There is much reference to fear in this service and it is used to good purpose. You should rebel, at least to some degree, against the smell of smoke. For one thing smoke warns us of fire, and while fire brings forth light and warmth, without which human beings probably could not have survived, we know it as grave danger. Even though smoke is being controlled and used ritually, it should create a little sense of the unpleasant, the offensive; it should suggest panic, something to be avoided, if not a cause to take flight.

There is something uncanny about the reliance on candlelight. We are allowing darkness to have its space, just beyond you and all around the worship space, drawing us together into community. Step away from the group and you will be alone, removed, outside of the community. Move your candle away from the page and you cannot very well see the words or the music. Notice especially the way candles light up human faces and reveals so much about the individuality, and the beauty, of a person. We are used to electric lights, which manage to light up even corners but fail to focus on the personhood of the ones with whom we find ourselves. There is anxiety in having one’s self so revealed by candle light, our practiced methods of hiding being removed. I am sure that you saw the faces and the individualized beauty of the bridesmaids more clearly than you are used to in wedding processions. You should have.

In the Catholic tradition, the color of the service is white. You can tell by the color I wear and the color the bride wears. White is the only color in our western culture that allows a community to, simultaneously, at the same time, grieve and celebrate. Believe me: family and friends know that both emotions are appropriate, indeed necessary, for the radical transition of marriage. Nothing is ever going to be the same for any of us in our many and varied relationships within the community. Even more poignantly, white is a liturgical reminder of Christian baptism and of the funeral service to come for each Christian, for all of these services of transition are interconnected in seeking eternal life.

None of us can live up to the standards of love, for we are not divine. It is necessary to realize from the beginning and by definition that marriage requires the profound humility (eschatological humility) of never measuring up to who and what we want to be, or, we will be taught the lesson. Married people must learn to live in judgment for their inability to be entirely faithful to their call to be lovers, that is, to be fully human. But to the extent that we overcome the despair of human limitation, to the extent that we are steadfast and desirous enough to keep reaching for the goal, to that extent we participate in the divine nature of love itself.

[Bishop Doss was an early and influential opponent of the death penalty in Louisiana. He worked with Sister Helen Prejean before she was made famous by the movie Dead Man Walking. Here is a major analysis of what the Bible says about the death penalty.]

The Ongoing Interpretation of Scripture

The story of God’s people is a continuing one that must be taken up by each generation.  The scriptures relate that story from the beginning of creation and the spread of sin though to the redemption in Christ Jesus and the establishment of his church.  The Bible is a library of separate books with a baffling variety of literary forms, composed by numerous and different kinds of authors over many centuries. Some of the writings are quite ancient; some of the earliest are versions of a prehistoric oral history.  Various editors and redactors have re-written, edited and re-edited, or supplemented much of the material as each generation made its contribution. Even so, from the very outset the scriptures are headed somewhere.  They contain a particular logic and share a common aim.  The logic and the aim reveal certain grand themes about God’s will for human life.  Each of the books has to be read and interpreted within the context of the general themes and the conclusions at which the aim is taken.  Nothing can be read out of that context, and certainly nothing can be used against the aims and purposes of the scriptures.  According to Christians the whole of scripture is aimed at the incarnation, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  This is definitive of the entire story of the people of God.  From the first words, scripture is going somewhere and it arrives.  Good news.  

The scriptures do not make each and every issue God’s people must address in succeeding generations entirely clear, especially on specific matters of morality and justice.  The early Christians found themselves embarrassed by certain matters in the Hebrew scriptures, including several of the ways God’s nature is depicted.  They had to re-interpret them, and explain how they were part of a process of coming to an ever more complete discernment until the fullness of that understanding is defined in Christ Jesus.  But the problem has not simply been with what Christians began to call the “Old Covenant” books.  The church has discovered itself waking up to an awareness of wrongful positions and actions from time to time, forcing the reinterpretation of certain scripture.  It is as though we were not ready to see the matter in its clarity until the time was ripe.  When we do so we find that the call to right action is indeed inherent in our scriptures; it simply becomes clear to us.  It is as though a fuse has been set within scripture and only in due course does it explode.  Once this happens we may well wonder how we ever could have missed this.  

Painful examples in European history include the inquisition and the crusades.  The striking example in American history is slavery.  During the course of the nineteenth century the meaning of scripture was changed for the American church from one that was viewed as favorable, or at the very least tolerant, toward the institution of slavery, to a testament ringing with clear denunciation of it.  

Among the factors that required the church to see things differently was the evolving sense of decency and right in Western culture. Christians discovered the mind of Christ with new clarity.  Christians must always be open to this.  At this point in the continuing story of God’s people the ecumenical church has reached a relatively new consensus in its teachings about the use of the death penalty in human society.  We shall examine the way scripture has led the church to this consensus.

[Read the rest]

. . .

Your schoolmate was four years old when I accepted a call to move from New Orleans to Palo Alto. As his seven-year-old sister, Katherine, was informed she simply closed her eyes and collapsed to the floor in a heap of misery. Andrew thus was alerted to a certain sense of reservation, but he was quickly taken by wonderful images: a big truck, that would come to load all of our goods and carry them off, all the way across the country; a big airplane taking off into the sky; he would be in it, to look down on all that is.

Nevertheless, his mother decided that we should process our feelings of anxiety and grief. Sitting at the dinner table she asked everyone to name what we would miss most. Immediately both children began to name friends, and tears began to well most pitiably. Jumping in, she said, “Well, I think I will really miss the French Quarter.” The teary eyes of both children popped wide and Andrew cried out, “You mean, they don’t have a French Quarter in California?” There was no good response forthcoming and the two little bodies slumped down into their chairs with the heaviness of the loss. Trying to move on, I joined in. “I know I will miss crayfish.” “Oh no, Andrew blurted out, “don’t tell me they don’t have crayfish in California?” And down they slumped further into their chairs. Two grown-ups should have known better than to keep going, but it was then suggested that we surely would miss Mardi Gras. Mouths flew open in utter and absolute disbelief, and the pain sculpted on each young face was memorable, “There’s no Mardi Gras in California?” Now only the two pairs of eyes remained just above the table, peering across at one another in anguish. Andrew turned his face to his mother and, steeling himself, asked, “Momma, do they have candy in California?”

. . .

Read the full address here.