I suppose there’s something appropriate about coming out at
a More Light event, so, by way of full disclosure, although I am a pastor in
National Capital Presbytery, which includes the marriage equality District of
Columbia, I serve a congregation in Arlington, Virginia, and, last time I
checked Virginia was a lot further from marriage equality than we are from the
District.
So I wondered why Michael invited me to be on this panel. At
first I thought perhaps he was hoping that I would take a bit of pressure off
my neighbor in Arlington and our new vice moderator, Tara Spuhler-McCabe, by
outing the rather long list of friends and colleagues in National Capital who
have officiated at same-sex weddings.
Sorry to disappoint, but I honestly have no idea. I do know
that pastors who serve Virginia or Maryland congregations can, with only a
modicum of DC bureaucratic hoop jumping, get licensed to officiate at weddings
in DC.
But that’s really not at all what I want to talk with you
about, because almost six years ago, Clarendon adopted a policy that precludes
its pastor from signing marriage licenses for any couple. We did this because
the church is not in the wedding business; we’re in the Jesus business.
So these days when I talk with couples – straight couples or
same-gender couples – about celebrating their covenant promises to one another,
we spend a lot of time talking about Jesus – about what it means to follow
Jesus in the context of a marriage, about how love of partner is related to and
informed by love of God, about how God’s covenantal promises to us may shape
and inform the promises we make to one another, and about how the role of the
church with respect to that is to invoke God’s blessing on sacred vows and the
relationships we promise to have and to hold.
Soon after we made that decision, a young woman came to
worship with us one Sunday morning. In speaking with her after worship, she
shared that she had come to Clarendon to “check us out” on behalf of friends, a
lesbian couple who were afraid to come and worship because they were not sure
that “all are welcome” really meant “all.”
The friend read a flyer at church describing our policy on
marriage, talked with me and with some members of the congregation and
understood clearly that her friends would be welcomed with joy. Our policy is
part of our witness to God’s radically inclusive love.
A little more than a year after that, I was blessed to bless
the union of two lovely young women, Lisa and Heather, and sometime soon I’ll
get to baptize their beautiful daughter, Ava.
I’ll never forget their wedding day – a perfect spring day
at a gorgeous Virginia winery! After the service, I was approached by Lisa’s
brother – who, I’d been forewarned, was not really comfortable with his
sister’s sexuality, and had a lot of questions and concerns about this whole
same-sex union thing. I was a bit wary when he told me that on the ride up from
SW Virginia his daughter had asked, “daddy, will this service be on the news?”
I chuckled and said, “thank God, no” thinking, “what a
hassle that would be” and wondering just what he was getting at in telling me
this.
He cut me off saying, “you know, it should have been. That
way everyone could see how perfectly normal and ordinary this is.” It was a
profound and holy moment because what he was really saying was, “that is my
sister, and I love her, and I want her to be happy.”
As I think about pastoral concerns and the question of
marriage equality, I have to admit that one of my chief pastoral concerns is
for my colleagues. I want all of them to be able to experience such ordinary joy
and such holy moments of transformation, and I don’t want any of us to have to
worry about our ordinations simply because part of the Jesus business calls us
to walk with couples – straight and same-gender – into the wondrous, blessed
journey of covenantal promise and married life.
Thank you.
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