DESTINATION MARRIAGE

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My nephew and his bride are having a destination wedding in the Dominican Republic later this month. Although I’m not able to go, what I am doing, is witnessing their sacramental marriage here in the U.S. this weekend, a couple of weeks before they head down for the big celebration.

A DESTINATION MARRIAGE?

It occurs to me this morning that they ought to be thinking of a “destination marriage” too. A marriage is a relationship that is meant to last a lifetime -- its destination lies beyond the grave. As I look at the readings that the couple have chosen for the mass, I see that each one has some advice or insight concerning the journey, for the destination marriage we’re celebrating.

The first reading, from Genesis Ch.2, has God creating a “helper” for Adam out of Adam’s rib. The Hebrew word for “helper” is used of God himself in the Old Testament (Dt. 33.7, Ps. 46:2), and so it can’t imply that the woman is subordinate to the man any more than God is subordinate to us. The word “helper” suggests instead a profound affinity between the man and the woman, a relationship that is supportive and nourishing. So, one lesson about the journey is that getting to the destination takes two people who are co-equal, and who are supportive and nurturing to one another.

The second reading is the famous one from I Cor 13, Paul’s hymn about love.“Love is patient,

love is kind….” What’s interesting about this passage is that in the original Greek it contains 15 verbs that help define what love does and does not do. Love is a verb, it is action, dynamic life-giving force. The Greek word used for love here is agape, love that has no possessiveness about it; it is not a desire for satisfaction but rather it wants to satisfy the other. The supreme instance of agape is, of course, God. Our love for one another must imitate God’s boundless, unconditional love for us. So, a second bit of advice for the journey is that it needs to be impelled by love, by selfless, self-giving actions toward the other. Anything less and the marriage is unlikely to reach its destination.

The third reading is John 20:19-31, that tells the story of doubting Thomas finally seeing the risen Christ. Jesus leaves him and us with a lesson that applies to all Christians: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” As Paul reminds us in Second Corinthians (5:7), “We walk by faith, and not by sight.” The third lesson about the destination marriage, then, is that there will be times that the couple will have to walk through dark valleys together, living by faith and not by physical proofs of God’s presence. They promise in their vows to keep walking together on the destination journey in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer.

A NEW WAY OF JOURNEYING

But in return, God promises to walk along with them, even in the darkest valleys of life. The couple know that they’re in for a long journey, and that the destination of their marriage is a long, long way off. But the vow to walk the journey together is now part of their destiny as christians, it has radically changed the quality of their Christian journey, because now they won’t be walking it alone, but with someone who will call out of them their true nature as an image of God, as someone who is meant for selfless love. They each have someone to walk with them, especially in the difficult times when you can walk only by faith and not by sight.

So in this sacrament, Christ abundantly blesses this “destination marriage” and promises to walk with the couple until the three of them together come to their final destination in the Kingdom, where Love reigns supreme, and where we all hope one day to live together with the Lord who lives and reigns forever and ever.

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A COVENANT OF SALT

A WEDDING HOMILY

The following is the text of a homily I'm giving at a wedding this afternoon. Since I don't have time to write a separate blog post, I'll share this instead.

People who know Peter and Diana would probably agree that they are “salt of the earth” kind of folks. So as we come here this afternoon to witness their solemn exchange of marriage vows it is appropriate that the Church should give us an opportunity to reflect on Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the salt of the earth.”

Nowadays we know that the proper amount of salt is absolutely necessary for maintaining good health. But in the ancient world salt was tremendously important because it was used for preserving perishable goods, for  purifying things, as an antiseptic and of course for seasoning food.  Even to this day in certain eastern countries to eat of someone’s “salt” means to share in their hospitality.

It’s hard to overemphasize the importance of salt in Jesus’ day. It was so important that Roman soldiers used to get paid in salt, which gave us our English word salary.

So, Peter and Diana, I ask you to listen carefully when Jesus tells you this afternoon that”You are the salt of the earth” He’s saying to you in biblical language  “You are the most precious thing on earth.” You’ve already discovered that about one another – That’s why all of us are here this afternoon.

And there’s something beautiful about salt: Salt is so important just by being itself, just by being what God made it: salt! Just think about it:  If you are like salt, then you, too, are the most precious thing around just by being your real self! So our text is telling you that as you enter into this marriage, then, you just need to bring your real, true, salt-of-the-earth  self.

But what does that mean exactly?  Well, I suggest that you find the answer if you keep reading that scripture passage. It goes on to say:    “If salt loses its taste, how to you restore its flavor?  It is good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden underfoot.”

                 

Salt of course cannot lose its taste; but what can happen is that you can ADD stuff to pure salt, you can keep adulterating it with additives to the point that its taste is WEAKENED beyond recognition.

The Greek word Matthew uses for “losing its   savor” comes from the root “moros” – “foolish;”

it gives us our English word “moron.”  “Don’t be a moron!” the text is advising: Your own “salt-ness,” your savor, can easily be lost and your marriage can be weakened if you start allowing your salt to become contaminated by the things our culture tells you that you need for happiness: possessions, prestige, power, pleasure. These can subtly become more and more important in your life until you lose your savor.They form a toxic substance that kills a marriage.

You should notice something else about the passage: “You are the salt of the earth:” the word “You” is plural:  “Youze” are the salt of the earth.  Your love is a gift you are giving to one another, but your love is also a gift to all of us here. As a married couple you are pledging to be salt for us as well, to give our lives savor and zest.

                 

That is a serious obligation that goes with the gift God has given you: Both as individuals and now as a married couple you are the salt of the earth. So pass it on. Share that gift with a world that so needs to be salted with the savor of selfless love. With a world that has forgotten the flavor of faithfulness. Please, be that for us!

                 

One last thought about salt, and this will bring us to the reason why the two of you are standing here this afternoon. In the Jewish Scripture salt is a symbol of the covenant between God and his people. For example in the Second Book of Chronicles King Abijah says “Do you not know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel for ever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt?” (2 Chron 13:5) And in the Book of Numbers God tells his people: “As a perpetual due I assign to you and to your sons and daughters with you all the contributions of holy things which the Israelites set aside for the LORD; this is a covenant of salt to last forever before the LORD, for you and for your descendants with you”.  (Num 18:19)

Salt, the only preservative the Israelites knew, became a symbol of God’s ongoing, ever-enduring love for them. Diana and Peter, you are entering into a special sacrament today, a “covenant of salt to last forever.” The wedding will last for a few hours this afternoon, but the marriage, that's for the long haul, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. It's a covenant of salt.

I happen to know that the Portuguese word for a wedding ring is “alianca.” In French it’s

“alliance.” And we are here today to celebrate with you your alliance. And to witness your solemn covenant with each other to love, honor and obey one other until death. To be salt and light for each other.

And since today is a day for promising, in the name of all of us here present I am also making you a promise. (Videographer, would you  please pan across the congregation - we want to get all these faces on tape!) By our presence here we are promising that when things start to get a little difficult, or when that salt starts to lose its taste and you need some encouragement: just call on us!

           

Even if you just need someone to help paint the living room in your new house, or maybe God willing, someone to watch the baby for awhile.

           

That is not just our promise, it’s also our request: Let us be salt for you, too!

And now  the Church, as the people of the new covenant, of the new alliance now invites you to stand and solemnize your gift of self in the sacrament of marriage.

MARRIAGE IN A TOXIC CULTURE

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On Saturday I said mass and officiated at the wedding of my cousin Emily and her husband Chris. Here's my homily.

A WEDDING HOMILY

I want you to come with me for a few moments this afternoon to visit a lovely German island in the middle of Lake Constance, called Reichenau. Drive across the short bridge with me and onto the island. The first thing you’ll notice on the narrow main street is that we are engulfed in a world of flowers. Every house is awash in bright colored blooms: whether in flower boxes or tiny garden plots, every square foot of land seems aglow with cheerful colors.

Soon, though, we’re driving along a tiny road through fields overflowing with ripening vegetables for which the island is so famous. Again it seems that every available space is being cultivated to produce some beautiful plant or flower. Besides being home to a famous Benedictine Abbey it is truly a garden spot. Reichenau Island is the perfect image of fertile ground.

I want you to hold on to that lovely image for a moment while I to turn to a less pleasant topic: Divorce.

No one here needs to be reminded of the tragic statistics -- they are only too well-known to us, and to some of us in a very personal way. I want to suggest that a lot of the difficulties married couples experience today come from the godless atmosphere of our culture of materialism, of ego-centrism, self-gratification. That kind of atmosphere is hardly helpful to anyone working on any kind of serious human relationship. In fact, I submit that many of the principles that drive our culture are actually TOXIC for human relationships.

Where can a married couple turn for some help? Where can two newly-weds find fertile soil for a lasting, happy marriage?

I suggest that we now return to that image of the fertile island of Reichenau with its abundant crops and fertile fields, and contrast it with the image of the moral wasteland that we inhabit in our present day culture. Materialism, ego-centrism and godlessness are hardly fertile ground for growing lasting relationships.

We heard some helpful ideas for counteracting these toxic influences when we listened to today’s Gospel reading from Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount, the “Beatitudes.” In these few sentences Jesus takes all the world’s treasured toxic tenets and poison principles and turns them upside down! He makes them into principles of life-giving wisdom.

Let’s look at just three of these beatitudes and see how they can point us toward a happy marriage even in today’s culture.

The first beatitude on the list reads “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

A world that praises fierce independence and self-sufficiency, (“I’m my own independent person beholden to no one”) seems to me to be a pretty toxic place to grow a relationship of mutual trust. We’ve all seen that marriages rooted in “me-first” are doomed from the start.

But Jesus says in the gospel “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” the anawim, God’s poor in the Old Testament, people who know that they depend on God for everything.

A marriage based on the humbling admission that “There is only one God and it isn’t me” is planted in fertile soil and will have every chance of flourishing and bearing fruit.

The second beatitude I’d like to consider this afternoon is: “Blessed are the meek.”

A world that rewards aggressiveness and in-your-face confrontations, competition, and pointing out the weakness of others is obviously a toxic place to grow a relationship of simple trust and mutual help.

But Jesus in the gospel proclaims “Blessed are the meek.” He’s not suggesting we should be doormats, but is calling us rather to have a realistic, healthy sense of our own frailty as creatures. This awareness of our own human weakness makes it possible for us to put up with the weaknesses and limitations of our spouse. A marriage based on that kind of humble self-awareness will have a good chance of flourishing.

The third and last beatitude I’d like to consider this afternoon is “Happy are you when you hunger and thirst for righteousness.”

A world that sees pain and discomfort as enemies to be avoided at all costs, that has a horror of any kind of unpleasantness for any reason, is a toxic environment in which to grow a marriage.

Jesus contradicts that toxic idea with “Happy are you when you hunger and thirst for righteousness.” There are things, he says, that are worth suffering for. There are times in a marriage when you will have to put up with unpleasantness, inconvenient demands on your time, disagreements, and illness.

We can learn a lesson from the flowers that fill the fields of Reichenau: Flowers don’t just happen. Weeds happen, but flowers demand a lot of work, a lot of tender attention. Those vegetable gardens require weeding and watering and work under a hot sun. But the hard work makes sense because of the goal: the bounty of the harvest or the beauty of the flowers. It’s like that with a good marriage, too: it requires constant attention and sometimes even hardship and inconvenience and self-sacrifice. But that’s part of the deal. It’s like raising flowers!

Let me make a closing remark about beatitudes.

In Old Testament a “beatitude” was in the present tense, as in, say, “Happy is the man who trusts in the lord because his life is filled with blessings.”

Jesus, however, does something extraordinary by changing the beatitudes into PROMISES. “You will inherit the kingdom,” he says, and you will be satisfied or comforted or filled. But not necessarily HERE and NOW. The beatitudes are promises from God.

This afternoon is a time for promises. Jesus is promising blessedness through the beatitudes, and promises to give you all the grace and strength you need to make a beautiful marriage.

And you, Emily and Chris, your solemn promises to one another are, of course, the heart of our celebration today.

As for the rest of us who are here to witness your wedding, we promise you that we will be there for you in those hard times that are bound to come. We promise to remind you of Jesus’ promises in the beatitudes that you heard today.

Finally, we pray that your married life will be as life-filled and fertile, as beautiful and abundantly satisfying as that little garden spot of Reichenau. We pray that the toxic tenets our culture will not touch you, but that you will have a life based on the beatitudes, a life together that is blessed with a love that is selfless, abundant, fruitful and satisfying, until the day when the Lord calls you home to be with him and to fulfil his promises, and when both of you and all of us will share the fullness of his joy and beauty in heaven.

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....................Reichenau Abbey

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ACORNS, TADPOLES, BRIDES AND GROOMS

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Here are some notes from a homily that I gave at a recent wedding. (Actually I gave it at two different weddings, but don’t tell anybody!)

GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION

In the church this afternoon we’re surrounded by beautiful flowers of all sorts, on the altar, in bouquets, and along the main aisle. But I want to talk for a few minutes not about flowers but about seeds.

A seed seems like a pretty ordinary thing: everyone knows that you just put it in the ground and water it and it becomes a flower or a plant. But this everyday fact is actually one of nature’s deepest mysteries. A seed, you see, doesn’t grow. What a seed does is something very different from just getting bigger and bigger.

Crystals grow. Stalagmites and stalactites in caverns grow. But crystals and stalagmites, for all their increasing in size over the years, will never be anything but bigger crystals and taller stalagmites.

Living things, on the other hand, undergo a different kind of change. It’s called “transformation.”

Even a three year-old child knows the difference between growth and transformation. No child will look at a flower and say, “Oh, look at the big seed!” Nor would anyone look at an oak tree and say, “Wow, look at the size of that acorn!” A daisy happens because a seed stopped being a seed. An oak tree happens only when some acorn, buried in the cold, moist earth, stops being an acorn and bursts open to become something new.

The purpose of a seed is to stop being a seed and be transformed into a flower. And transformation doesn’t just apply to flowers and trees, but to animals such as tadpoles and caterpillars. A caterpillar whose whole aim in life is to become the biggest and furriest caterpillar around will end up a very unhappy caterpillar. He’s missing the meaning of his existence. The purpose of a caterpillar, after all, is to stop being one and be transformed into a butterfly. Only then will its life make sense.

TRANSFORMATION IN CHRIST

Well, we humans certainly want our lives to make sense, to have a meaning. We make all sorts of unsuccessful attempts to give meaning to our lives – possessions, power, pleasure, being esteemed, and so on. But what does Jesus say about our search for meaning? He never calls us to be holier, never asks us to improve or to grow. What he repeatedly calls us to do is to be transformed, to die. His favorite metaphor for this is the grain of wheat: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies it remains just a grain of wheat.”

Okay, so we’re supposed to somehow be transformed – like tadpoles and caterpillars. But what are we supposed to be transformed into? What are we supposed to become? Saint Basil of Caesarea answers this question boldly” “A human being is a creature whose purpose is to become God.” We are supposed to be transformed into GOD! And this is where we get to the wedding part. We are supposed to become God; and God is love. We are supposed to become love. The gospel reading today speaks of the transformation of the bride and groom; it says, “ They are no longer two but one flesh.” The two of them become transformed into love.

In this sacrament we celebrate the mystery of God as Love. And through it this couple standing here before us today will become transformed into something new. Into Love itself. And this is our purpose in life, to become God, to become self-giving boundless love. But, as many of the married people here today can tell you, this takes some letting go. It’s a difficult challenge, this dying to oneself. Think of that caterpillar that wants to hold on to being a caterpillar and just get bigger and furrier. His life will never make sense. Despite what everything in our culture tells us, if we stay centered on ourselves, our lives too will be missing something.

So you, our bridal couple, are staking your lives this afternoon on Jesus’ promise: that if you die to your self-centered inner two-year old something brand new will come of it. Saint Paul somewhere puts it “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” As both of you know, this present age will be of little help to you with its insistence on competition, on “me first,” and “more is better.”

Your attraction has grown into love, and this afternoon you are asking the Lord to transform that love, to transform both of you into a single new being – “the two shall become one.” But our human brand of transformation, unlike that of tadpoles and acorns, is not a one-time thing; it is a constant, ongoing process. It’s neither instantaneous nor easy, so you have to be willing to help one another in this ongoing process. And you'll undoubtedly need to ask the help of family and friends from time to time. That's where the rest of us here today come in.

WE'VE GOT YOUR BACK

The rest of us have come here today to witness your exchange of vows, to celebrate with you, and to be edified and encouraged by your example of self-sacrificing love. But just as important, we are saying by our presence “we’ve got your back.” We promise to keep supporting you and praying for you, and in some cases be baby-sitters or furniture movers.

Long after all these lovely wedding flowers have faded, your ongoing transformation will still be taking place; every day, in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, until that day when all of us are all finally transformed into love, and are welcomed into the Kingdom of God that is promised to those who love.

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WHAT'S YOUR STORY?

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THE NEED FOR STORIES
One of the most basic of all human traits is the desire to make sense of things. We want to see our life as a story, to know that it has a plot and a meaning. In many cultures the story-teller holds a privileged and revered place in the community because a community, too, gets its identity from its stories, its story. Our Judeo-Christian tradition reflects this need for a story when it interprets all of human experience in terms of one single over-arching plot: the story of God’s passionate love for creation, and especially for humankind. Thus the history of the world, the history of the Israelite people, the history of the church and our own individual lives – even the worst and most painful events -- would somehow make sense to us if only we were able to see them in terms of the larger story of God’s loving plan.

REUNION STORIES
On the weekend of June 4-6, 2010, I will celebrate with forty or more classmates our fiftieth anniversary of graduation from Saint Benedict’s Prep. Even during the planning meetings for the reunion the inevitable story-telling has already begun. At the coming get-togethers of the class of 1960 incidents and people we haven’t thought of in half a century will undoubtedly come springing back to life with clarity and vividness – and lots of loud laughter. I’m looking forward to seeing some friends I haven’t seen in decades, but I’m looking forward just as much to listening to their stories.

DISCOVERING MY OWN STORY
Recently I’ve been finishing the manuscript of another book, this one a series of reflections on how certain insights from the New Testament helped me during five specific periods of struggle and suffering in my life Each individual reflection tells of how the Lord watched over me, guided me, kept me safe from harm, supported me and so forth during my own “troubled times.”
As I read through the nearly finished manuscript I began to discover patterns and connections I had never noticed before, and started to see new aspects of individual chapters as I reread them in the light of all the others before and after them. I’ve come to see them for the first time not as a collection of separate chapters but as elements of one single coherent story – my story.
Although my life’s story is by no means over, and is made up of far more than just periods of “troubled times,” this book has somehow come together to reveal a shape and a sense in my life. What a beautiful gift!

MARRIAGE AS STORY-WRITING
This weekend I’ll celebrate a nuptial mass during which my nephew Chris will marry Lisa, the love of his life. I’ve been reflecting on what it must be like for two people to commit themselves to writing a new story: while each keeping their own individual stories, Lisa and Chris are setting out to write a completely new story, “our story,” with its own plot, its own meaning that is somehow different from the sum of their two individual stories. I’ve never been married, so if you have some insights to add to this idea please write them in the “comments” box below.)

THE STORY OF GOD, THE GOD OF STORY
So all of these recent experiences have made me reflect on how central it is for us to be in touch with our story and to have an idea of what it means, of how it hangs together, and ultimately that it makes sense. I also realized God’s great wisdom in inspiring the bible to be written as a story: the story of God and of God’s love for all of us throughout history, right up through the class of 1960 and Chris and Lisa on their wedding day.

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