Are legal and right always the same thing?

“Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;

The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light;

And somewhere men are laughing,and somewhere children shout;

But there is no joy in Mudville – mighty Casey has struck out.”

“Casey at the Bat” by Ernest L. Thayer, 1888

“The court invalidates the marriage laws of more than half the states and orders the transformation of a social institution that has formed the basis of human society for millennia, for the Kalahari Bushmen and the Han Chinese, the Carthaginians and the Aztecs. Just who do we think we are?”

Chief Justice John Roberts in his dissenting opinion of the Supreme Court's ruling that the Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage (New York Times, June 26, 2015)

Disclaimer: If you read any farther than this sentence remember that this blog of mine, that I'm sure is read regularly by my mother and my wife and irregularly by few others contains, as stated in the header, “the musings and mutterings of a minister at times captivated by the mystery of the faith.” These are my eclectic thoughts about all things that I care to comment on. I don't pretend to speak for all Christians or the fellowship I serve or even those I have coffee with regularly. If you happen to read this post and are offended by it, save your outrage for me alone. Don't lump all evangelicals together and write us all off as “haters” simply because I fail to articulate my thoughts in an effective or meaningful way. Pastor Martin

So, it's happened again. The Supreme Court – and really, only 5 people on that court – has changed the lives of 320 million Americans by ruling that whatever else the Constitution may or may not say it guarantees the right of same sex couples to get married. It doesn't matter if your state has certain laws on the books that prevent such unions, the clerk of courts is now authorized to issue a wedding license to gay couples just like every one else.

Obviously there are a lot of people – gay and straight – who are happy, no elated about this decision. It's only fair, right? Why shouldn't gay folk be permitted to enter into legally recognized unions like heterosexual couples? They're people too. But in Mudville – well, at least this corner of this street in Mudville – let's just say I won't be adding a rainbow hue to my profile picture on Facebook anytime soon.

Here's a couple things that I'm musing about today about yesterday:

• In the morning, one of the leading news stories was naturally the pending decision of the Supreme Court. Every time the news media runs a story on this issue of gay marriage invariably they air pictures of gay couples kissing in some court house at the conclusion of their wedding. Honestly, as a straight man, that moment usually weirds me out. Yesterday I looked up from my lap top to watch that segment and, as expected, they showed a gay couple – this time two women – concluding their wedding with a kiss. I went back to whatever I was working on and a minute or two later it occurred to me that I hadn't been bothered by that sight at all. It looked normal. Of course couples kiss after they get married.

I make my bread and butter by preaching the Bible, of articulating what it says to the people who have made The Refuge International their fellowship. This means I read it a lot and quote it literally every Sunday of the calendar year. And yet yesterday while watching the news I didn't even blink an eye when one woman kissed another in a display of nuptial happiness. I think that's what they call desensitization. And if I guy like me who reads the Bible a whole lot can be desensitized about a matter like this, what about the guy who rarely cracks the Scripture or hears only snippets of it on Christian radio but watches a lot of TV?

• Our son, a senior at UW-Superior, called me in the late afternoon asking me to pray for him. “I am distressed about this Supreme Court ruling” is what he said. Apparently he had been out to lunch with some friends when in walked another friend who is gay and as his companions expressed how happy they were for him because of the Supreme Court's decision, it became a decidedly awkward moment. How can you feign happiness for someone when all you really feel is grief? And why didn't I feel the same? Why didn't I drive around yesterday with a belly full of anguish of another benchmark passed on the road to national perdition?

Maybe because I'm not surprised. It's only my opinion but socially speaking evangelicals aren't really changing the morays of the way people live. They may be coming to our seeker-sensitive services, jam to our music and appreciate our Lord's message of love, acceptance and forgiveness but they may still cohabit with their partner and do stuff that might make some of us other, more traditional folks blush. So of course a culture that embraces tolerance (which is a good thing) but at the same time is increasingly ignorant of the Scriptures (which is bad) eventually reaches the point we are at today. It's inevitable. And it's another indicator that we have moved into a post-Christian society.

In 1962 the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for public schools to make children pray an official school prayer. I'm okay with that. Over the last four years I've subbed enough at our local elementary school to observe how inattentive kids are when they are asked to stand each morning to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Imagine if on top of that they were also asked to pray a prayer? Regardless of how well written a lot of kids would mutter their way through this obligatory entreaty without so much as a thought of what was going on (sort of like the Pledge today).

But just because it's unconstitutional for a public school employee to lead their class in prayer doesn't mean that there isn't prayer in schools going on. There is. Every time lunch is served certainly there are some kids somewhere who silently bow their heads in thanks. There's nothing illegal about that. At the same time public schools by and large have a rule that allows students to gather together outside of class to read the Bible or pray together. It's called the Bill of Rights and so long as they don't make a nuisance of themselves, it's totally acceptable.

So now let the marrying begin – or resume as in 13 states same-sex marriages were already legal. So be it. There are other things in our country that are legal as well but that does not make them right. For my part, I will continue to teach those in my care what the Scriptures have to say about marriage – that it is a sacred union between a man and a woman. Of all other arrangements – relations between two men or between two women – it refers to as “unnatural” and “sinful” (see Romans 1:26-31). But of course it's not acceptable these days to talk about sin unless it's about your own. Otherwise, mind your own beeswax.

This post is not intended to change anyone's mind about the matter. First of all, I don't think I have a large following and my words probably will go unnoticed in the flak of commentary that already peppers the internet. Second of all, there is no argument that is ever won on social media. Just lots of venting, posturing, finger-pointing and “in-your-facing” and I have no stomach for that sort of thing. No, I'm just trying to articulate a response to this judicial act without coming off sounding as a self-righteous, ignorant redneck. But I suppose that's impossible. People will believe what they will. Maybe the best apologetic these days to an ever increasing secularism is to love well and live righteously even if it means I look more and more like an Amish guy coming into town on his horse and buggy.

A 21st Century American Wedding

This past weekend I presided at a wedding that has become the usual for me – a bride, a groom and a baby between them surrounded by kids from his first marriage and from her previous two. A blended family they are and while the groom lived with his parents before they were officially wed, obviously that they have a beautiful four-month-old son together reminds everyone that consummation has already occurred. They are not kids themselves – both are in their 40s – and while she was raised Methodist and he Baptist, life has dealt them challenges which have resulted in them each tasting the bitterness of divorce and in her case, twice. It has an incredible aftertaste. For her part, the bride is not as naïve as she was at 17 when she first wed. In fact, she was fairly gun-shy of going down this road a third time. And for his, well...he wants to be a stand-up guy and take an active role in the raising of his son.

It was a small wedding with perhaps only twenty people in attendance. The bride's father never showed and so she walked up to the altar by herself. On the groom's side, one of his daughters recently graduated from high school is very clearly in the family way. And as for the bride's kids, despite having gone through a break-up in their family structure twice before it's clear that they care about one another and are willing to give this third restructuring a chance.

But just who goes with who?

While the couple do not worship with us at Refuge, they are representative of the “traditional” weddings that I preside at these days. In 2007-08 I had the honor of presiding at four weddings – three of which were on three successive weekends in a row – at which both bride and groom were both young and child-less (three of the four couples now bounce a baby on their knees), a rare thing in my ministry. Which is not to say that I look askance at those who are entering into a marital covenant a second or third time. Life happens. Marriages dissolve for all kinds of reasons. And while some pastors and fellowships are persuaded that “one and done” is the standard that we must hold to (apart from the death of one of the spouses), I am not one of those. I believe in second chances – and third ones, too. The make-up of our fellowship reveals that: about half are what used to be referred to as “nuclear” families and half are blended ones. And each is not exempt from the challenges that life presents all married people. It’s just that those who have suffered an amputation like a divorce often have additional stressors to contend with as they seek to deal with those challenges.

Though I have not come to take a lot of stock in what a couple “hears” me say at their wedding, I am more and more aware that the message I share is more for the benefit of those who are their guests to remind and exhort them to holy living with regards to “this holy estate of marriage” that their loved ones are entering into.

Here’s what I shared on Saturday:

Pastors like me who spend a lot of time among regular church-going Christians lament a lot about the changing look of the American family. Statistically speaking the experts tell us that today there is no difference between people of faith and people without any professed faith with regards to divorce – 1 out of 2 marriages end this way. In other words, if you decide to marry in America you have a 50/50 chance of making it. In most churches that I have contact with – this one included – that 50/50 ratio plays out: about half of the people who attend Refuge are married to their first spouse and about half are on their second – or in a few cases – third one. Divorce and remarriage leads to blended families – his, hers, and ours. Certainly at Roselawn Elementary right across the street that represents the majority of the student body today – step-brothers, step-sisters, half-brothers, half-sisters. The nuclear family – 1 man, 1 woman and their children – is now the minority in Chetek schools. So, a lot of pastors – myself included – are tempted to go into lament-mode decrying the breakdown of the American family and the corresponding increase of dysfunction in people's homes. And yeah, there is a lot of dysfunction out there. A lot of pain. A lot of anger. But really, I don't have to tell you this stuff...

Defiinitely not the Brady Bunch

But I just want to remind you both that the standard family you're likely to meet in the Bible is dysfunctional with a capital D. Cain murdered his brother Abel because he was jealous of him. Jacob tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright and then in cahoots with his mother, pulled the literal wool down over the eyes of his father and stole Esau's birthright, too. Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and that was Plan B! Plan A had been to do away with him outright. David kept marrying different women and as his brood grew, so did their troubles – Amnon rapes his half-sister, Tamar; when Absalom – her full brother – hears this he plans his revenge and sometime later, murders Amnon; when he is banished from the kingdom for this deed, Absalom goes off and plans his ultimate revenge against his father and later incites a civil war in the kingdom whose root cause is his unresolved differences between father and son. So, I think you get it – most of the families you run into the Bible have more than their fair share of dysfunction. In fact, a lot of these families have more in common with reality TV than most people who attend local churches.

So, here's my point: marriage is originally God's idea; that so many people do so bad at it doesn't change the fact that it's still his idea. Dysfunction happens – show me a family without dysfunction and more than likely we're talking about a family we don't know too well. Every family has some degree of dysfunction within it because every family is made up of imperfect, and, frankly, sinful free agents. All this to say that dysfunction is not an excuse for a failed marriage; immaturity – yes; unfaithfulness – certainly; selfishness – absolutely; but dysfunction – no. Have you've seen the T-shirt? – We put the FUN in dysFUNction? It's funny – and really, I don't have a problem with it so long as it's not reveling in bad family behavior. Families like yours can make their own kind of fun.

There's nothing I can say that will ultimately “divorce-proof” your marriage; I'm assuming that “you're in it, to win it” so fear God, love each other and make it work – for your sake and for all these kids. Here's just my personal observation: people love weddings, they love – or most of them do – getting all dolled up in a dress that's killer and then heading off to a reception where they can dance the night away. The groom hasn't looked so good for as long as anyone can remember and the bride looks dazzling. In this digital age, the photo sessions that precede and follow the ceremony transform an average couple’s wedding into an event. Yeah, we love a good wedding. It's marriage that people aren't as excited about - regular, daily, sometimes boring monogamy but for those who commit and trust to God's grace to love their spouse and make good on the vows you're about to make over time love grows, widens, deepens, lengthens.

Paul, a close associate of Jesus put it this way:

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. (1 Corin 13:4-7, NLT)

That kind of love doesn't come out of a cereal box and you don't find it on Facebook nor can you buy an app for that. It comes as two people ask God for his grace to love their spouse through thick and thin, good times and bad. So - go the distance. Make the statisticians wrong in your case and not only will you be blessed but all these kids here will be blessed as well.

I’m composing this while my wife is sleeping off the anesthetic the hospital gave her this morning for an oblation that was done in order to correct a certain form of arrhythmia. While sitting in the family lounge while the procedure was being performed, I was thumbing through a TIME magazine when I came across Joel Stein’s tongue-in-cheek column following the termination of Kim Cardashian’s 72-day marriage (to even write that it is farcical to me):

We have created a wedding culture where marriage is less important than the wedding, which is less important than the Vegas bachelorette party, which is less important than the Facebook photos of the bachelorette party.
(“The End of Kardaschadenfreude” by Joel Stein in TIME November 14, 2011)

What good Bible preacher couldn’t say AMEN to that?

This would be hilarious if it wasn't so true

I wish this couple well. I would feel better if they were committed to attending a Christian fellowship -ours or another - where they could be strengthened and encouraged in making good on their vows. And while I have told them as much at the present time they appear to be at that "we'll-have-to-wait-and-see"-mode which experience tells me is just a nice way of saying no to a pastor's counsel. Frankly, I'm nervous for them because it appears to me that they are walking blind into a field laden with landmines. One false step and its game over. May God give them the smarts enough to do better than "hope to good luck." Because they're gonna need more than just luck to get them through.