Wineskins: new and old.
The issue of civil unions is considered before the Hawai`i senate this week. I am reminded of the image Jesus gave to us: new and old wine, and new and old wine skins.
Something is happening in society - a new consciousness (these moments of awakening are painful for some, exiting for others, and always potentially transformative if we do not recess into our past).
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans people are not new to the world, even if growing awareness of their presence among hetero-society is. And we must, absolutely must, call upon our government to create the new civil wine skins that can contain the fermentation of news ways in which the legal and financial arrangements of heterosexual marriage can be extended to relationships that have, do and will continue to exist. We need the structures in which these relationships can ground themselves in finding a healthy moral framework, receive the same protections and support, and have the sam accountability as hetero relationships. This can help make a healthier society, and help support stronger families.
Marriage is like wine. In each generation, there are subtle (and sometimes dramatic) differences. Marriage is not today what it was twenty years ago, two hundred years ago. Even today, across cultures, there are minute and extreme differences. But hopefully, we are getting better. If we let LGBT relationships mature, and teach our society, we will find that the next movement will be forward towards a better society, a stronger society, a more just society.
Subtle, and at times dramatic, changes have been made in both civil and religious language to acknowledge those new understandings. The wineskins are built around existing and changing institutions to allow for their newness, without abolishing the good that comes from the old. Civil union is a new wine skin that can allow LGBT people to have relationships held within a framework that sets boundaries in legal, economic and civil terms, while also creating space for the tumult of fermentation. Of course, we need churches to provide the moral foundation and theological vigor, but that's another blog post.
Like wine interacting and effected by the tannins in the wood of oak casks (new or treated casks are required for each harvest!), these relationships need both the support and boundaries afforded by civil unions in order to become stronger, and tastier. We need statesmen/women who are willing to acknowledge that they represent not only barking voices, but the "best interests" of all the people they are elected to serve - to strive for a more perfect union, and more just society.
Creating a new civil wine skin, far from undermining society, will actually serve to strengthen it, while bridging the good of the old to the new that will come for the generations ahead. LGBT unions will continue to become not only more palatable, but overtly healthful for society, as they are provided opportunities for making their own unique contributions to the strengthening of society. And of course, this is happening, and will continue to happen, in-spite of the dying wind of the unjust. And like the old institutions of marriage, civil unions too will change, and adapt, and become part of the great wine-making history, love-making history of society as we advance in our understanding of our humanity held within the just, loving hands of the Creator.
The God I serve is a God who asks us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in the Divine Presence. The Jesus I love saw that things change - our understandings, our perceptions, our knowledge of God's love revealed to us. I'm thankful that my married LGBT friends can reveal this to me. I hope one day, when I'm in a relationship with the man I most love, that I too can "bear witness to the love of God in this world, so that all those to whom love is a stranger will find in [us] generous friends" (marriage rite, the United Methodist Church).
*The above video can be found on youtube, and at the following website:http://www.couragecampaign.org/Divorce
