First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis

Rev. Kendyl Gibbons
First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis
March 28, 2004

One of the joys of serving as the spiritual leader of a particular religious community over time is the opportunity to become part of the lives of its members. It is a joy to watch children become competent, adventurous young adults; it is a joy to dedicate brand new babies and see them move through toddlerhood and into articulate, energetic childhood. It is wonderful to see couples whose weddings I have blessed becoming pillars of the congregation, and bringing their little ones into the care of our community. It is a deep satisfaction, if not exactly a joy, to give shape to the enduring memories of people I have known and laughed with and admired in life, when those lives come at last to their end. Those of you who have worked with me in celebrating your weddings may remember my telling you that this process is not "just a piece of paper"; that something changes in your relationship to each other, to society, and to the whole universe, when the promises of marriage are made.

Let me say the same thing to those new members who become part of this Society today; this membership process is not "just a signature", for it, too, is a potentially life-shaping promise, that has power both to give you more than you may now imagine, and to require of you more than you might expect. Those whose twenty-five and fifty year anniversaries we celebrate this morning might tell us about this, just as those who offered remarks in support of the canvass have done. To join a church, to dedicate a child, to marry a spouse, are all acts of promise; some of the most high and holy acts of which our humanity is capable. As leaders of both our state and our nation work themselves and our fellow citizens into a frenzy over the question of what constitutes marriage, it seems to me that we might usefully spend a few moments this morning considering the whole notion of sacred promises - of what they mean and why they matter, and what religion has to do it.

There are many different kinds of promises. There are promises that are limited in time - "I will meet you at 3:00 tomorrow," "I will take care of your dog for a week." When tomorrow comes, either I meet you or I don't - I keep the promise or I break it - but the promise itself evaporates; it is over, it is no more. When the week of tending your dog is over, the promise is kept, finished, no longer exists. Other promises are contingent - "I will pay you ten dollars if you mow my lawn," "I will bake some cookies if you will do the laundry." These promises depend upon mutual fulfillment; if you don't mow the lawn, I don't give you the ten dollars, but in that case, I haven't broken my promise, because you didn't keep your part of the bargain. We all make and abide by these kinds of promises continuously, often without even knowing it or thinking about it. But the big promises, the sacred promises, the ones that really shape our lives, are not like this; they are not contingent, and they are not time-limited. They are the promises that we make about "forever," about "from now on," about the kind of people we intend to become. And the interesting thing about these promises, like the vows of marriage, or the words of membership, is that they are not conditional; even though we make them to each other, when one person breaks them, that doesn't mean that the promise is over, that it no longer exists. Rather, the promise is still there, still shaping our lives, still holding forth an idea about the kind of person you said you wanted to be. It is a promise at that moment in need of redemption, of healing, of reconciliation and renewal, but it still exists. No one fulfills perfectly the ardent ideals to which they pledge themselves on their wedding day. I know, for myself, that earnestly as I meant the promises I made to Mark 30 years ago, and willingly though I have worked to honor and keep them, there have been many, many moments when, in both silly little ways, and in deeply painful ways, I have failed to live up to them. And of course, in both silly and painful ways, he too from time to time has had moments of failing to keep his side of the bargain. But the thing is, the promise itself never goes away. The promises are still there, shining on the horizon of our aspirations, calling us back to the people we can and most deeply want to be, together and for each other. That kind of promise is holy, and the work of keeping it, and of mending it when it gets broken, and of building it ever more firmly into our lives, is sacred work. Every spouse knows this work. Every parent knows this work, for the holy promises that we make to our children, in the days before they are born, and as we gaze into the cribs where they lie asleep, and as we send them forth into the uncertainties of the world, are pledges that of course we can never entirely fulfill. And yet of course we make such promises - who can hold them back? What monsters of precision should we be if we did not breathe the assurance of eternal safety and well-being over the infant in our arms, and then spend our best energies in the futile, but ever-renewed, effort to make that promise true? What small souls we would have, if we never made a promise we didn't know beforehand that we could keep!

There is a word for this kind of promise, and the sacred work of its keeping; it is called a covenant. Covenants are the holy promises that bind us to one another through our aspirations; that do not shatter when they are broken, but forever call us back to our better selves, with a hope and a possibility that will not let us go. Such promises create the future; they are the tools with which we give shape and assurance to the time that stretches out before us, potentially terrifying in its formlessness. It is by our covenant promises to one another that we are able to move into that future with confidence and expectation, with no perfect knowledge but with reasonable trust, that we shall not suddenly find ourselves utterly disoriented and alone. Out of covenant promise we create the meaning of our lives, both personal and collective. Once upon a time, there was a nation, not large, but feisty, whose best thinkers and greatest leaders understood it to be an active participant in just such a covenant promise with one particular god. Both sides broke that promise, of fidelity and of protection, all the time. They quarreled about it constantly. But to the surprise of both sides, the covenant held. The promise was renewed, and re-imagined, and redeemed, more times than they could count. They wrote a bunch of stories and poems and books about it, some of which were collected into what we know today as the Old Testament.

Today, some of the leaders of our government would like to tell us that only certain kinds of people can really make that covenant promise to each other; that if the biology isn't conventional, then the commitment and the aspiration and the work don't count. Well, friends, as soon as we let the state be in charge of which promise counts and which doesn't, this Society has a problem. Because if they can do that, by the time we turn around, they'll be telling us that if the theology isn't conventional, then the support and the shared values and the good news of this religious community don't count either. The same forces that want the rights of marriage limited to one man and one woman, would like to see the freedom to worship and to teach and to define public piety limited to their own religious institutions and traditions. Either we are free to define for ourselves the covenant relationships whose holy promises give meaning to our lives - in marriages and in churches of our own choosing - or we are not. This nation's heritage of separation between the church and the state has meant, for two hundred years, that we are free. To seek to infringe on that freedom is to strike at the tap root of all democracy, all equal justice, all human dignity.

Each of us who is a member here has made a covenant promise with and to this congregation; a promise of responsibility to one another, a commitment to growth in thoughtfulness, compassion, and ethical living, to an on-going search for truth, and an affirmation of every individual's inherent worth. We may break that promise a dozen times a day, but it never ceases to call to us. This congregation may let you down one way or another over and over again, but it will never give up trying to be the place that makes our most deeply shared values real in the world. It will always be a setting in which our covenant promises are spoken aloud in community with awe and joy, where they are held up in honor for the sacred work that they are. I hope that each of you understands that I have always willingly and joyfully celebrated and blessed the marriage vows of couples who ask me in the name of our tradition to do this with them, whatever their gender assortment. I always will; I could not keep the holy covenant promise of my ordination to the ministry in any other way. And any time that such a couple brings me a marriage license, I will sign it, regardless of what the governor, the district attorney, or the state constitution may say about that act. I should tell you that some twenty-three years ago, when I graduated from seminary, was ordained, and moved to the state of Virginia, I had to go to the circuit court to be approved as an officer of the state to perform legal weddings there. I was required to bring with me a citizen of Virginia who owned at least $500 worth of real property in the state, and who would essentially post bond for the assurance of my proper performance of my duties. Now, I grant you that I was new in the ministry, but I had a hard time imagining what I might possibly do that would constitute the 'improper' performance of my duty in conducting a wedding - show up late? Mispronounce the bride's name? Drop the ring? And for this they would fine my friend? It was months before I realized, with a kind of sickening 'aha!', that the bond was originally intended to discourage ministers from performing inter-racial marriages - that was what the state at one time defined as 'improper'.

Fortunately, no one here had to post bond for me when I registered to perform weddings in the state of Minnesota - and I understand that Virginia has done away with that requirement during the intervening years. But I like to think that our covenant promises to one another here in this congregation about justice and inherent worth and human dignity go so deep, and shape us so profoundly, that many of you would willingly pledge whatever it took to give me the power to say to all our neighbors, to every couple who sought my help and benediction, that their covenants of love and mutual promise are entirely and equally holy. I hope you know, and I hope you affirm, that when I do say that, to the friends and family of two young men, or two middle-aged women, I am saying it on your behalf, on behalf of all of us at the First Unitarian Society.

In the final analysis, I would contend that the government has no business defining what does or doesn't constitute a holy promise, or who may make one. The legal responsibilities and privileges of domestic partnership should be a contract that any persons may enter into, having nothing to do with either emotional inclinations or religious doctrines. By the same token, churches and their spiritual leaders should be free to honor and bless such covenants as they see fit, in ways that befit the traditions they represent. Separating the functions of church and state is such a good idea that we get into trouble whenever we confuse them, and that, it seems to me, is exactly what is happening in the present debate. And I believe that we who cherish our own covenantal freedom are called to offer witness for that freedom on behalf of those who might so readily in the current climate be deprived of it. Our board of trustees and our social action committee are at work to propose at our annual congregational meeting on May 20, a resolution stating that we oppose any state or federal constitutional amendment to ban the legal recognition of same-sex marriages, civil unions, and/or domestic partner registries. It would be a wonderful statement to have a large turnout endorsing this resolution.

This is what happens when we make holy promises that are not 'just pieces of paper.' We become called upon by the love to which we have given our lives, to fulfill a destiny we did not anticipate. Don't be alarmed; no one lives up to their best, largest promises completely; love is what allows us to forgive ourselves and each other, to mend our broken covenants and go on together. We make our promises out of love, and out of those promises, love deepens and grows. Love makes our bridge, not only from one to another, but from your self to your future self, across the river of days and demands and disappointments, to the person you have longed to be. Love finds a way to build trust and meaning, to look with confidence to what lies ahead. Such love and such promises are not the exclusive property of any one sort of community or relationship; rather, wherever authentic humanity is found, the sacred work of covenant is present, and deserves to be honored and blessed. So do we honor and bless the promises spoken here this morning with our new members, and spoken in the hearts of each of us on the day of our membership, even fifty years ago - and so too do we honor and bless all the vows of marriage spoken here in this room over the course of fifty years, whether they conformed to the expectations of convention or not. After all, it is love that has the power to sanctify our promises, not the state; and love, says the poet, carries faith through life and death, to endless joy. In that hope, let us sing together.