For previous pastors' columns, click here.

WILEYAN WISDOM —  August 2008

Jan and I are only three months away from celebrating our 25^th wedding anniversary.

We had a great wedding. Our wedding grew from a small intimate gathering of 200 to over 500 guests. We had no idea that when we extended an open invitation to several churches that everyone would really show up. We walked ourselves down the aisle. By the time we reached the front, everyone was shouting and clapping, and cheering. And then Jan turns around and curtsies. I knew then, I was in for a wild ride.

But the service was a holy moment. It was a celebration of God who brought us together, and who I think made us for each other. We were there telling the story of our love, bearing witness to our love, and promising to do all the things necessary to stay in love with each other. Everyone there felt God's presence in a real and tangible way.

And, of course, we had no idea what our promise covered. We had no idea all the moves, aches and pains, surgeons and wonders such a promise would cover. This is the miracle of love itself. We gained the capacity to make impossible promises, and with just more than a little grace, we have had love to cover impossibilities we never anticipated.

Since that time I have tried to turn every wedding into an occasion of love. I haven't always succeeded. Sometimes it's been just a wedding, nice, lovely, full of love, but not quite the God-filled moment I had hoped for. There are too many intangibles. Too much family history. Sometimes it's just a wedding. But in every wedding there is the possibility that it will turn into a holy moment where love is made visible.

The Catholic Church sees the possibility realized in every marriage and declares that marriage is a sacrament; that in the occasion of a wedding, God's loving nature is revealed. Protestants see the potentiality of a wedding being a moment of divine love, but also see the practical and mundane. Sometimes it's just a wedding. So Protestants don't consider marriage a sacrament. But it holds the possibility of becoming a moment of divine love.

Meanwhile, society has moved on. Church wedding means a wedding in a church location, not a divine moment. There are quickie weddings, shotgun weddings, marriages of convenience, weddings of necessity. There are parents who hold off getting married because they don't want the baggage of marriage. There are weddings performed every day in Vegas that are close up drive- ins, or where the minister is dressed as Elvis. (Songs cost extra!) We have weddings performed by judges, clerks, Internet-ordained clergy, and deputized officials. Sometimes the only thing faster than a wedding is a quickie divorce.

So now it seems to me we have weddings that are sacraments, weddings that are rituals and weddings that are ceremonies. The California Supreme Court has ruled that same sex persons can be married in legal ceremonies. The Supreme Court does not have jurisdiction over church rituals or sacramental weddings.

The official Methodist position is that church weddings are between men and women. I can certainly make a biblical and theological position for such a position. In fact, the church rules state that clergy cannot perform same-sex marriages at all—even if not in a church. Pastors who do so will be brought up on charges, and could have their ordination revoked. (On the other hand, the church rules never really define what part of the wedding ceremony constitutes “performance” so there is lots of room for legal haggling and “gaming” the system.)

But one of the lessons I learned early in my ministry is that what may be theological questionable still may be pastorally right. For example, there can be considerable theological debate about abortion, but when a parishioner is having an abortion and wants a prayer from her pastor; it's not the time to argue theology.

I have friends and colleagues who now find themselves in interesting pastoral situations. There are members in their congregation who have been members for decades. They are good Methodists. They are trustees, on leadership team, and lay members to annual conferences. They are gay. They have been in committed relationships for years. In fact they have stayed together while many heterosexual couples have been married and divorced several times. And now they have a chance to get married. They want their pastor. What is the pastorally correct thing to do?

And what if the pastorally right thing is deemed illegal by the church that made you a pastor? Some of my friends are arguing that their calling to be a pastor supersedes the church's recognition of that calling, that the pastoral right thing is a higher spiritual good. Other pastor friends are making the case that pastoral authority is not sufficient grounds for overturning scripture or tradition.

Personally, I am something of a traditionalist. I would love for marriage to remain as a ritual between a man and a woman. But I would want the church to creatively develop a new ritual for honoring and celebrating same-sex unions. Unfortunately, society does not allow this option—even if the church would design such a ritual. There are just too many legal arrangements that come to play globally that are connected up with marriage. Without marriage, same-sex persons end up in terrible personal situations.

Almost every pastor I know has had a situation similar to this: a gay couple that has been committed to each other for 29 years. They held onto each other even though their families rejected them. The families rejected them because they were gay, and doubly rejected them because they were gay and living together. One partner suddenly developed cancer. It was aggressive, fast-growing, silent. There were no symptoms until it was already way too late for anything but hospice.

So as one partner was dying, the healthy partner discovered he had no rights. The alienated family got to make all the health care decisions; all the “pulling the plug” decisions, all the burial and funeral decisions. (And yes, they were as vindictive as you feared!) The live-in partner of 20-plus years—the one who functioned as spouse— was tossed out and rejected, given no voice or vote or presence. Having gay marriage would eliminate this kind of oppression.

But I think the church needs to temporarily allow same-sex marriage for an entirely different reason. The reason I think we should try gay marriage goes back to the idea of marriage as a holy moment of divine love.

If we do not allow same-sex marriage, then we have no way of knowing whether God's divine presence blesses such a marriage. We can argue that it might. We can argue that it won't, but we won't know for certain unless we intentionally and professionally begin same-sex marriages. It is the church's job to turn a ceremony into a ritual. It is God's job to turn a ritual into a divine and holy moment of love.

Personally, I think it would look bad if I denied a same-sex couple that ritual when God was planning to show up at the wedding. The church has a long history of making rules for what God can and cannot do, only to discover God either ignored the rules, made new rules, or overturned our rules.

I think to be faithful to God means being open to the Spirit of God turning ordinary events into miracles, and changing ceremonies into holy moments. Of course, if God does show up at same-sex marriages, then not only will that resolve the issue, but it will give us even more hard work to do. We will again be in the awkward position of having to redefine what we thought scriptures were saying in light of what God is actually doing.

Pastor Mark