Sermon for the 3 rd Sunday after Epiphany, January 24, 2010
“There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: and both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. ”
It is not good that man should be alone. I think any woman knows that, and makes sure her husband isn't alone very much of the time. When God made humankind, it was first in the form of a male, and then, after Adam called all the newly made animals by their new names, God put him to sleep in order to perform a very delicate operation. God had seen the singularity of his first human and He said, “It is not good that man should be alone.” So, out of Adam's side, it says, God took some bone and fashioned Eve, a woman. Side by side, thereafter, the first marriage was in their nature, “Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh,” Adam called her quite literally.
Human marriage carries on that strange origin, the overwhelming sense that we cannot live alone very well, that another person could fill what is empty and missing in us, and that the other person must be like us , and unlike us as well. Have you ever thought of living with yourself , with a clone of you who looks, talks, dresses, and acts just exactly like you? How weird would that be? What point would there be in it, other than a hand with moving a table or spelling you at driving long distances? You can't love someone too much like yourself. You have to love the other , a different person who is only enough like you to communicate and agree on basics, and different enough to make life interesting.
Marriage is in the Great Design of God, for it answers a problem in His creation. The very reason we're here at all is that we were made to fulfill a desire of His, that a rational creature with many of God's characteristics would voluntarily turn his or her face upward and love God back. Being created separate from God, a unique sentient being, humankind is somewhat alone, and that's not all good. The second day of Creation, God made a firmament or separation in the heavens that made a distance between the high heaven and the lower creation, upper waters and lower waters are only metaphors for this distance heaven is apart from our earth. On the second day only, God does not say, It is good . It isn't bad, either, but it presents a problem, something alienating built into the Creation, a puzzle to solve, an obstacle to overcome. Aloneness is not our destiny, but our common problem, and one that God created solutions for, if we'll take them. The first solution is man and woman, marriage, the family, the home, a safe haven for raising and rearing children, the future of our race.
We've been hearing weeks of testimony out of San Francisco challenging the decision made in 2008 to constitutionally define marriage as a contract between only a male and a female of our species. This definition wasn't new, it's as old as humanity. What was new was the idea that marriage could include new meanings, people of the same gender for instance. But the word, the God given state of matrimony, has always meant the union between a man and a woman. It doesn't exclude anyone. The term just can't mean something it doesn't mean. You cannot marry your child. You can't marry your brother. You can't marry yourself. We all see the limits, and there have to be limits to any definition. Whatever people feel about it makes no difference. A word means what it means so that we can understand one another. Change that and I'll show you an abandoned construction site in the plains of Shinar.
Marriage and family are the basis of every civil law. Humankind, if atomized into individuals, will always bring an end to civilization, where everyone thinks and acts in accordance to what he or she thinks is right. When you make a family, you create order, and families living in community need to agree on a common order. It is the basis of law, justice, and peace between people. Family creates this civil order, and without family we fall to ruinous and riotous behavior, selfish, greedy children who never grow up, Mad Max at Thunderdome. Let's not. Please.
If the long term reason for marriage is children, their birth, their safety, and a civilized world in which they might learn and grow and outlive us: then that act that brings about a child and that child's life must be very important. Love between a man and woman was meant to be contained within marriage in order that the products of that love, their tender babies, might be born without strife, hardship, in a loving union, in safety. It wasn't entirely a new thing that Hugh Hefner introduced in his Playboy philosophy— that sexual life had no necessary tie to married life —but the ideal and the magazine did their work in setting the stage for the feminist revolution, its counterpart, to say that if men can be that independent and selfish, so can women. What was called, in my youth, the sexual revolution , distained marriage, and with it, the value of human life. Abortion was the logical and evil fruit of this psychological aberration. Last Friday was the 37 th anniversary of the Roe v Wade decision that imposed legality of abortion, for all 9 months of pregnancy, on all 50 states. By 1973, we'd come a long way baby.
The national debate over abortion pits moral sensibilities against hysterical rhetoric, both sides demanding the high ground and both sides unable to concede even one point to the other. Passions run high, whoever you speak to. When Pro-Life advocates cry for the lives of unborn babies and Pro-Choice advocates cry for freedom of choice in their own health care decisions, there is little real communication.
The words of “pro-choice” are a smoke screen. Abortion is not a choice, like the personal matter of which car one might buy or where to go this weekend. It is not a decision for careers, or clothing, or home décor. Abortion is a decision taken when women find themselves pregnant without wanting to be pregnant. Abortion presents itself as the great eraser, the easy out, the way back to being un-pregnant. But that's a lie . No woman who has been pregnant returns to her former state. She has become a mother , the mother of an unborn fully alive child. She has been sexually active, probably when she should not have been. Abortion can't unmake that mistake or return her to her pre-pregnancy. She is a mother. She will be the mother of a living child or the mother of a child that has died within her body, but either way she remains a mother.
Abortion is in every case a terrible, life-ending course to take, even when it's medically imperative. Abortion leaves scars, death and sorrow behind. No one chooses abortion. She feels force, coerced, threatened, ashamed or just fearfully drawn into the net of a fateful decision she would never have chosen were she not pregnant at an inopportune time. We may ask: “Where is the man?” A woman demands her right to choose her own way, but there was another person involved at one point, and where is he? He may be paying for the abortion, pressuring his girlfriend so she'll remain sexually available, fearing being saddled with the support of a child he never thought until the product of one night is 18 years old. The absence of men in this arena is a thin disguise. He is there, pushing and running and giving orders because a baby is a threat to his future almost as much as it is to hers. For this reason, more men favor abortion rights nationally than do women. But in some instances, the fathers of these children would seriously want their babies to live, but these men have no voice, no choice at all.
It is not good for man to be alone. Our societal mess, our sorrows in failed relations, our 50 million dead unborn infants, the lives of so many million women nursing that deep pain of having consented to it, the disconnected men who feel justified in sexual irresponsibility, reducing women to toys, another generation that just can't grow up, the angst over same-sex unions: all stem from not hallowing marriage, the definition as ancient as we are, the reason almost forgotten by us. What was Jesus' first miracle?
At a wedding in the little hamlet of Cana, He came with His mother, bringing His first disciples with Him. Jesus Himself would never marry, and that was odd in Jewish society, but this was the Son of God, son of man, keeping Himself for His future bride. Nevertheless He respected marriage and went to the feast. But they ran out of wine and His mother came to inform Him. He knew what she was asking without asking. He made sure she knew that His mission wasn't under her control, but acquiesced to do something wonderful, a sign that He is God. He turned a great deal of water into wine. And not only wine, but very good wine. The celebration could go on.
We look at marriage sometimes through the dark glasses of a jaded generation and think that it is terribly boring, dreary, a failure, a fraud. There are such marriage s, and that's a shame, but it wasn't always so. Some marriages are still made in heaven, for marriage was meant to reflect heaven onto earth, our eventual state lived out temporally. Jesus is saving Himself for His bride, our future eternal life to be lived in loving union with the Emperor of all things, as His Empress —if you will.
Heaven will sing the song, “Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready." And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” Rev 19:6-9 St. John is writing his vision and the Bride is all of redeemed humanity, dressed in white, united with their King and God and ever in love with Him. “Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!”
Christ adorned marriage, the love of a man and a woman, with children, a home, a human family, with His first miracle in Cana of Galilee. This is indisputable. God hallows marriage. St. Paul writes of it as a model of our relationship with Christ. The man to love his wife like Christ loves the Church, literally giving his life away for her sake, to make sure she is in every way happy. The man to honor her husband in his sacrifice, accepting this homage and letting him lead, protect, provide for her and their cherished offspring. Love is the great command, and marriage one way we carry it out. What is broken in our human family broke first there. Let us regain what we've lost and hallow marriage and human life again. Then pour the good wine, for the party and all the good times found in those valuable treasures, is both happy and holy.
PFH+