Session 14 Introduction to the Episcopal Church

Introduction to the Episcopal Church

Session 14 

Understanding the Book of Common Prayer (BCP)

Part 9: The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony or Marriage in the Book of Common Prayer

Review: In our sessions on the BCP, we have been looking at how the sacraments express our response to the human experience of “rite of passage” or eventful time.  In our sessions on the seven sacraments, we now reflect upon Holy Matrimony.  Of the seven sacraments two are dominical or “commanded by our Lord,” namely Baptism and Eucharist.  The five other are five pastoral sacraments that were implicit in the practice of Jesus and the New Testament churches.  One must admit that all of the sacraments have gone through many different changes in how they have been regarded in the history of their practice within the church.  One can note that for much of history in some churches marriage has not been permitted for those who felt called to the ordained ministry.  Marriage has had varying manifestations in the various locations throughout the world and the church has adapted to customs but also influenced the practice of civil marriage.

Probably a major crisis in life is loneliness or aloneness.  About the primordial person Adam, the writer of Genesis believed that God understood aloneness and so God in the creation account said, “It is not good for Adam to be alone.”  Was this said by a God who doubted the adequacy of God’s own companionship with Adam?  This primordial insight expressed the truth that no one can feel complete while alone.  One can advance in a high degree of self-reliance but not even that can be done alone.  This insight shows us that God is most evident and speaks mainly through other people; it is within human community that we learn language.  We learn that we are not alone; we learn that we belong together in a general way, but we also learn that the mutual magnets of particular love bring people together to share with one another in the fullness of ways that people can share.  Fellowship, companionship, mutual joy and ecstasy, joint stewardship in tasks, procreation and the fostering of the next generation are all a part of the basic intuition regarding how human beings are supposed to be together. 

The Episcopal Church regards marriage to be a sacrament, a mystery, in that we believe that in the companionship of marriage persons encounter the mystery of God’s presence.  An ordained clergy does not preside at a marriage to make love happen but to acknowledge that it has and the blessing stands in the moment of offering to God with thanksgiving the vows of the couple.

Marriage involves four vows.  Spouses to each other, the vows of the community to support the couple and in the blessing, we the church, understand God to be making a vow to be present in the wonder of love.

Spouses need to keep renewing their vows in their daily practice.  Spouses need the support of their communities (including the society at large to encourage commitment in the married life).  Spouses need to continue to go to find God in the mystery of their love.  The marriage rite expresses the vows that are lived into for the rest of married life together.

Among traditional churches, The Episcopal Church believes and practices that God’s Holy Spirit can inspire new understanding and new practice and new wisdom.  We also believe that God inspires rules, practices and theology from the event of care.  We, in the Episcopal Church are flattered when people wish to gather with us to pray and we endeavor to love and care for the people to desire to be with us.  With regard to Episcopal Christians who have found themselves in lifelong committed relationships with people of the same-sex it has seemed reasonable, just and loving to acknowledge the blessing and grace present in these loving relationships and provide a community of support for these brothers and sisters in Christ.  Recently, the General Convention of the Episcopal Church has approved liturgies for us to acknowledge, celebrate, bless and support the persons who have known such commitments of love.  Like everything in the church the implementation of new liturgies sometimes have an uneven reception in how people understand and respond to the changes.   It is important to inform ourselves about how such liturgies can be done with integrity and continuity within our faith community that has always relied upon Scripture, tradition and reason to appraise what we do in our faith and community practice.  It should be known that just as in our country we do not yet fully practice the great ideal of The Declaration of Independence that states that all people are created equal, so too Christian Churches have not yet completed the full practice of the meaning of love as it known in justice.  This is not said as a condemnation, it is noted as an invitation for us always to be seeking God grace to surpass ourselves in love and justice.  We have to use our imaginations to ask in faith, “What would Jesus do and how would he respond?”  I do not think that Jesus would tell parables today using slaves as subject matter because of how terrible the very notion of slavery has come to be known.  We embrace our current understanding of science, psychology and sociology and we ask  what would Jesus do today.  We may come up with some different perspectives but in the Episcopal Church we have come to believe that the life-long commitment of love among our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters should have a liturgy of blessing/a marriage and loving support, as a true acknowledgment of their love.

Exercise:

Ponder your own history with loneliness and the important event of being in love to want to spend a life with a companion and friend and to bear witness that God is love.  Ponder the meaning of your marriage within a community.  How important is it to you that your community recognizes your marriage?  Do you have the habit of setting up a support team for your married life?  Did you know that in America when clergy officiate at a wedding they most often do so for both the State and the Church?  Did you know that some countries separate the civil ceremony and the Church Blessing ceremony? 

Father Phil