by Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell

A sermon given April 20, 2008

First Unitarian Church

Portland, Oregon

CALL TO WORSHIP

Good morning!

We come together today to give thanks,

To acknowledge the presence of love in the universe

            And in our hearts,

And to be truly present with one another

In this community of faith.

Come now, and let us worship together.

I was ordained as a minister in 1986, and since that time, I have performed many, many wedding ceremonies.  I have done large elaborate weddings in churches with multiple attendants and very nervous and pushy mothers-of-brides.  I have done weddings for couples who had no money at all; weddings at which the bride got her gown from Goodwill and their friends gave them a potluck for their reception.  I have done weddings at wineries when the guests started drinking two hours before the ceremony.  I have done quiet weddings in homes, noisy weddings in hotels, and I did one wedding in the midst of the biggest ice storm ever to hit Portland.  I have had children participate, I have honored the dead in wedding ceremonies, and I once even had a request to include a dog, which I declined, citing our policy that no animals were allowed in the Salmon Street Sanctuary—a policy which I confess I created on the spot at the time. 

Most of these marriages “took,” and a few didn’t.  But we know that in our society at large, marriage is in trouble, for around 50% of them will one day end in divorce.  People in fact divorce and remarry three, four, and five times.  I am not making a judgment—this is just a fact of contemporary life.  People are increasingly living together, and even having children together, outside the bonds of marriage.  Sociologists—culture watchers— have been asking for some time now, “Is marriage obsolete?” 

Has it always been problematic, this promise that two people make to love only this one other, “until death do us part”?  Is it a natural thing to do, to make such a promise?  Perhaps we should look first at the animal kingdom and see what might be instructive there.

Let me tell you about the green-crested parrot.  Scientists were amazed at the loyalty of the male green-crested parrot.  He was so fiercely committed to his partner and his young that he would fly over vast distances, capture food, masticate it, and place the prepared food in the mouths of the hungry chicks.  They were so struck by his behavior that they decided to rent a helicopter and follow the parrot wherever he went, to see just how far he would rove to get food for his little family.  They were astounded to find that this bird flew over an area of 40 miles to gather food.  They were equally surprised to discover that he had four additional nesting females that he was serving in that 40-mile area.  Wouldn’t you know it?

In fact, in almost all species, faithfulness is a fantasy.  Even the “oldest profession,” that which figured so prominently in Eliot Spitzer’s fall, is practiced by some animals.  For example, researchers report in the journal Animal Behavior that great grey shrikes, elegant raptor-like birds with silver capes, form pair bonds to breed, as do 90% of bird species.  A male shrike provides his mate with nuptial gifts, so to speak: rodents, lizards, small birds, and insects, which he impales on sticks.  But when he desires a would-be mistress shrike, he offers her an even bigger kebab than the ones he gives to his mate—and the richer the offering, the researchers found, the greater the chance that the female will agree to a fling.[1] 

Well, we can be comforted by knowing that there are dimensions of human experience that are missing in the animal world—at least when it comes to sex and mating.  One would be emotional bonding and the other would be a spiritual dimension. 

First, let us speak of emotional bonding.  Why is it that a female astronaut would drive all the way across the country, non-stop, to confront her rival in love?   Why is it that sometimes people actually kill a spouse who has been unfaithful, or kill the rival?  (Think of the Diet Doctor.)  I think it works like this: the love bond, with its physical intimacy, recapitulates the earliest bonding experience a child has—that is, with its mother.  Our flesh holds that early memory of being safe in the arms of another: rocked and held and loved.  And, because during this primary experience the child is literally dependent on the mother for survival, those same psychological mechanisms kick in when we bond in love as an adult.  When our spouse strays, we may feel that our very life is in danger. 

When the Spitzer affair broke, one New York Times reporter who looked into this phenomenon wrote, “Married people all over the world are devastated to discover that their partners have been, as the Dutch say, ‘pinching the cat in the dark.’”  French wives were shocked when this reporter suggested that it was their custom to overlook infidelity. 

In America, standards for marriage are particularly high, and so when Americans describe their response to infidelity, they do not just say they were shocked or jealous, but that their whole view of the world has collapsed.  “It robs you of your past,” one husband said.  “What is real?  What is fake?”[2]

So back to our original question—is marriage obsolete?   Is committed relationship obsolete?  I think we have to conclude that it most assuredly is not.  People have joined together in intimate relationship, making the most profound of promises, for thousands of years, in virtually all cultures.  When those promises are broken, the results are devastating.  Divorce is devastating.  Some people think divorce is done easily, casually, in this country.  In my experience, it never is.

Yes, marriage is in crisis, because the old foundations have cracked and will not hold—traditional forms of marriage are pretty much dead.  Now, we have to create new foundations for human relationship.  The crisis of marriage is a crisis of relationship.  So, I do not believe that marriage is obsolete—it’s traditional marriage that is obsolete.  The question for us today is, I think, how do we choose well in contemporary marriage and how do we keep that marriage intact? 

Sam Hamburg, author of the book Will Our Love Last? recounts this story:

“A young woman—call her Jane—sits on the couch in my consulting room.  She is wearing a tailored wool suit and has the crisp, put-together look of the successful career woman that she is.  Jane is distraught and tearful.  Her long, straight hair sweeps across her fact, as she cries.  Between her sobs, this is what she says:

‘I don’t know if I love Bob anymore.  But why shouldn’t I?  He’s the perfect person.  He’s handsome, thoughtful, polite, hardworking, successful.  He’s from a great family.  I know I loved him in the beginning …I think.  But now, after being married five years, it’s different.  And then this guy in the office, Jim.  I know he’s interested in me.  And I’m so attracted to him, he’s getting harder and harder to resist.  He’s not nearly as good-looking as Bob, yet when I’m around him—when I think of him—I get this sexual rush.  And when we talk, I feel so in tune with him.  I think I love him—but I shouldn’t.’”

A half century ago, these questions would never have been asked.  Once married, you stayed married.  This is the first time in history that the form and purpose of marriage has been so thoroughly questioned; there are no clear guidelines, no compelling social structures, and no religious mandates to make marriages hold—there is only the intrinsic quality of the relationship itself.  We are asking new questions. 

What does it mean to be “manly”?  What does it mean to be “whole,” for a woman?  What kind of love counts—just between a man and a woman, or between any two persons who love?  What rights do children have, and how are children best nurtured?  The family is being democratized, and the hierarchical model is dead.  What will arise in its place?

I think this might be a good time to address the question of same-sex marriage.  There are people who say that gay marriage threatens the institution of marriage itself.  I have not ever really understood that.  I cannot understand how love can threaten love.  It was such a privilege for Associate Minister Tom Disrud and me to marry so many same-sex couples from this church when we had that window of opportunity.  Many tears were shed when couples who had been together for ten, fifteen, even twenty years rushed down from the courthouse with their licenses and walked the aisle hand in hand, in their windbreakers and tennis shoes, with a makeshift altar of candles and flowers pulled hurriedly from various nooks and crannies of the church.  I cannot imagine how anyone could think that these couples were anything but deeply loving, deeply devoted.

But back to the question— gay or straight, how do you know if you’ve chosen the right person?  Think about our confused wife, Jane.  She is not sure what love is.  From her description, she sounds as though she married the “right man”—but did she ever love him?  It is doubtful.  And now, she’s got a crush on this fellow Jim at the office.  She is sexually turned on—but she doesn’t really know Jim, so I can not believe this is love, either.  People get married for all kinds of reasons: because it is time, maybe past time;   because a woman wants to have a child; because of economic necessity; because of intense sexual attraction.  How can you make a sound choice? 

Sam Hamburg, the author I mentioned earlier, pooh-pooh’s the answers given by most self-help books— books that talk about the key importance of communication, commitment, and hard work.  Marriages are generally not in trouble because the partners lack communication skills, he says—it’s the other way around: marriage problems cause bad communication.  As for commitment, he says that how much you want to stay in a marriage depends on how happy the marriage is; you can be highly committed to a marriage for reasons that have nothing to do with happiness.  Then, there’s the “hard work” angle: “Marriage is hard work,” people say.  Actually, marriages are not hard work, and happily married people will tell you that, says Hamburg.  Paying attention to your marriage is important, yes, but hard work?  No.  Hard work is not something that makes people happy.  Why would you marry someone in the first place, if the relationship were “hard work”? 

So what does Hamburg advise, then?  He says the key is compatibility.  He says that many couples end up in unhappy marriages because they fail to understand each other.  They understand what their partners are saying, but they do not understand how their partners could say something like that—or how their partners could possibly think and feel as they do.  They are too different to understand each other in an empathic way; mere words cannot bridge that gulf in understanding.

I tend to agree with Hamburg, but I want to go beyond his analysis in saying what makes a marriage truly happy— what deepens it and makes it last.  It is interesting to me that in one multinational study, participants revealed one element, above all else, makes for a happy and enduring marriage.  It is so simple—loving your spouse.  It is fine to say that the two of you should be compatible, but that is assuming that you are in love.  OK, then, what is “love”, you say?  It’s hard to put into words—it’s one of those things that you know it when you feel it—but I would say that when you love, you take great delight in the other person; that the other person seems special, that you want to be with the other person.  In other words, this other person makes you light up on a number of different levels, and you become more fully who you really are in the presence of this other.  You laugh a lot with this person, you admire and respect this person, and you want to contribute to this person’s happiness, however you can.

But why get married?  Why not just hang out together, or co-habitat?  We know that more and more people are choosing that option.  The census in 2000 showed a 72% increase in the number of households headed by unmarried couples, though this included same-sex partners, who may or may not have chosen marriage had they had the option. 

Aside and apart from legal reasons and protection for children, the case for marriage is first, and foremost, spiritual in nature.  Marriage profoundly changes a couple in ways that generally do not happen outside the commitment of marriage.  This is what the scripture means when it says, “the two become one flesh.”  This is different from a love affair; it is on a whole other plane of experience.  All love affairs end at some point, if that is all they are; marriage, on the other hand, is the recognition of a spiritual identity.  There is a certain sacrifice of ego involved in the service of spiritual union.

There are constraints in marriage.  I will love you and you alone, you promise.  The Wendell Berry poem that Kate read begins “What I am learning to give you is my death/ to set you free of me and me from myself…”  What can this mean?  I think the poet is saying that marriage takes us out of ourselves; dying to ourselves into a realm greater than ourselves. 

John Welwood, a psychotherapist and writer, sees marriage as a “mandala”— which literally means “orderly world”— a sacred context, in which a couple intentionally set boundaries that hold them and keep them safe.  Welwood speaks of marriage as a container of trust, within which the two parties can risk being fully who they are.  The promise is, “I will not go away.”

It is only within this sacred place of trust and intimacy that we can enter the wilderness where our demons lie—as well as our angels.  What are the moments in a relationship that we relish the most?  Are they not when we feel most fully awake and alive?  Are they not when we no longer have to prove anything to anyone, and we are cherished just for being ourselves?

Every human being develops fears— habits of the heart that keep us closed off from our true capacity to feel, to love.  We become defensive, because the organism learns to protect itself from pain, but the natural state of the heart—the basic nature of the heart—is unconditioned presence, unconditioned curiosity about the world, unconditioned compassion.  Intimacy in marriage is not about bliss, and not about security, but ultimately about becoming.  Love challenges us to continue stretching and stretching ourselves, even when we think it is just too hard.  Love takes us places we never even thought to go, and we have the confidence that we can step blindly into this future.

In marriage, we enter into a Mystery we hardly understand but which we trust.  We move, sometimes in ecstasy and always in grace.  We understand our absolute poverty and need, and therefore our surrender is unconditional.  In a true marriage, then, we discover the love that has been in our hearts all along: the Eternal Love, the Source. 

We hear the ancient words:  “Set me as a seal on your heart…The flash of it is a flash of fire, the very flame of God.  (This is) Love no flood can quench, no torrents drown.”  So be it.  Amen.

PRAYER

Holy One, may each of us here today—partnered or unpartnered— know that we live and move and have our being in your love.  Keep fear from our door that we might not turn away from love, but may walk about with generous hearts and ready spirits.  When love seems far away, may we know its abundance.  May we wake, and see.  Amen.

BENEDICTION

May the love that exists in every one of you blossom this spring and bless all those who come into your presence.  Go in love and go in peace.

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Copryight 2008, Rev. Dr. Marilyn Sewell.  All rights reserved.