Resource Material from:

Marilyn Sharpe

Director of Christian Parenting and Intergenerational Ministry

The Youth & Family Institute (Bloomington, MN)

A View from a Parent Educator and Practical Theologian
"We Got to Be There"

It will be readily apparent that I am the non-academic voice in the conversation. I come to the topic of “What Is God Doing with Marriage?” from a very personal perspective: as a wife in a joyous, 35 year long heterosexual marriage; the mother of a beloved, partnered, lesbian daughter; a parent educator for 26 years; a woman deeply passionate about Christian faith; and a practical theologian. My work as Director of Christian Parenting and Intergenerational Ministry at The Youth & Family Institute braids together all of those elements.

Thirty-nine years ago, I met my husband Les at a college mixer. We talked, dreamed, dated, fell in love, planned a life together, and married four years later. We loved one another’s families. We had three children together, who have been the centering joy of our lives. We are still deeply in love, know how to disagree, cherish the differences as well as the similarities, and are utterly committed to one another and to our family. Marriage has been life-shaping and life-giving. This marriage has been a gift of God.

Nine years ago, our oldest daughter came over for a family dinner and shyly announced that she was seeing someone. In a God-inspired moment, I didn’t ask, “What is his name?” but told her, “We’d love to meet this person!” Alison looked up and said, “Her name is Rebeca.” And our world has never been the same.

People have inquired, “Weren’t you devastated?” The answer is clear and simple: “no!” Surprised, yes. Devastated, no. Not once in the 24 years I had loved her had I said, “The thing I really love about you is that you are heterosexual.” Yes, we had assumed she was straight, but that was never what we loved about her. The minute before we knew she was gay, we had loved and respected and admired her intelligence, wit, integrity, values, loyalty, tenderness, self-assurance and willingness to stand up for others, against all social pressure. The minute after we knew, those were still the things we loved about her. We got to be there.

We were given a great gift in Rebeca, who opened her heart and life to us and walked right in to become family. She is open and loving and devoted and funny and utterly ours. We got to be there.

Six months later, they bought rings for one another and told us that they wanted to have a service of Holy Union.

When Alison came out and chose to join her life to Rebeca’s, our family had a decision to make: do we stay in the closet or come out? Those women were wonderful role models and showed us what it was to live the abundant life Christ promised, with the freedom we have in Christ. They didn’t use any of their precious life energy to manage secrets or living a lie. So we came out, too.

The first call was the hardest. I called my brother, my close friend for virtually all my life. He is more conservative than I am. He keeps secrets. He worries about what others will think. I practiced what I would say. And then he answered the phone. “I have good news, that may not sound like good news to you at first. Alison has met the love of her life … and her name is Rebeca. They are planning a service of holy union in a year and we’d really love it if you would come and bless it.” The line was very silent. Then “Okay, thanks for telling me,” was all he said. I was sure he wouldn’t tell his younger kids. I was sure we’d live in a strained uneasiness. Five minutes later he called back to ask if they could bring champagne to dinner the next night to toast “the girls.”

Not all of our family and friends could accept it. That was their choice. Some came back into the circle later. But most were loving and supportive. We are all invited to come out of the closet in which we hide who we really are. It isn’t just sexual orientation that gets closeted. We hide our vulnerability, our fears, our inadequacy. Jesus was “the light [that] shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:5) We are invited to come out into this light.

So, a year later, in two white dresses, with Alison’s brother and sister as their attendants, Les and Rebeca’s mother walked them down the aisle. No, it wasn’t a Lutheran church, but a Unitarian-Universalist church, where they could stand before God and their family and friends and declare their commitment for life to one another. We got to be there.

On the day that Rebeca changed her name to Sharpe, an outward and visible sign of belonging to Alison and to our family, I got to go to court with them. The judge looked at Rebeca and pointed at me, saying, “You be good to that woman. She loves you.” And I do. We got to be there.

So, what makes a marriage? For Les and for me, it has been a commitment to know one another deeply, to work out issues that arise between us, to trust one another and be trustworthy, to choose to treat one another with great respect and appreciation, to cherish one another as the beloved, to be fully present with one another. We have tried to live out, not a doily-ringed Valentine love, but a I Corinthians 13 kind of love: love that is patient and kind, not arrogant or rude, not insisting on its own way, that bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. We thank God for the gift of one another.

And so it is with Alison and Rebeca.

Our wedding was an opportunity to declare our love and commitment to one another for a lifetime, blessed and witnessed by God and the assembly of those who love us best.

And so it was with Alison and Rebeca’s service of Holy Union.

For the first years, I was content to call ours a marriage and theirs a holy union. But really, what is the difference? Is God any less present with them? Is their love and commitment any less? How is their relationship different from the marriage Les and I enjoy? In no way that I can see, except that my church will not openly bless their union and my nation does not recognize their union or give them both the rights and responsibilities that go along with it. And so, for me, it becomes an issue of justice and of following Jesus.

But, what do I do with “those scripture verses?” I pray. I look for the center of God’s story, God’s love for humankind, expressed in Jesus Christ. It is all about love. That is the immutable center that holds, regardless of culture and history. I am a Christian and I don’t keep kosher or have slaves … and neither do most of my Christian friends. Keeping my eyes on this Jesus is what it is all about for me.

And this Jesus has called us to love one another. That is the center of the Gospel, the Good News in Jesus Christ. The law is fulfilled in this love. When taunted by the lawyer to say which is the most important of the commandments, Jesus replied with the Great Commandment.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your

soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your

neighbor as yourself.

Luke 10:27

We are called to know one another, deeply, honestly, as we have been known.

This love is not for the faint of heart. Jesus’ love cost him his life. Jesus loved the un-lovely. Jesus embraced those pushed to the margins by the religiously smug, who kept the letter of the law, but missed the spirit of mercy and compassion. Jesus was inclusive. Look at those he spoke to, hung out with, and loved. They weren’t the usual suspects. This Jesus saw it as an issue of justice and mercy and called us to love as he loved.

Denying marriage to glbt couples seems to invite a double bind: You can’t marry, but because you have sex outside of marriage, you are promiscuous. God values commitment, but you are denied the ability to make that commitment in marriage and the recognition by others of your exclusive, loving, intimate relationship.

This same Jesus said it wasn’t our job to judge. That is God’s business. The one who went to the cross on our behalf will be the one who judges us. We are called to love and to forgive, practicing God’s unconditional love with one another.

So, what might God be up to with marriage? In our society in which heterosexual marriage has declined in stability and esteem, might it be our glbt brothers and sisters who model an eagerness to create partnership, companionship, and a shared life, blessed by this God who created us for relationship and who will teach all of us a renewed appreciation of marriage?