Resisting the Temptation to Make Failure in Love the Norm

19  Pentecost Cycle b proper 22 October 4, 2015

Job 1:1; 2:1-10    Psalm 26

Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12  Mark 10:2-16

Lectionary Link

 Why is it that the news usually consists of the presentation of bad news?  Yes, there is news about success, the heroic and victories in sports, but a greater percentage of the news is about bad things that went wrong or about human failure or about war or about deeds of  inhumanity.
    So why is bad news so popular?  Bad news is so popular because we regard good news to be what is most normal about life.  So when something departs from the normalcy of goodness, it stands out and calls attention to itself.
  This is both good and bad.  It is wonderful that goodness is so normal and taken for granted that we don't toot the horn of goodness.  However, when badness get so much press, we can begin to think that badness is really normal and so we can begin to live our lives as though Murphy's Law is the guiding principle.  "If something bad can happen, then it probably will.  If someone can do a bad and horrible thing, then they probably will."
  In very subtle ways we can elevate badness to normalcy and then begin to live our lives by over estimating the actuarial probabilities toward what is bad.  Crime and criminals can become such a fear factor that we end up building prison after prison because we fear the preponderance of the criminal and criminality.
   Humanity has always had anxiety about the bad things which can happen.  Faith and religious perspective have been part of the human experience to help us deal with the fact that bad things can happen.  To counter Murphy's Law, we would like to believe that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, but in observation this does not always seem to be the case.  In a period of theology for the people of Israel there was a certain school of religious thinkers who wanted Israel to have an ironclad system of protection from evil.  They wanted to have an ironclad system which would explain why bad things happened to them.  So they built a system of what they thought would be actuarial performance to guarantee providential outcomes or to explain why the bad things happened.  There was a formula: If you love God and are faithful, God will bless you with health, prosperity and good favor.  But if you disobey God, then bad and evil will befall you.  The prophets of Israel had to have answers about why God would let the chosen nation become divided and why God would let the foreign powers of Assyria, Babylon, Persia, the Generals of Alexander the Great, and Roman armies over run Israel and enslave them and take them into exile.  In their neat formula, God had allowed all of this because the people sinned and went after foreign gods.  This system is still used by many American preachers.  God is not blessing America because of her sins.  There seems to be some comfort for many people to presume to know the specific connection between group behaviors and group disasters as though there was a one to one correspondence between bad behaviors and bad things happening.
    In this system, on the personal level a person suffered badness because he or she had in some way disobeyed God.
  The book of Job was written to dispel this simplistic actuarial theory of goodness and badness.  Job was by all accounts a good and righteous man; but everything that could go wrong went wrong for him.  He lost health, house and home, possession and family, and his friends had to uphold the party line, "Job you must have done something really wrong for all of this to happen to you."  Evil and bad things can be so dominating that we can in our lives make them the primary motivation for all of our activity.  We can in a subtle way begin to make sin, evil and badness the main principle of life itself.  I can come to thing that bad things happen to me because I am bad.
  What are some of the symptoms of letting what is bad define our lives?  We become highly juridical or even legalistic.  If evil and badness predominant then we need to elevate laws of punishment or permission to deal with the evil.
  And this is precisely what had happened with the issue of divorce for some in the time of the writing of the Gospel of Mark.   God is love, that is what normal theology is.  Men and women are to be like God in learning to love and practice loving behaviors.  Love among people is what is expressive of what is good and normal.  It does happen that charity fails.  It does happen that people hate and do not manifest loving behaviors.  The failure of love is so profound that we fear that failure and because so much damage can be done when love fails we have to deal with the failure of love.  And so we make laws to deal with the aftermath of the failure of love.  Divorce laws derive from the fact that human love fails.
  The words of Jesus are not so much words which should be used to deny or prohibit divorce, the words of Jesus should be used to reaffirm that God is love, God created men and women for love and the failure of men and women to love, does not nullify the original loving principle of life.  In short, Jesus was saying human failure and divorce laws cannot replace the fact that God is love and that men and women are ceaselessly called to the vocation of love.
   The words of Jesus decried that the religious lawyers were so hung up on the failure to love that they had dethroned the normalcy of the love of God and the call of men and women to love one another.  And when we make divorce laws the norm; when we make the bad news the norm; when we make human failure the norm, we lose sight of the nature of God and the goal of human life.
   And when the failure of love becomes regarded to be the norm, it starts a chain reaction.  I am convinced that the discussion of divorce is juxtaposed with the bringing of a child into the discussion because when the failure of love and divorce is made more important than stating the principle of God's love, then children and the vulnerable get neglected.  When the negative is treated as though it is the norm, then people lose the ability to bless each other with their lives.
  So how can we correct this?  Jesus used the witness of a child to show us how to make the correction.  The youngest child, is a baby being born.  Jesus said that we had to be born again.  We had to become like a child in order to perceive the kingdom of God.
  The life of faith requires that we become versatile in how we access the resources of our personalities.   We cannot let the harsh things in life crush our human spirit to the point of elevating bad things to a place of normalcy.  At the same time, we need to have adult realism to deal with the fact that love does fail but we need to do this in a way in which we don't allow God's love and our calling to love be dethroned from a place of prominence in our lives.  Yes, it may be hard to maintain this naïve belief in love when the harshness of life is experienced in such pronounced ways.  And this is why we have to practice the kinds of spiritual methods to access our child aspect of personality to continue to live in the wonder of God's love and goodness and our own delight in the same.
   Some of the amazing experiences of life are to see is a child smile in pediatric ward of a hospital or a child playing or having fun in a refugee camp.  There is capacity in a child to uphold original wonder even under dire circumstances; and each of us still has that capacity in ourselves as well.  And we need to access this aspect within us in order to perceive the continuous and eternal nature of God's love and our continual calling to the normalcy of love and goodness.
  Divorce happens; but God is still love and we are still called to love.  The normalcy of love trumps the deprivation of love and the resulting divorce.  Bad things happen but God and creation are still good and we are still called to good things.
  Let the witness of Jesus and the witness of the child within us help us to keep the normalcy of God's love and our call to love ever before us today.  Amen.

Sunday School, October 4, 2015 19 Pentecost B proper 22

 Sunday School, October 4, 2015    19 Pentecost,  B proper 22

       Though Sunday takes precedence, October 4^th also the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

Sunday School Themes and a liturgy for the Blessing of Animals which include a vow to be good stewards of creation, maintaining the beauty and safety of our world and taking good care of the animals which are given into our care.

From the Genesis lesson one can see that in the Garden of Eden Story, God gave Adam the tasks of naming the animals.  We can see this as naming animals as a group of animals or giving each animal a special name.  What is the difference between a cow, and Sam the cow?  If the cow has an individual name of Sam that was given by a person who cared for that cow, the giving of a name means that one also takes upon oneself the task of taking care of an animal in a special way.

We should not just stereotype animals as a group because we rely upon them for our food; we should also see each creature as a special being for whom we care and give thanks.  Jesus said that there was not even a sparrow which falls to the ground without the Father knowing about it.  If God has made men and women to have the kind of intelligence to have the most responsible role in the world, then we then to be very good at taking care of our world and the animals of the world.  Let us remember to give each animal a special name as a sign of love and care.  And while we may use animal for our food let us be like God the Father and be aware with gratitude when the life of an animal is sacrificed to be food for our lives.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews said that God has made everything subject to men and women even more than to angels.  So we have a very important role in managing all of the goodness of creation.

The Gospel is about Jesus blessing children.  Children were very important to Jesus.  One might think that the children in the time of Jesus were not treated very well or that they were neglected.  The disciples of Jesus did not want children to bother Jesus, but he told them he wanted the children to be with him and he blessed them.  Jesus had given people an important talk on the lives of moms and dad and then he blessed children.  Jesus was saying that adults should not let their adult problem cause them to neglect children.

Remember the themes of this day: Animals and children.  Both need good and responsible people to take care of them.  This is why Jesus asks to be committed to take care of those who do not yet have the strength, the ability or the experience to take care of themselves.

And so we bless children and we bless animals as a reminder of the friendship that Francis of Assisi had with animals.  Learning to live in peaceful harmony with animals, creation, children and all people is the calling that we have from Jesus.

A sermon for the blessing of the animals

  

Today we celebrate the life of St. Francis.  St. Francis was a man who came from a wealthy family.  But he decided to leave the family business and try to live his life just like Jesus lived his life.

  He decided to live his life with people who were poor.  He decided to take care of people who were sick and poor.

  St. Francis became a friend of animals; the birds used to fly down and rest on his shoulders because they were not afraid of him.

  Today, we are going to honor the life of St. Francis by blessing the animals of our lives.  But we are also going to do something else.  We are going to make promises to God to take good care of our world.  We are going to promise to care for the air, water, plants and trees.  Why?  Because we want all people in the future to be able to enjoy them.  We are going to promise to take care of our pets and animals too. 

  The world of plants and animals provide so much to help us live.  So we need to be good at protecting our world so that our world will continue help people live for a long, long time.

  Today, we thank God for our wonderful world of animals, trees and plants. 

  And the way that we thank God, is to promise to take good care of the world that God has given to us.  And to take care of the pets that we enjoy as our friends.

 

St. John the Divine Episcopal Church

17740 Peak Avenue, Morgan Hill, CA 95037

Family Service with Holy Eucharist

& Blessing of the Animals

October 4, 2015 The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Gathering Songs:

Morning Has Broken,  If I Were a ButterflyMake Me a Channel of Your Peace, All Things Bright and Beautiful

Liturgist: Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

People: And blessed be God’s Kingdom now and forever.  Amen.

Liturgist:  Oh God, Our hearts are open to you.

And you know us and we can hide nothing from you.

Prepare our hearts and our minds to love you and worship you.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Song: Morning Has Broken (Blue Hymnal # 8)

Morning has broken like the first morning; blackbird has spoken like the first bird.  Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning!  Praise for them springing fresh from the word.

Sweet the rain’s new fall sunlit from heaven, like the first dewfall on the first grass.  Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden, sprung in completeness where his feet pass.

Mine is the sunlight!  Mine is the morning born of the one light Eden saw play!  Praise with elation, praise every morning, God’s re-creation of the new day!

Liturgist:         The Lord be with you.

People: And also with you.

Liturgist:  Let us pray

Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worthy to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Litany of Praise: Chant: Alleluia

O God, you are Great!  Alleluia

O God, you have made us! Alleluia

O God, you have made yourself known to us!  Alleluia

O God, you have provided us with us a Savior!  Alleluia

O God, you have given us a Christian family!  Alleluia

O God, you have forgiven our sins!  Alleluia

O God, you brought your Son Jesus back from the dead!  Alleluia

Liturgist:  A reading from the Book of Genesis

The LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner." So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

Liturgist: The Word of the Lord.

People: Thanks be to God

Liturgist: Let us read together from Psalm 8

You give men and women mastery over the works of your hands; *you put all things under his feet:

All sheep and oxen, * even the wild beasts of the field,

The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, * and whatsoever walks in the paths of the sea.

Litany Phrase: Thanks be to God! (chanted)

Litanist:

For our animal friends and pets, past and present. Thanks be to God!

For the good earth, for our food and clothing. Thanks be to God!

For our families and friends. Thanks be to God!

For the talents and gifts that you have given to us. Thanks be to God!

For this day of worship. Thanks be to God!

For health and for a good night’s sleep. Thanks be to God!

For work and for play. Thanks be to God!

For teaching and for learning. Thanks be to God!

For the happy events of our lives. Thanks be to God!

For the celebration of the birthdays and anniversaries of our friends and parish family.

   Thanks be to God!

Liturgist:         The Holy Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Mark

People: Glory to you, Lord Christ.

People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, "Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it." And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.

Liturgist:         The Gospel of the Lord.

People: Praise to you, Lord Christ.

Sermon – Fr. Cooke:

Collect for the Feast of St. Francis

Most high, omnipotent, good Lord, grant your people grace to renounce gladly the vanities of this world; that, following the way of blessed Francis, we may for love of you delight in your whole creation with perfect joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Vow to Creation

Celebrant:  Will you cherish the beauty of the Good Earth that God has entrusted to you, and will you do all in your power to preserve its beauty for own age and for the people of the future?

Response:  I will with God’s help.

Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Word of God that issued from God’s mouth and created all things and God’s Spirit moved over the deep and made creation happen; you have called creation good, and we celebrate the goodness of creation which you have given to us to enjoy and tend; Bless the Good Earth and its fruits, and us as we commit ourselves to stewardship, in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Vow to our Animal friends

Celebrant:  Will you promise to love, enjoy, and care for all God’s creatures, and especially for the pet whom you present for a blessing?

Response:  I will, with God’s help.

Blessing:

Lord Jesus Christ, your friends, have brought to you these special friends:  Bless we pray these delightful creatures, and grant that those who tend to their care will take delight in all of God’s creation, in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Song sung during the blessing of each Animal: If I were a Butterfly

1-If I were a butterfly, I’d thank you Lord for giving me wings.  And if I were a robin in a tree, I’d thank you Lord, that I could sing.  And if I were a fish in the sea, I’d wiggle my tail and I’d giggle with glee, but I just thank you Father for making me ‘me.’

Chorus:  For you gave ma a heart and you gave me a smile.  You gave Jesus and you made me your child.  And I just thank you, Father for making me, ‘me.’

2-If I were an elephant, I’d thank you, Lord, by raising my trunk.  And if I were a kangaroo, you know I’d hop right up to you.  And if I were an octopus, I’d thank you Lord, for my find looks, but I just thank you Father, for making me, ‘me.’  Chorus

3-If I were a wiggly worm, I’d thank you, Lord that I could squirm.  And If I were a Billy goat, I’d thank you, Lord for my strong throat.  And if I were a fuzzy-wuzzy bear, I’d thank you, Lord, for my fuzzy-wuzzy hair, but I just thank you, Father, for making me ‘me.’  Chorus

Youth Liturgist:          The Peace of the Lord be with you always.

People:                        And also with you.

Song during the preparation of the Altar and the receiving of an offering

Offertory Song: As the Deer Pants for the Water, (Renew # 9)

As the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after you; you alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship you.  Refrain: You alone are my strength, my shield, to you alone may my spirit yield; you alone are my heart’s desire, and I long to worship you!

I want you more than gold or silver, only you can satisfy; you alone are the real joy-giver and the apple of my eye.  Refrain.

Doxology

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise Him, all creatures here below.

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Prologue to the Eucharist

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, for to them belong the kingdom of God.”

All become members of a family by birth or adoption.

Baptism is a celebration of birth into the family of God.

A family meal gathers and sustains each human family.

The Holy Eucharist is the special meal that Jesus gave to his friends to keep us together as the family of Christ.

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts

We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to God.

It is right to give God thanks and praise.

It is very good and right to give thanks, because God made us, Jesus redeemed us and the Holy Spirit dwells in our hearts.

Therefore with Angels and Archangels and all of the world that we see and don’t see, we

   Forever sing this hymn of praise:

Holy, Holy, Holy (Intoned)

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of Power and Might.  Heav’n and earth are full of your glory.  Hosanna in the highest.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the Highest.

Our grateful praise we offer to you God, our Creator;

You have made us in your image

And you gave us many men and women of faith to help us to live by faith:

Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob and Rachael.

And then you gave us your Son, Jesus, born of Mary, nurtured by Joseph

And he called us to be sons and daughters of God.

Your Son called us to live better lives and he gave us this Holy Meal so that when we eat

  the bread and drink the wine, we can  know that the Presence of Christ is as near to us as  

  this food and drink  that becomes a part of us.

The Prayer continues with these words

And so, Father, we bring you these gifts of bread and wine. Bless and sanctify them by your Holy Spirit to be for your people the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Bless and sanctify us by your Holy Spirit so that we may love God and our neighbor.

On the night when Jesus was betrayed he took bread, said the blessing, broke the bread, and gave it to his friends, and said, "Take, eat: This is my Body, which is given for you. Do this for the remembrance of me."

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, gave thanks, and said, "Drink this, all of you. This is my Blood of the new Covenant, which is shed for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me."

Father, we now celebrate the memorial of your Son. When we eat this holy Meal of Bread and Wine, we are telling the entire world about the life, death, resurrection of Christ and that his  presence will be with us in our future.

Let this holy meal keep us together as friends who share a special relationship because of your Son Jesus Christ.  May we forever live with praise to God to whom we belong as sons and daughters.

By Christ, and with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory

 is yours, Almighty Father, now and for ever. AMEN.

And now as our Savior Christ has taught us, we now sing, (Children may rejoin their parents and take up their instruments)

Our Father (Sung): (Renew # 180, West Indian Lord’s Prayer)

Our Father who art in heaven:  Hallowed be thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done: Hallowed be thy name.

Done on earth as it is in heaven: Hallowed be thy name.

Give us this day our daily bread: Hallowed be thy name.

And forgive us all our debts: Hallowed be thy name.

As we forgive our debtors: Hallowed be thy name.

Lead us not into temptation: Hallowed be thy name.

But deliver us from evil: Hallowed by thy name.

Thine is the kingdom, power, and glory: Hallowed be thy name.

Forever and ever: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Amen, amen, amen, amen: Hallowed be thy name.

Breaking of the Bread

Celebrant:        Alleluia! Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

People:            Therefore let us keep the feast.  Alleluia!

Word of Administration.

Communion Hymn: Prayer of St. Francis

Make me a channel of your peace.  Where there is hatred, let me bring your love.  Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord, And where there’s doubt, true faith in you.  Refrain

Refrain:  Oh, Master, grant I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love with all my soul.

Make me a channel of your peace.  Where there’s despair in life, let me bring hope.  Where there is darkness only light, and where there’s sadness ever joy.  Refrain

Make me a channel of your peace.  It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, in giving to all men that we receive and in dying that we’re born to eternal life.  Refrain.

Post-Communion Prayer

Everlasting God, we have gathered for the meal that Jesus asked us to keep;

We have remembered his words of blessing on the bread and the wine.

And His Presence has been known to us.

We have remembered that we are sons and daughters of God and brothers

    and sisters in Christ.

Send us forth now into our everyday lives remembering that the blessing in the

     bread and wine spreads into each time, place and person in our lives,

As we are ever blessed by you, O Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Closing Song: All Things Bright & Beautiful (Christian Children’s Songbook, # 12)

Refrain:  All things bright & beautiful, all creatures great & small, all things wise & wonderful, the Lord God made them all.

Each little flower that opens, each little bird that sings, he made their glowing colors, he made their tiny wings.  Refrain

The purple-headed mountain, the river running by, the sunset, and the morning that brightens up the sky.  Refrain

He gave us eyes to see them, and lips that we might tell how great is God Almighty, who has made all things well.  Refrain

Dismissal:   

Liturgist: Let us go forth in the Name of Christ.

People: Thanks be to God! 

Which is the Greater Principle, Love or Failure at Love?

19  Pentecost Cycle b proper 22 October 7, 2012

Job 1:1; 2:1-10    Psalm 26

Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12  Mark 10:2-16

Lectionary Link

  One of William Shakespeare’s most popular plays in his time was the tragic love story Romeo and Juliet?  Isn’t it significant that there is something very gripping about star-crossed lovers who are  not given permission by their society to fulfill what love requires, namely, to be  with one’s beloved.

  What is perhaps our favorite definition of God?  We say that God is love.  And so there must be something divine about love.  We might even view creation as the total sense of togetherness that we experience in life.  Love is general in that we unavoidably belong with everything else, but love is very particular in that it is intensely experienced as  personalized magnetic forces which are scattered within the world and it happens that people are drawn to particular other people.

  The story of Adam and Eve is not a historic event; it is the theological explanation about why people are attracted to each other.  Why did Eve exist?  God saw that Adam was lonely and so there had to be someone enough like Adam but not Adam to deal with his lonely heart.  There had to be another person for Adam.

  The story of Adam and Eve is a primordial love story of humanity in that each person confronts one’s own loneliness and deeply yearns for companionship and even desires a soul mate.  But what has happened in human society? The great quest for love and one’s soul mate gets reduced to what the society needs for division of labor and for the politics of relationship between families.  The notion of finding one’s soul mate gets reduced to mere human breeding for procreation for farm hands and for survival of the species.  And when love is taken out of human relationship and it is reduced to fulfilling the role requirements of humanity then the value and importance of love is lost.

  And what happens?  It’s time to bring in the lawyers.  Marriage and love is reduced to the fact that love is absent and marriage has failed.  And so the great love story of Adam and Eve is reduced to the priority of something like the legal document called a prenuptial.  A prenuptial is going into a relationship with one’s fingers crossed; it is a lack of faith.  It is a belief in disillusionment before it even happens.  It is the elevation of Murphy’s Law to the high principle of life.  If my relationship can fail, it probably will and so I have to take steps for that eventuality.

  This is what Jesus confronted in his encounter with the religious lawyers of his time.  Jesus confronted the fact that marriage relationship had been reduced to the loss of utility of a person in a marital role.  Some rabbis thought that a woman could be divorced for something as trivial as not being able to make good soup.  This emphasis was a great sin against the great love story of Adam and Eve and the loneliness of heart that gets resolved when two people in love find each other.

  What if you were on an airplane and every five minutes the flight attendants came onto the public address speakers giving you advice of what to do in the eventuality of a forced landing.  You would get nervous and angry.  You would rather that they shut up and let the thought of safe arrival to your destination be the dominant goal of the entire flight.

  Jesus came to a group of religious lawyers who talking more about the inevitability of divorce rather than the divine superiority of love.  And Jesus simply stated the principle of the great primordial love story of Adam and Eve.  Remember it was not good for Adam to be lonely.  Remember that finding the love of your life is to a large extent what human life is all about.  And then Jesus did what he often did; he brought in the kids to get adults to unlearn all of their skewed priorities.  See these kids; they understand God’s way, God’s rules, God’s kingdom, God’s order.  They understand need for others, dependence and they understand love.  They know it when they receive it and feel it.  So become like these children if you want to regain your native new-born in the Spirit Selves.

  Part of the problems for adults and the question of love is that we can get bogged down by all of the politics and the details of the social context.   Jesus found the religious leaders arguing about what to do about human failure in a way that elevated human failure to the same level as success in loving relationship.  As adult we can get so jaded by failure or we can get so angry that people don’t agree with our view, we can easily lose perspective.  There are many interpreters who would elevate meaning of this Gospel lesson to be solely about how heterosexual marriage should be practiced in society today.  I would argue that this would miss the entire point that Jesus was making since if we look at the diverse cultural details of how covenant relationships have been practiced in the last 6000 years of humanity, we could not elevate any details of any particular setting to be the final definition of marital practice.

  The Gospel of the words of Jesus for me is this:  God is Love.  Humans are lonely for God.  But God is too unlike humans to be adequate to human loneliness.  Humans need other humans to cure another aspect of their loneliness.  But acknowledging general loneliness and general need for love is not enough, there has to be Adam and Eve, namely, there has to be particular love experienced between two people in a special way that enables human loneliness to find the therapeutic cure for loneliness.  The Gospel is also this:  find your child-likeness again to be able to recognize the experience and priority of love.

  The warning of our Gospel is the same warning of Romeo and Juliet:  Human societies can actually make love a tragic event.  Why is it that human societies often build up barriers to people who have found their soul mate to being able to be honest to love and honest to God?

  Let us not forget today that the Gospel of Jesus is in fact the truth of the great love story.  God is love.  The primordial couple found committed love to each other as the cure to loneliness.  Today, let us pray that we can know God as love.  Let us know that we are called to Love.  But let us be thankful when we have found specific love with someone.  And let us be happy and hopeful for all to be able to find and express specific love with someone else.  Let us not be tricked into making divorce, failure at relationship the dominant topic of life;  let us hold onto the fact that God is love and God calls us to love and indeed we can have wonderful love with another person.  Amen.