COMMUNITY CHURCH OF THE MONTEREY PENINSULA
P. O. BOX 222811
CARMEL CA 93922
(831) 624-8595
www.ccmp.org
Rev. Paul Wrightman, Pastor
Independent and United Church of Christ
June 28, 2020
Dear Friends,
It’s frustrating living in an area that has done such a good job of sheltering in place, social distancing, and mask-wearing, making the Monterey Peninsula one of the safest places to be in the country – only to have all our hard work threatened by a mass influx of tourists, many of whom are not bothering to wear masks or to distance socially! If we can manage to keep away from the tourists we should be OK. Fortunately they tend to congregate in very specific areas which we can avoid.
Our Board of Governors has come up with a plan for our gradual reopening! I’m impressed by its creativity and flexibility. Given that the Covid19 news and recommendations change nearly every day, it’s crucial to have a plan that can be changed easily. To this end, the Board has decided to that we can return to the sanctuary beginning on September 13. The idea is to start out with only one worship service per month. That way we can be sure that the sanctuary is absolutely safe before the next service. If the situation gets worse, we can go back into sheltering in place mode. Hopefully the situation will improve and we can then begin having worship three, then two weeks apart, and eventually return to once a week.
Spaces will be marked on the pews to insure that a six foot distance is always maintained between people. Masks will be required. Temperatures will be taken. Hand sanitizer will be dispensed. Everyone will be asked to come and leave by the west entrance.
Those who rent our facilities will gradually be invited back, smaller groups first. The office area, including the library, nursery, and bathrooms, will not be available to renters. Each room will be marked with the maximum numbers of persons allowed to be in that space. A strict protocol will be followed concerning cleaning after each meeting. A Covid19 surcharge on each rental group will go toward frequent professional cleaning of all public spaces.
I’ve looked at the reopening plans for quite a few other churches. The plan that our Board approved is the most cautious, thorough, and flexible plan that I have seen. If you have any questions about our reopening process, Pam Klaumann, JoAnn Holbrook, and Dr. Richard Gray were on the task force that recommended this plan to the Board, and would be happy to talk with you.
We continue our sermon series on the most important texts in the Bible from Genesis through Revelation. We are currently looking at those life-directives that Christians know as the Ten Commandments. This week we’ll take a look at “You shall not commit adultery.” And since the Fourth of July occurs this week, we’ll do a balancing act between celebrating and praying for our country and celebrating the marriage relationship.
Remember that Jesus is Emmanuel – God WITH Us! Paul
WORSHIP SERVICE FOR JUNE 28, 2020
INTRODUCTORY READING John O’Donohue
A Blessing for Marriage
As spring unfolds the dream of the earth,
May you bring each other’s hearts to birth.
As the wind arises free and wild,
May nothing negative control your lives.
As kindly as moonlight might search the dark,
So gentle may you be when light grows scarce.
As surprised as the silence that music opens,
May your words for each other be touched with reverence.
As warmly as the air draws in the light,
May you welcome each other’s every gift.
As elegant as dream absorbing the night,
May sleep find you clear of anger and hurt.
As twilight harvests all the day’s color,
May love bring you home to each other.
SUGGESTED MUSIC America, The Beautiful US Navy Band and Sea Chanters You Tube
OPENING PRAYER Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, Contemporary
May we as a nation be guided by the Divine to rediscover the sacred flame of our national heritage, which so many have given their lives to safeguard.
Let the wounds of separation and division be healed by opening our hearts to listen to the truth on all sides, allowing us to find a higher truth that includes us all.
May we learn to honor and enjoy our diversity and differences as a people.
May we, as a people, undergo a transformation that will draw forth individuals to lead our nation who embody courage, compassion, and a higher vision.
May our leaders inspire us, and we so inspire each other with our potential as individuals and as a nation, that a new spirit of forgiveness, caring, and honesty be born in our nation.
May we, as a united people, move with clear, directed purpose to take our place within the community of nations to help build a better future for all humankind.
May we as a nation rededicate ourselves to truly living as one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
And may God’s Will be done for the United States, as we, the people, align with that Will.
Amen.
SCRIPTURE READING Exodus 20:14
You shall not commit adultery.
SERMON 6/28/2020
(The underlinings simply stress what I would stress if delivered orally.)
Many in our contemporary culture, including many Christians, see the Ten Commandments as arbitrary limitations which God imposes on our freedom.
The Jewish tradition, on the other hand, has consistently approached the commandments as ten life-giving words from God, teachings which God gave out of deep love for human beings, to help us to maintain our freedom.
Of all the commandments, the seventh, “You shall not commit adultery,” which we are wrestling with today, is often seen by many of our contemporaries as a prime example of God being a kill-joy, of God arbitrarily placing restraints on our freedom. The modern world, at least in the West, has been quick to embrace the shallow reasoning that “As long as no one gets hurt, it’s OK.” Such shallow thinking has been applied especially to issues surrounding sexuality, with devastating results.
“As long as no one gets hurt, it’s OK,” is always a rationalization that amounts to a self-serving justification for doing something that we know is wrong, but that we desperately want to do anyway.
People use the principle of “As long as no one gets hurt, it’s OK,” to justify the lies, the cover-ups, and the breaking of promises that occur when one is in a committed sexual relationship, feels that one’s needs are not being met in that relationship, and has the opportunity to form a relationship with someone else whom they feel is more suited to them.
At this point it is important to say that at times there are reasons and circumstances that argue for the dissolution of a marriage. But it is equally important to say that the well-being of both society-as-a-whole and the well-being of individuals within that society requires a strong expression of the ideal through which the marriage commitment can flourish.
And the seventh commandment, the seventh life-giving word from God, aims to do precisely this: to insure an environment, to provide an ethos, in which both my own marriage and the marriage of my neighbor can prosper.
It has been argued that since wives were largely considered to be the property of their husbands at the time this commandment was given, this seventh word is actually a sexist attempt to protect one man’s property from being stolen by another.
Although there is an element of truth in this assertion, if this were the sole purpose of the seventh commandment, to protect a man’s property from theft, the seventh commandment would be redundant and unnecessary, a man’s property already having been covered by the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal.”
The positive intent of this negatively-worded seventh commandment, the seventh life-giving word, “You shall not commit adultery,” is not about property, but about relationship.
The seventh word wants to protect the stability and the integrity of the marriage relationship, precisely because the faithfulness embodied in a solid marriage is seen in Scripture as the highest and deepest metaphor for our relationship with God.
Both Judaism and Christianity understand God as being personal and unabashedly relational. The image of God being like a committed, faithful, loving, and intimate spouse is the major for our relationship with God, not only in the Hebrew Scriptures, but in the Christian Scriptures (the New Testament) as well.
Even the picture of God as loving father is secondary to the primary image of God as loving spouse.
This master-metaphor of God being like the very best of marriage partners tells us some crucial things about God: it tells us that God is deeply into mutuality and faithfulness.
This master-metaphor also tells us that from God’s side God’s relationship with us cannot be broken. The very nature of God being unconditional love, unconditional faithfulness, and unconditional forgiveness, God will always be true to God’s side of God’s relationship with us.
This is why both Judaism and Christianity have taken the marriage relationship so seriously. If marriage is the highest and deepest metaphor for our relationship with God, ideally it embodies the very love, faithfulness, and forgiveness of God’s relationship with us. Therefore, marriage is not to be taken easily or broken lightly.
And yet.
And yet Israel is described in her own Scriptures as often being unfaithful to God. Our own history, the history of Christianity, is a history of often being unfaithful to God.
For both Israel and Christianity, the story of our relationship with God is the story of second chances.
That is why those Christian traditions that do not allow divorce and remarriage are wrong.
We have to ask the question: Does God follow God’s own rules? If God asks us to forgive “seventy times seven” times (see Matthew 18:21-22), will not God forgive us for failing in marriage and give us another chance?
The histories of both Judaism and Christianity are histories of constantly breaking faith with God. Yet they are also histories of God being constantly loving and forgiving and welcoming us back.
For God to be God, the final word can never be an inability to love and to forgive. For God to be God, the final word has to be God’s unconditional love and forgiveness.
It would seem that the life-giving nature of the seventh commandment lies in our balancing both dimensions of what it affirms.
On the one hand, if marriage is the highest and deepest metaphor for our relationship with God, marriage is to be honored as a sacred covenant; ideally, as a sacred covenant which is permanent and unbreakable.
On the other hand, given broken human nature, given the fact that many find themselves in marriages which are abusive, or in which their partner is unfaithful, we need to affirm the fact that just as God gives second chances in the big picture of the multiple failures of Israel and Christianity, so also will God give second chances in the smaller pictures of our individual lives – and marriages.
Under the best of circumstances, marriage is an ideal environment in which both partners can grow, and grow into, the blessings of faithfulness, forgiveness, and love. It is a school in which we can learn what trust, constancy, and kindness are all about.
And if one is not married, one needs to find another avenue in which to learn the lessons of fidelity – perhaps with an exceptionally close friend, a parent, an adult child, or a cause. These relationships, as well, can serve as master-metaphors for our relationship with God.
The spiritual discipline specifically connected with marriage and sexuality is the discipline of chastity. Not so long ago, chastity was understood in the narrow and negative sense of not engaging in sexual activity. Now it is understood in a wider and positive sense as honoring oneself and one’s marriage partner with the gift of vulnerable, caring, and loving sexuality.
One married couple I know no longer uses the term “making love,” which they feel has too many connotations from the construction industry. Rather, they speak in terms of “growing love,” with its connotations of nurturing and tending their mate. They see sex not as an end in itself, but as a vital part of the fabric of their relationship as a whole.
Two observations, two more spiritual disciplines:
First, I think God needs to be invited into a marriage relationship as an unseen, but very real, presence. A braid appears to contain only two strands of hair. But it is impossible to create a braid with only two strands. If the two could be put together at all, they would quickly unravel. Herein lies the mystery: What looks like two strands requires a third. The third strand, though not immediately evident, keeps the other two tightly together.
In a Jewish or Christian marriage it is understood that God’s presence, like the third strand in a braid, holds husband and wife together.
Second, marriage is a crucial, but often overlooked, place to practice random acts of kindness.
“Chains do not hold a marriage together,” wrote Simone Signoret, “it is threads, hundreds of tiny threads, which sew people together through the years. It’s weaving those threads that counts.” (Simone Signoret in Joan Chittister, Ten Commandments, pp. 83-84.)
I’d like to close with an illustration. This illustration was originally about a couple who were quite poor economically. But I think that we can expand its meaning to include all of us who are poor in spirit, and recognize our need to be completed by the other of our spouse and by the other of our God.
Slats Grobnik, who sold Christmas trees, noticed one couple on the hunt for a Christmas tree.
The guy was skinny with a big Adam’s apple, and she was kind of pretty. Both wore clothes from the bottom of the bin of the Salvation Army store.
After bypassing trees that were too expensive, they found a Scotch pine that was OK on one side but pretty bare on the other. Then they picked up another tree that was not much better – full on one side, scraggly on the other.
She whispered something, and he asked if $3.00 would be OK.
My friend Slats figured that both trees wouldn’t sell, so he agreed.
A few days later Slats was walking down the street and saw a beautiful tree in the couple’s apartment. It was thick and well rounded.
He knocked on their door, and they told him how they had pushed the two trees together where the branches were thin. Then they tied the trunks together. The branches overlapped and formed a tree so thick you couldn’t see the wire holding them together. Slats described it as “a tiny forest of its own.”
“So that’s the secret,” Slats asserts.
“You take two trees that aren’t perfect, that have flaws, that might even be homely, that maybe nobody else would want.
If you can put them together just right, you can come up with something really beautiful.”
(Illustration “Wedded Trees” in 1001 Illustrations that Connect, edited by Craig Larson and Phyllis Ten Elshof, pp. 260-261.)
AMEN
REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Do you think that the marriage relationship actually works as a master-metaphor in terms of our relationship with God? Why? Why not?
If you are currently married, what are some ways in which you could invite God to become a more significant presence in your relationship? How will you go about sharing this desire with your spouse?
CLOSING PRAYER Woman’s Prayer Companion, Contemporary
O God, your Son Jesus began his ministry at a wedding celebration. May the joy that is experienced as two people begin a life together continue to grow and deepen through all that life has to offer along the way. May Jesus continue to transform the water of their every day to the wine of new vision, so what seems ordinary becomes transformed by love. May couples grow old together knowing the best wine is saved till last and that Jesus is the abiding guest and their companion on the way. Amen.
SUGGESTED MUSIC ‘When Love is Found’ Cadenzaweddingmusic You Tube
BENEDICTION
Patiently and persistently, God loves.
Relentlessly and unconditionally, God loves.
Now and forever, God loves.
AMEN.