What Does This Mean?

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

June 29, 2014

What Does This Mean?

Selected Texts

We made the New York Times.

Not the front page, but still the front section.

The Washington Post wrote about us as well.

Every two years representatives from

Presbyterian churches throughout our country

gather for what we call a General Assembly,

a council of the whole church,

the Presbyterian Church, (USA).

They gather for a week to worship,

to praise God,

to learn from and with one another,

and to celebrate the many ministries we do

in more than 10,000 Presbyterian churches,

colleges, camps, and seminaries,

all done in the name of Jesus Christ.

Hundreds of men and women of all ages

gathered two weeks ago in Detroit

for this year’s General Assembly;

hundreds of men and women

representing almost 2 million members 

of our denomination.  

They gathered not only to worship and celebrate,

they also gathered to discern the will of God,

to listen for the Spirit,

to attend to where our Lord Jesus Christ

is calling his church.

Delegates to the General Assembly talk, debate,

study,

and most important, pray,

pray for discernment

as they seek to make faithful decisions

for the whole church,

for all our churches,

for all our faithful,

for you and me.

Among the many actions the General Assembly takes

is to recommend changes to our church constitution;

to add, delete, or modify language

that’s in our Book of Order.

They can’t change the language

by their action alone,

they can only recommend a change.

Once they make a recommendation,

it then gets sent back to the regional presbyteries

for discussion,

further discernment,

and then a vote by each presbytery,

including our own National Capital Presbytery,

of which our church is a part.

If a majority of the presbyteries

approves a recommendation,

the change becomes effective,

and it becomes part of our Book of Order,

part of our denomination’s constitution.

That’s how our constitution has been built

modified, adapted and transformed,

over more than 200 years.

The process is built on deliberation,

discernment,

study, conversation,

debate,

and prayer –

lots of prayer.

This year’s General Assembly

has recommended a change in language

we find in the Directory for Worship

in our Book of Order.

71% of the delegates voted to approve

changing the language that defines marriage

from “between a man and a woman” to

“between two people,

traditionally a man and a woman.”

(W-4.9001)

Making this change would of course,

allow two people of the same gender

to be married in the church

in exactly the same way

a man and a woman are married.

Same-sex marriage, as we all know,

has been the subject of debate,

often contentious,

often heated,

often angry debate

for quite some time,

so it’s no surprise that major news outlets

followed the story

as the General Assembly debated the issue;

it’s no surprise that the vote made it into

the New York Times

and the Washington Post.

The recommendation will now go back

to all the presbyteries

for further discussion, discernment,

debate,

and prayerful consideration.

If a majority of presbyteries approves the change,

the new language will become

part of our church constitution,

sometime in the next year or so.

Of course, marriage is also a civil contract

under state law,

and Virginia law makes no provision for marriage

between two people of the same gender.

So even if we change the language

in our church constitution,

there will be no marriages between two people

of the same sex in our church

or any other Presbyterian Church in the state of Virginia

unless and until the state law changes.

Two years ago,

when the General Assembly last met,

a slight majority, just over 50%,

voted not to change the language,

to keep the definition of marriage unchanged.

This time 71% of the delegates were in favor of change.

                                            

We’ve seen similar changes happening

in the civil laws, too,

as now 19 states, plus the District of Columbia

define marriage to include same-sex marriage.

States that have tried to ban same-gender marriage

have seen their bans overturned as unconstitutional.

But, even as a rapidly growing majority

accept the idea of same-sex marriage,

there is still a sizeable minority who oppose it.

29% of the delegates to the General Assembly

were opposed to the change.

Some of you may be opposed.

As a pastor, I’ve been reading, studying,

and praying about this issue

for quite some time,

and now that it appears that

we will change the definition,

I’ve been asking myself and God

not only what it means for us as a church,

but what does this mean for me,

as one who officiates at weddings?

This was not a change I had anticipated

when I entered the ministry.

The first thing this means to me

is it reminds me of just how difficult it can be

to discern God’s will,

especially as it is revealed in the pages of the Bible.

Even the most faithful,

prayerful,

learned people

may disagree.

I saw this up close when I was a student at

Princeton Theological Seminary,

not just among my classmates,

as we debated our interpretations of various passages,

each of us always so sure of ourselves,

that we possessed truth.

I also saw this in the Biblical Studies department,

a department filled with some of the most preeminent

biblical scholars working today,

men and women,

profoundly faithful men and women,

with deep knowledge of the original languages

the books of the Bible were written in;

deep understanding of the times,

the history, the cultures

that gave us the books of the Bible.

And yet, even within the department,

there was often disagreement

over how to interpret passages.

Our struggle with interpretation

is compounded when we realize that

there is no definition of marriage in the Bible.

We infer what marriage is;

“To infer” means we come to a conclusion

based on what we read,

when the words are not explicit.

We draw our inference of what marriage is

from language we find in the first book of the Bible,

the book of Genesis,

where we find this verse in the second chapter,

“Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother

and clings to his wife,

and they become one flesh.”

(Genesis 2:24)

 It is from this language

that we have inferred what we now call marriage.

And then there is the issue of trying to understand

what we mean when we talk about “biblical” marriage.

                 

Is biblical marriage what King Solomon modeled,

Solomon, the great king renowned for his wisdom,

Solomon, the great king who had 700 wives…

and 300 concubines.

Is biblical marriage what King David modeled,

King David who,

when he committed adultery with Bathsheba,

committed adultery against not one wife,

but 7 wives.

Is biblical marriage what we find with Jacob,

son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham,

Jacob, whose 12 sons became the patriarchs

of the 12 Tribes of Israel,

twelve sons Jacob had by his 2 wives,

and their two handmaids.

If we turn to the New Testament

hoping for better examples,

we find in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians

these hopeful, helpful words,

“So then, he who marries his fiancée does well;”

But if we keep reading, we hear these words,

“and he who refrains from marriage will do better.”

(1 Corinthians 7:38)

Why would Paul disapprove of marriage?

Paul believed that Jesus’ return was imminent,

so imminent that it was pointless to get married

since Jesus was likely to return

before the end of your wedding banquet.

Our Lord Jesus spoke of marriage,

even citing the verse from Genesis,

but he didn’t do so to define marriage;

the lesson our Teacher wants us to learn

is the importance of fidelity and

faithfulness within marriage.

(Mark 10:6ff)

Historian Stephanie Coontz has written,

“For most of human history marriage has been

an economic transaction

that involved the transfer or consolidation

of land and wealth

as well as the development of social networks.”

(Marriage, A History, 65)

Two fathers arrange a marriage between their children

to strengthen the two families,

to add to their land,

to have more workers for the land,

to have greater security.

It wasn’t until the early years of the 13^th century,
just 800 years ago,

that the church got involved in marriage,

that priests became the one to hear marriage vows.

Up till then, all two people had to do was

publicly say that they took one another as spouses.

That was it.

When I preside at a wedding,

you hear me say that marriage is

a gift given by God,

blessed by our Lord Jesus Christ,

and sustained by the Holy Spirit.

These are words from our denomination’s

Book of Common Worship.

I continue with these words,

also from our Book of Common Worship:

      “God created us male and female,

and gave us marriage so that husband and wife

may help and comfort each other,

living faithfully together in plenty and in want,

in joy and in sorrow,

in sickness and in health,

throughout all their days.

“God gave us marriage for the full expression

of the love between a man and a woman.

In marriage a woman and a man belong to each other,

and with affection and tenderness

freely give themselves to each other….

“God gave us marriage as a holy mystery,

in which a man and a woman are joined together

and become one,

just as Christ is one with the church.”

Two are joined together

for a mutually shared life,

helping and comforting each other,

freely giving themselves to each other,

two bound together throughout all their days.

The Reverend Peter Marshall, the great Scot

who preached so poetically from the pulpit of the

New York Avenue Presbyterian Church

back in the 1930s and 40s, said of marriage,

that it is “a union – domestic, social,

spiritual, physical.

It is a fusion of two hearts –

the union of two lives –

the coming together of two tributaries,

which after being joined in marriage,

will flow in the same channel in the same direction…

carrying the same burdens of

responsibility and obligation.”

Now, here is the question I have to ask of God

and of myself:

Is this something that can happen

between two women or two men

in the same way it can happen between

a man and a woman?

Can two men or two women be joined together,

for a mutually shared life,

living faithfully together in plenty and in want,

in joy and in sorrow,

in sickness and in health,

throughout all their days?

Is the language we read in Genesis limiting,

definitive,   

or does it simply reflect the understanding

the writer of Genesis had for most people,

perhaps even 90%,

while still leaving the door open

for the other 10%?

The Reverend Frederick Buechner has observed,

“A marriage made in heaven

is one where a man and a woman

become more richly themselves together

than the chances are either of them

could ever have managed to become alone.”

What if Buechner had written,

“A marriage made in heaven

is one where the two

become more richly themselves together

than the chances are either of them

could ever have managed to become alone.”

Does that still sound faithful?

Does that still sound like it reflects

what God wants for us?

Some day, in the not too far-off future,

some day before I retire,

it is very likely that two women,

or perhaps two men,

will come into my office

and tell me that they would like to get married.

They will not be two nameless,

faceless “gay people”;

they will be members of this congregation,

two people who are known by name,

perhaps one or both even grew up in this church.

They will be respected,

liked, loved;

Two people who have exemplified their faith

in their service to God through Jesus Christ,

perhaps even serving God and this church

as elders or deacons.

They will tell me that

they want to celebrate their love

by entering into the covenant of marriage,

that they want to commit themselves publicly

to one another by the exchanging of vows

and the giving and receiving of rings.

They will tell me they want to

bind themselves to each other,

living faithfully together in plenty and in want,

in joy and in sorrow,

in sickness and in health,

throughout all their days.

As they tell me about their plans

I will think about the verse in Genesis

that comes before the text

from which we have inferred marriage,

the verse that gives us God’s reason for marriage:

Then the Lord God said,

‘It is not good that the man should be alone;

I will make him a helper as his partner.’

(Genesis 2:18)

I will know as I listen to them,

that for most,

that partner will be someone of a different gender,

someone of the opposite sex.

But I will also know that for some

that partner will be of the same gender,

the same sex.

And I will agree with God,

that it is not good that a person should be alone,

that every person should have a partner.

And I will be glad that God led them to one another,

and blessed them with love for one another.

And as they finish telling me of their plans

and then look to me for a response,

I hope, I pray

that I’ll be able to say to them

“Scripture teaches us,

God is love,

and those who abide in love,

abide in God,

and God abides in them.

…We love because God first loved us.”

(1 John 4:16)

So let us celebrate your love,

your love for God through Jesus Christ,

and your love for each other.

Let us celebrate love

and plan your marriage.”

AMEN