The Confession of Saint Peter: To Loosen

“I’ll give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. Anything you fasten on earth will be fastened in heaven. Anything you loosen on earth will be loosened in heaven. ” (Matthew 16:19, Common English Bible)

Today, January 18th, is the Feast of St. Peter’s Confession, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus’ reply to Peter includes the words quoted above. Unfortunately, those words have been taken by the Church as more a grant of power over peoples’ lives than an opportunity to empower people. In other words, I suspect that too many leaders of the Church have focused more on their power to “fasten” obligations to peoples’ backs than to loosen unnecessary burdens.

Of course, some might believe that Church and society have of late been too lax, too ready to let people off the hook. And perhaps unsurprisingly, much of that debate has centered around sex. A recent study indicates that increasingly, the legal institution of marriage is one that only the wealthy can sustain. In what the study’s authors call “Middle America,” divorce and cohabitation are now more common than among the richest and best educated Americans.

Why? Is it for what the authors call “cultural” reasons, a breakdown of traditional values that leave too many people with no moral reason to sustain a committed relationship? Or is it because marriages are easier to sustain when money is not a central source of conflict? And what does the Church have to say to men and women navigating through the rocks of unstable relationships, children born out of wedlock, and “blended” families with step-parents. How much should the Church fasten to the shoulders of middle American men and women?

In the Episcopal Church’s Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage, the Priest begins by declaring: “The bond and covenant of marriage was established by God in creation.” If “marriage” was established by God in the very creation of human beings, then there has always been “marriage,” in which men and women commit their bodies and their talents and gifts to each other. In other words, there was “marriage” before Christianity existed. And wherever men and women make a home together, they have, in the order of “creation,” married each other.

In medieval Europe, the Church considered any marriage valid as long as two witnesses verified that the man and woman mutually consented to the marriage. It would be valid in the eyes of the Church even if no clergy were present. And in the Book of Common Prayer, the wedding ceremony is entitled, “The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage.” The people celebrate the marriage. The Priest blesses the marriage. But it is the man and woman who actually make the marriage, not the Priest.

So what’s the difference between a marriage of “creation” and Christian marriage? The difference is laid out in the Letter of Paul to the Ephesians. “As for husbands, love your wives just like Christ loved the church and gave himself for her… No one ever hates his own body, but feeds it and takes care of it just like Christ does for the church because we are parts of his body… Marriage is a significant mystery, and I’m applying it to Christ and the church.” (5:25,29-30,32).

When men and women “fall out of love,” what will keep their marriages together, except Him who chose to love us sinners for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health? That is the kind of marriage which the Church needs to help “middle Americans” enter into and sustain. But the Church can’t do that if it fastens that as an obligation on men and women who aren’t able to sustain it. The Church should not fasten a culture war over marriage to the shoulders of its casualties.

Let the Church instead loosen the burden of thinking you have to be already perfect in order to enter the church and be sustained by its sacraments. Let us meet halfway those who are married in the order of creation, patiently affirm them in their relationships, and gently help them move toward the Cross, in which marriage is perfected. Let the Church be known for its power to loosen, rather than fasten.