For us, the ultimate example of marriage is found in Romeo and Juliet, not Genesis. It comes from true, burning desire to not only have sex with a person, but to be with a person, commit to that person, sit alongside that person every single day. To partner and respect and give and share and live a life tangled up with another person.

---

 

In its ruling that civil marriage must be open to all persons, regardless of orientation, the Supreme Court has met the understanding of marriage that most Americans long ago adopted: that marriage is first, and foremost, a commitment of two people who love each other. Long before the majority of people came to see this view of marriage as inclusively as we do today, we still held this view of marriage in the abstract.

We have thrown away the contract, the dowry, the payment, and the inequality. Not that these things don’t exist or that they aren’t part of some views of marriage, but it isn’t our view, the common view of marriage. Marriage, for a couple of generations now, has been about love. All about two people falling in love and wanting to spend the rest of their lives together.

Love.

Today people are saying 'Love wins' but love has been winning. Love's been winning for years. Share on X

For us, the ultimate example of marriage is found in Romeo and Juliet, not Genesis. It comes from true, burning desire to not only have sex with a person, but to be with a person, commit to that person, sit alongside that person every single day. To partner and respect and give and share and live a life tangled up with another person.

Today people are saying “Love wins” but love has been winning. Love’s been winning for years.

What’s been losing, however, isn’t just hate.

When love wins, hate loses; but so does structure and order. So does predictability and blandness. So does fear and rage. And yes, so does hatred and bigotry.

When love wins, arranged marriages lose. So does the idea that Biblical marriage is only the heteronormative Western view,  and not also Isaac and Rebekah, whose marriage was defined by their simply having sex with each other, Jacob marrying Leah and Rachel (and two slaves) at the same time, and Solomon marrying 700 wives and and 300 concubines. None of that survives as marriage for us when love wins.

Playing catch up

Yet, as my friend, David Henson asks:

What does it mean that, on the whole, Church has become one of the last bastions of bigotry in a country celebrating love and equality today?

For this is how marriage is understood by our culture. No matter how Christians want to define marriage, we cannot simultaneously argue that it is our institution, based in our rules, and is precisely what we want it to be and then, somehow, isn’t.

The people have come to define marriage in, not only a more inclusive way, but in a more loving and supportive way. One that isn’t about the rules and obligations first, or defined by who is (and isn’t) allowed to marry, but by the basic sense of what marriage is. Therefore, as Christians, might we say that it, ultimately reflects the sacramental character of GOD’s love? An all-encompassing generous love, partnership, and committed relationship?

Like David, an Episcopal priest, I celebrate this moment for all my friends and family who have been given the dignity and respect I’ve prayed they would receive. And I also mourn that our church isn’t first, isn’t leading the way. That we are following after the Spirit has moved all of these other people and we are left catching up to her.

In the majority opinion, the justices state:

“Changed understandings of marriage are characteristic of a Nation where new dimensions of freedom become apparent to new generations,”

This is an idea enshrined in the form of our church governance, but one so rarely understood or practiced as our regular behavior by our church more generally.

The message we’ve been sending

As I wrote earlier, the gospel message we send is often different from the message we intend. It is certainly hard to say that GOD is love when our sacraments don’t bear the hallmarks of love.  When they send a message of exclusion or distance.

No one can honestly say that they hear the words “One man and one woman” as a reflection of love. These words are not the embodiment of GOD’s love and partnership for humanity. They are heard as exclusion, division from GOD’s love. How dare we call that sacramental!

Stories of devotion and bedside prayers and tears shed for the dying; that reflects GOD’s love. Stories of the bravery of coming out, of standing up to bullies, of gathering with friends at parades and vigils; that reflects GOD’s love. Millions of stories of love and devotion are told by millions of people. Through all this love, GOD’s love already shines. The rules, our precious rules, have long stood in front of our ability and our willingness to share and honor all of GOD’s love.

While we try to protect GOD’s love, we smother it. And yet, even today, GOD’s love shines through, regardless. Even if it isn’t being reflected by the whole church.

For that, we’ll have to keep waiting. In the Episcopal Church, we’ve only been actively discussing it for 21 years.