Sex, Marriage and Family in World Religions (34 page)

Thus it seemed to me that God’s response to Hagar’s (and her child’s) situation was survival and involvement in their development of an appropriate quality of life, that is, appropriate to their situation and their heritage. Because they would finally live in the wilderness without the protection of a larger social unit, it was perhaps to their advantage that Ishmael be skillful with the bow.

He could protect himself and his mother. The fact that Hagar took a wife for Ishmael “from the land of Egypt” suggests that Hagar wanted to perpetuate her own cultural heritage, which was Egyptian, and not that of her oppressors Abraham and Sarah.

Even today, most of Hagar’s situation is congruent with many African-American women’s predicament of poverty, sexual and economic exploitation, surrogacy, domestic violence, homelessness, rape, motherhood, single-parenting, ethnicity and meetings with God. Many black women have testified that “God helped them make a way out of no way.” They believe God is involved not only in their survival struggle, but that God also supports their struggle for quality of life, which “making a way” suggests.

I concluded, then, that the female-centered tradition of African-American biblical appropriation could be named the
survival/quality-of-life tradition of
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l u k e t i m o t h y j o h n s o n a n d m a r k d . j o r d a n
African-American biblical appropriation.
This naming was consistent with the black American community’s way of appropriating the Bible so that emphasis is put upon God’s response to black people’s situation rather than upon what would appear to be hopeless aspects of African-American people’s existence in North America. In black consciousness, God’s response of survival and quality of life to Hagar is God’s response of survival and quality of life to African-American women and mothers of slave descent struggling to sustain their families with God’s help.

[Delores S. Williams,
Sisters in the Wilderness
(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), pp. 1–6]

A CONTEMPORARY LITURGY FOR

SAME-SEX UNIONS

Eleanor L. McLaughlin—Episcopal priest, church historian, and spiritual director—has long been active on behalf of lesbian and gay members of Christian churches. McLaughlin put this liturgy into final form and fixed its theological emphasis on friendship, but parts of it were originally composed by her colleagues Richard Valantasis and Jennifer Phillips at a church in Boston during the years around 1990. The rite underscores the liturgical and pastoral needs that are often obscured in current Christian debates over homosexuality.

Document 2–24

Celebrant: We gather here, a community of friends, before the Holy One and in the presence of the Holy in each other, to witness, celebrate, and support the covenant of [name] and [name] to live together in lifelong love, friendship, and mutual service with the larger human family. The calling to a covenanted life of faithful and self-giving love is a grace and gift from God, in whose image we are created and by whom we are called to love and reason, work and play, to be still and to know ecstasy, to risk and to trust, to receive and to act. Before God we acknowledge our response to this invitation to live in union and har-mony with God, with each other, and with all of creation. In celebrating this covenant, we are reminded of and experience our highest vocation: to love God, to love ourselves, and to love neighbor and stranger as ourselves.

God has given us a sign and promise of everlasting love in the rainbow after the flood; in the loyal affection of Jonathan and David; in the steadfast loyalty of Ruth and Naomi; in the recognition that it is God within who unites us, as Elizabeth and Mary were united; in the promise of God’s friendship seen in Jesus’s embrace of John, the beloved disciple at the Last Supper; and in the
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promises of baptism, by which we are made a people, one with each other, in Jesus Christ. So we discern here God-With-Us, in the union of these loving and faithful partners, God sealing in hope their vow and covenant with each other as lovers, and with the world, as justice-makers.

Now [name] and [name] come to stand with each other, surrounded and supported by their family and friends in this community, that in this spring of seasons bright, they may make vows of faithful life together. This covenant and union is intended to be for them a mutual joy, a support in hard times, a comfort in their shared delights. From this union of love and friendship emerges a new family, source of care for the world, the lonely, the lost; a sign for all who see them, that faithfulness and mutual affection triumph over selfishness, egotism, greed, and violence.

We celebrate with them this new family, a “Little Commonwealth,” haven and mission of good energy for the healing of the world. Therefore, these mutual promises are to be undertaken and affirmed seriously, reverently, and in accordance with the patterns of truth, beauty, and goodness that enable each to say to the other, “I will you to be.” In their commitment, we see the very face of God, a sign of hope and wholeness for all of creation.

[Name] and [name], what do you seek?

Couple: We seek a blessing of God, each other, our friends and family, and this community upon our covenant.

Reading

From
Our Passion for Justice: Images of Power, Sexuality and Liberation
by Carter Heyward

Presentation and Witness of Friends and Family
C e l e b r a n t : Let us hear the Witness and story of those who present and support [name] and [name] in this commitment.

(
Friends and members of the two families share anecdotes from the past that
connect to the present experience of [name] and [name] and point toward their
future
.)

Readings

Song of Solomon and 1 Corinthians 13:1–13

Homily

Statement of Intention

Celebrant
(addressing each separately):
Do you, [name], choose [name] as lifelong partner in this covenanted union?

Do you, [name], seek to love [name] with all your heart and soul and mind and body?

Will you, [name], be for [name] a loyal, trustworthy, and faithful partner?

Will you, [name], risk in vulnerability to love [name] as
she/he
is, to will
her/him
to be
her/his
best self?

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l u k e t i m o t h y j o h n s o n a n d m a r k d . j o r d a n Will you, [name], give your whole and true self to this relationship, that it may become a growing, healthy, and expansive source of love for yourselves and all who know you?

If you both will make this your intention before this community and before God, respond with a wholehearted, “We will and we do.”

The Exchange of Vows

(
Vows are written by the couple and said facing each other with hands clasped
and bound by a stole or other symbolic cord
.)
The Blessing and Exchange of Rings
(
The rings are presented and the celebrant blesses them
.) Celebrant: Bless, O Holy God, these rings to be a symbol and reminder of the vows by which these
women/men
pledge themselves to be for and with each other a new family in the midst of the human family. May the Spirit fill [name]

and [name], who wear these rings with the splendor of growing love, and em-body their act of faith, hope, and love in a unity of mind, body, and spirit. Amen.

The Ring Words

(
The ring words are composed by the couple. [name] takes [name]’s ring, puts it
on her/his finger and repeats the words of commitment symbolized by the ring.

These actions are then repeated by the other partner
.)
The Pronouncement

(
Gathered family and friends may lay their hands on the couple’s shoulders. The
celebrant may lay her/his hands on their heads
.) Celebrant: Now that [name] and [name] have given themselves to each other by solemn vows, with the joining and binding of hands and the giving and receiving of rings, may the holy God who indwells in the heavens, the earth, and seas, and the heart and spirit of every creature bless this union in the presence of this community. May God be seen in their life together; may the love between them grow and flourish; and may they be a unity at peace with themselves and with all of creation, for the sake of the world. Those whom God has joined and blessed, let no one put asunder.

Prayer

Celebrant: Let us be at prayer.

O Holy One, creator and life-fire of all that is, giver of all healing and wholeness, grace and power. Look with favor upon the world you have made and loved, and for which you pour out your God-life, and look especially upon these two
women/men
whom you join together as one flesh, one mind, one heart. Amen.

Give them wisdom and devotion in the ordering of their common life, that each may be to the other a strength in need, a counselor in perplexity, a comfort
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in sorrow, and a companion in joy. Amen.

Give them grace, when they hurt each other, to recognize and acknowledge their fault and to seek each other’s forgiveness and yours. Amen.

Give them such fulfillment of their mutual affection that they may reach out in love and concern for others. Amen.

Grant that all of us, who in hope and faith live in the freedom and responsibility of vowed life together, may find our lives strengthened and our loyalties confirmed. Amen.

Music or Poem

The Blessing of the Covenanted Union
Celebrant: Creator God, hovering and indwelling Spirit, you made us not for loneliness but to dwell together in mutual and faithful affection. Bless and keep [name] and [name] that they may honor each other in all times and places.

Let the sacred fire of friendship burn brighter between them. Let their love deepen and widen and be as a rich garden bed of every flower and fruit. Let forgiveness end any disputes, humor unburden them in the midst of difficulty, and holy service to the world be the true riches they seek. Now, O Holy Wisdom, give your grace and nurture to [name] and [name] May your birth-giving be a blessing of light and warmth in their lives that they continue to grow in joy with each other and as a reconciling presence in your world. Amen.

Candle Ceremony

(
Celebrant presents [name] and [name] each with a lighted candle. [name] and
[name] together light a single larger candle from which the assembly takes individual lights
.) Celebrant: From every human being there rises a light reaching out toward heaven.

When two souls that are called to become one flesh choose each other, their streams of light flow together and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being.

Dismissal

Celebrant: Let us dance as David danced, laugh as Sarah laughed, and go in peace and light to set the world on fire. Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

[Eleanor L. McLaughlin, “Celebration and Blessing of a Covenanted Union,”

in
Equal Rites: Lesbian and Gay Worship, Ceremonies, and Celebrations,
ed. Kittredge Cherry and Zalmon Sherwood (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), pp. 100–104]

Azizah Y. Al-Hibri and Raja’ M. El Habti

p r o p h e t m u h a m m a d : t h e l a s t p r o p h e t o f i s l a m

Islam is the youngest of the three Abrahamic religions and views itself as the final reiteration and elaboration of the same message that was revealed to Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and other prophets of Christianity and Judaism. The holy book of Islam is the Qur’an, which is viewed by Muslims as the literal word of God revealed to Prophet Muhammad through the Archangel Gabriel.

Muhammad, a disadvantaged orphan, was born in sixth-century Makkah (Mecca) of noble descent to the tribe of Quraysh. This is the same tribe that would, after the revelation, wage ruthless attacks against him and his followers until they migrated from Makkah to Madinah (Medina) upon the invitation of its inhabitants. Because of his modest means and existing social conditions, the Prophet was illiterate, but soon developed a reputation for hard work, wisdom, and trustworthiness. Thus he was known as “al-Amin” (the Trustworthy One), even before he received the revelation.

Ancient biographical sources about the Prophet tell us that his reputation earned him the trust of Khadijah Bint Khuwailid, a rich Makkan businesswoman who hired him to run her trade to Damascus. Impressed by his com-Islam 151

petence, moral values, and demeanor, she proposed to him in marriage, and he accepted. She was twenty years his senior but the marriage was highly successful. It was monogamous, and lasted twenty-five years until her death. It gave the Prophet the only progeny he had. The Prophet’s relationship with Khadijah affected his view of women as equal human beings (see, for example, his statements in section 2, “Creation and the Identity of Origin of Women and Men”).

At home he cut meat, mended his shoes, and played with his children. When faced with a crisis affecting the new Muslim community, he sought and took the advice of a woman. In his farewell address the Prophet repeatedly enjoined Muslim men to treat Muslim women kindly.

t h e r e v e l a t i o n

According to Islamic history books, when the Prophet was about forty years of age, he took a trip to the wilderness, as was his habit, to think and reflect. While in Cave Hira’, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to him and spoke the first word of the Qur’an: “Read!”1 The illiterate prophet was taken aback, and Gabriel repeated his order: “Read in the name of your God, the Creator.” The experience shook up the Prophet who broke into sweat and returned to Khadijah asking her to cover him up. When he recounted his experience in the cave to her, she assured him that he had received a revelation. Khadijah soon embraced that revelation and became the first Muslim. This marked a trend in the life of the early Muslim community, in which women played a leadership role in various parts of community life, including religious and political leadership.