Church, Barrie, ON, 3 December, 2017

Bishop Shaw, dear colleagues, friends, fellow parishioners, on behalf of my family and Kay’s family, I thank you all for joining us today to pray for and to remember an extraordinary person and faithful Christian, Kay Leslie Brown.   Kay received so many acts of kindness and compassion from so many of you during her long illness that any words of gratitude I could offer would be wholly inadequate.

 

Kay was always tickled that when we were married, three priests and a postulant, so, for you non-Anglicans,  three and a half priests, officiated at our wedding.  I think we have that number beaten today, as there must be a small platoon of clergy and chaplains present.  Kay would enjoy that fact.

 

As I wrote this eulogy, I was mindful that Kay would probably not have had much interest in what I said about her, because she would never have wanted to be the focus of this event.   Kay designed this funeral, chose the readings and the hymns, so that it would be about her God.

 

For Kay, the words of the liturgy, the proclamation of the word, and the faithful preaching of the gospel were what mattered.  That was the exacting standard that she held my own sermons up to.  If I saw her frowning face in the congregation, I knew I wasn’t doing well.  Sometimes, in the car on the way home, she’d say “You did OK.” When it came to preaching, she was my fiercest and best critic.

 

In that respect, Kay always reminded me of the figure of John the Baptist, as painted in the Isenheim Altarpiece in the 1500s by Matthias Gunewald.  John is depicted off to the side, pointing to the figure of Christ on the cross.   The theologian Karl Barth loved this painting.  I know that Kay would be rolling her eyes at my working a theologian into her eulogy, but darling, you always knew that I was a geek.   

 

Barth said that the church must always be like John in that painting, not calling attention to itself, but rather directing attention to the cross and to Christ’s work there in defeating our enemy of sin and death.   That was Kay, like John the Baptist, always pointing to the cross.  Anytime she spoke up in the life of the church, you could be sure that would be asking, often impatiently, where was God in all our human activity.

 

However, darling, I am not here as a priest or a preacher.   I am here to talk about you and about what a privilege it was to be your husband.   So bear with me.  I’ll speak about you briefly, and then get out of the way of the church’s true business, as you would want.  

 

Kay fought a two front war with cancer and diabetes, and in the last year of that struggle she wrote a bible study on how our faith helps us to deal with pain and suffering.   She spoke on that subject with great authority.   People often told me how they were in awe of Kay’s calm, even serene, composure.  As she liked to say, God gave her “the peace which passes all understanding”.  

Despite four significant surgeries in three years, and long hospitalizations, Kay was gracious and kind with others.   As her body slowly failed her, she never gave in to self-pity or despair.   I saw her comfort other patients, nurses, and even embrace the young doctor who burst into tears as she told Kay that she had reached the end of what medicine could do for her and that she would soon die.  A priest friend of mine told me that he went to the hospital to bless Kay, and he came away blessed.  So while I regret that Kay never got to lead that bible study on living with pain and suffering, a friend pointed out to me the other day that, in a very real way, she did teach that lesson, just by the way she lived and died.

 

Kay would have been the first to tell you that her peacefulness and calm did not come from within, but rather were spiritual gifts.   Kay was not a saint, and she was not always a person of faith.   In her youth, she liked to say that she was, in her words, “a flaming atheist”.   In her passion for research and for the scientific method, Kay convinced herself that she had to jettison her faith, but God had other plans.  In the twenty years I was at her side, I saw Kay struggle with God’s call.  I think God had the upper hand in that struggle, because God simply reminded Kay of who she was and of who she had always been.

 

Kay was always a person attuned to God’s justice and grace.  Growing up in the southern United States in the 1950s and 60s, Kay saw things that would stay with her all her life.  She often told me how, as a girl, she didn’t understand why there were separate water fountains for coloured people.   At the same time she saw her father, a devoted civil servant, give the same care to black clients as he did to white ones.   Martin Luther King was one of her early and lifelong heroes.  Kay always believed that the moral arc of the universe bent towards the good, even if she stopped believing, for a while, that the moral arc came from and led back to God.  

 

Despite being a profound introvert at times, she attracted the misfits and the hurting, who sensed her compassion and patience.  Kay had deep reserves of empathy and kindness.   Even while she was still a self-proclaimed “flaming atheist”, she paid the tuition of a friend so she could go to seminary.    She gave freely because she had a big heart, an innate sense of decency, and an ability to see the other’s point of view.

 

What led Kay back to God is a long story.   I think partly it was circumstances, the people and places that God led us to, and I think it was also the frustration of her hopes to make a career in science and academia.   Kay had dreamed of winning a Nobel prize, and her academic career ended in frustration, partly due to bad luck and partly due to Kay’s struggles with mental illness.  I was attracted to Kay because of her warmth, humour, and creativity, but I soon realized that these moments came at a cost.  She had violent swings into depression and despair, and her darkest period was when she had to walk away from the university environment that she had built her identity on.

 

I don’t doubt for a second that it was God who led Kay out of that dark valley.  It took years for us to build a new life together.   Her career was ending as mine was taking off and that was a source of tension as well.   We learned the hard way how to build a marriage based on mutual respect, careful listening, giving and taking.  Early on I mostly took, and Kay gave, a lot.  She found satisfaction in building elaborate and beautiful gardens, in which she combined a scientific method with the flair and soul of an artist, and then she had to walk away from them, repeatedly.   Becoming a military spouse, at an age when most people are looking forward to settling down and staying in one place, meant that she had to move, frequently, and that got harder and harder on her.   Soldiers get the medals, but really the medals should go to spouses like Kay, who gave so much to advance my career.

 

I think the last ten years of her life were probably the best.  Kay found the right psychiatrist and the right medication, and the black clouds of her depression mostly lifted and vanished.   She made friends, and opened her house to others - wandering chaplains, military people far from home, strays and misfits - all were welcome at her table.  Kay thrived in a series of churches - St. Barnabas in Medicine Hat, St. Columba’s in Waterloo, and, of course, here.  I have no doubt that Kay could have made significant contributions to the life of St. Margaret’s and St. Giles in the years to come, had it pleased God to leave her with us.  I also have no doubt that God completed his work in Kay, by bringing her to a good place in these years.  Kay’s deep and integral goodness, her joyfulness and compassion for others, her plain speaking and prophetic voice, all these things came through strongly.  Kay was no longer a flaming atheist, she was simply flaming, a bright beacon of God’s power to bind up and restore.

 

I will always be profoundly grateful for the privilege of being Kay’s husband.  In my mind’s eye I will always see her as she was, her strong and capable hands weeding a garden or paddling a stream, her mouth quirked in wonder or humour, her eyes wide and seeing the beauty of the world and the people around her.   In her last years, as she grew increasingly sick and frail, Kay would talk about the resurrection body that God would give her.   She hoped that when she got to heaven, that God would give her some challenging scientific assignment, like designing a new plant species, or managing a supernova.   No sitting around playing the harp for Kay! I have no doubt that one day we will look on Kay again, in whatever form God pleases to give her, and that she will burn as bright and fierce and glorious as any star in heaven.

Transgender Soldiers in the Military

 

I found this short documentary from the New York Times, “Transgender, at war and in love”,  to be both disorienting and inspiring.   

Disorienting, because the young man seen speaking in the first minutes of the video, strong, muscled, tattooed and moustached, was born female and his fiancee, seen later in the film, is also transgender, born male.    Within the video he speaks about the liberating effect of being deployed in Afghanistan, where he is judged solely on his ability and competence, and the uncertain future that might await him back once he returns to the States where the military might still treat him administratively as female and even discharge him.

It’s also inspiring because of the hopefulness of this young couple, and their insistence that they are as deserving of love and happiness as anyone else.

In the wake of the Caitlyn Jenner unveiling on the internet, I found the quiet and gritty ordinariness of this story to be refreshing and honest.

In a separate article in the New York Times, it’s estimated that there are some 15,500 transgender people serving in the US military.   Since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has been repealed, gay men and women may serve openly in the US military, but for transgender troops their future is still uncertain.  The Canadian Armed Forces allows transgendered troops to serve, and supports gender reassignment therapy for serving personnel.  I don’t have any idea how many transgender personnel are in the CAF, but according to this CBC article, it’s likely minuscule by comparison to the US.

As the father of a transgender child, I also find myself sympathizing with the father in this documentary, who trips over the gender of his daughter/son.  I do that as well.

In an age where identity seems increasingly plastic and aspirational, and where theologians and clergy are struggling to reconcile doctrine with their discernment of what God may be doing in the moment, I have no clear thoughts on this subject.  I do know that anyone who wears the same uniform as I do, takes the same oath, and serves with honour and integrity, is a comrade and battle buddy of mine.  As a chaplain, I’m bound to serve them as needed, and should do so gladly.  That seems a good place to leave it for now.  So good luck and blessings to you and your bride, Airman Logan.  

MP+

 

The ethics of sexting

I confess I didn't really know much about sexting until the news of US Congressman Anthony Weiner's textploits made him a national scandal and drove him, at least temporarily, from office. The married, 46 year old, unfortunately named politician is now seeking psychological counseling for his online behaviour with other women and it looks as if his party is ready to cut him adrift. If you are curious to know more about Weiner, there's a whole whack of stories collated on the NYT website here.

The important ethical question to ask, I think, is what exactly is wrong here? What is the ethical issue at the crux of this latest affair of a public figure falling to earth? Perhaps the issue is sexual relations with a minor, since one of the women Weiner was sexting was seventeen, easily young enough to be his daughter. Creepy to be sure, but if there was no intent to go beyond sexual expression by exchange of text messages and digital photos, then I'm not sure it's a crime unless he received images from minors, in which case it may fall within a broad definition of child pornography.

Perhaps the issue is adultery? A religious studies professor quoted in a New York Times debate on the subject suggests that if all Weiner did was "internet posing" then his actions do not meet a definition of adultery and so urges "Mrs. Weiner to celebrate her husband’s fidelity. He apparently has a quite active libido, and that is wonderful, if somewhat tricky. He has chosen to work it off on the Internet, as opposed to cruising singles bars. That is cause for celebration. It seems to me that he really does honor his marriage vows; excess sexual desire drove him to do something perhaps less than the moral ideal, but something that speaks volumes to the seriousness with which he takes his old-fashioned vows." However, two other participants in this debate take a different view, rejecting any distinction between the internet and the real world: "The Congressman’s online indiscretions betrayed his real-life wife, causing real pain and hurt feelings in those he cares about most. This is evidence that what happens in the virtual world affects the real world." At the end of the day, I would suggest that only the Congressman's wife can decide if he committed adultery, but it looks like a breach of trust and betrayal of trust is what commonly ends marriages.

My own wife put it well the other day when she asked why we as a society continue to elevate our elected leaders to standards of sexual ethics that we as a whole are unwilling to follow. Adultery is widespread in society, and yet when it is exposed in our elected leaders they almost always have to go. However, "sexting" is hardly unheard of, even in the middle-aged demographic, as the NYT notes. "A Pew Research Center poll found that 6 percent of Americans over 18 reported having sent a nude or near-nude image of themselves to someone else and 15 percent said they had received one. In Mr. Weiner's 30- to 49-year-old demographic, 17 percent reported receiving such a message." Had he been honest, Weiner should have said "Yeah, I texted some women, so what? What's your problem?" That would have been more honest than Newt Gingrich having an affair while hounding President Clinton over the Lewinsky Affair, and it would spare countless political wives from the charade of having to stand loyally by their men at campaign events.

The ethicist and theologian Alasdair McIntyre writes that virtue can only be practised in a community where a set of values and ethics are commonly understood and practised. A monastery is McIntyre's classic example of such a community, but one can imagine other examples of communities where an ethic us intelligble, practised, and expected. The lesson of Weinergate is that we as a society are unwilling to be a community where sexual fidelity is a practised and accepted virture, and yet we expect our politicians to live by standards we as a whole have abandoned. Weinergate may finally teach us that the emperor has no clothes, and we know that because he sent us the pictures to prove it.

Can there be too much marriage therapy?

Jessica Grose makes a good point, that the adage "perfect is the enemy of good enough" can apply to marriages as well. MP

Can This Marriage Be Fun?
Enough with all the marriage therapy!
By Jessica Grose in www.slate.com

Posted Thursday, April 29, 2010, at 10:04 AM ET

Last week, the editor-in-chief of Ladies Home Journal went on the Today show to promote the magazine's new series of webisodes, based on the iconic midcentury column "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" These snappy two-and-a-half-minute clips are meant to update the 57-year-old marriage-improvement series for a reality-TV age. A goofy man in an Unsolved Mysteries-style, trench coat narrates the couple's woes against a fake-gritty backdrop, with a fog machine blowing, before looking into the camera and asking the audience things like, "Will Robin choose her puppy over her hubby?"


But his lighthearted banter belies the enormity of the task at hand. The issues shown in these webisodes range from petty to serious and everything in between: There's good old "Robin" and her husband "Ted" who get a dog in order to pave over the problems in their relationship. "I think it's absolutely ridiculous to have a dog in bed with us," Ted rages. Another webisode features "Jim" and "Melissa," a "typical young couple" who have not had sex in years. Years! With no end date planned for the series, the webisodes will surely cover every possible marriage pitfall, from in-laws to bedtimes to incompatible dishwasher-loading techniques. It's enough to spook a girl off of marriage entirely. But I am getting married—in a little more than a month, in fact—and quite happy about it, so I am determined to take an entirely different view of the whole thing.

Read the whole piece here.