How perfect is it, that just as the nights are beginning to cool way down as befits the autumn season now upon us, just as summer’s heat is starting to back off a bit, just as September has subtly segued into October, just as we throw an extra blanket on our beds at home to keep us warm through the crisp early morning hours, we now bring out our communal blankets to be blessed and sent into the world?  The timing couldn’t be better.

The thing about blankets is:  we all find ourselves beneath them! Blankets unite us as human beings.  They are something we all have in common.  We all need covers.  As we all curl up in our fetal positions, we lay in our overgrown cribs and pull our blankies up to our chins and find sweet comfort beneath their warmth and weight.

Today we are literally surrounded by sewn quilts, blanketed by blankets, confronted by comforters, (patchwork on parade if you will), and as we are thus surrounded our texts for today are fitting for this occasion because in one way or another, all of our texts remind us that it’s cold out there, and we could all really use a good blanket.

Our first reading from Genesis tells us the creation story from the perspective of the ancients who imagined a God whose hands literally made everything out of the dust of the earth, sort of like modeling clay, and then, whose hands became those of a skilled surgeon who operated on the man and formed woman.  The point of the reading is not how God created.   Rather, the point is why.   And the why is in the very first words of the lesson:  “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ ”

In other words, God saw that the world would be a lonely place for us without companionship, and so God created us to be in relationship with God, with one another and with all of creation.   God blankets us in relationship in a world that is cold and lonely, giving us the gift of God’s very self, the gift of the planet and all its amazing creatures, and the gift of other human beings who love and care for us.

The psalmist compares everything God has made with a handcraft, like these quilts.  “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses, what are mere mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you should care for them?”   And then the psalmist reveals a truth for us to ponder:  God has blanketed humanity with the gift of being just a “little less” than divine (and therefore someone needs to notify Bette Midler immediately):  “Yet you have made them little less than divine; with glory and honor you crown them.  You have made them rule over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet…”

Yes, God has blanketed all of humanity with glory and honor, and then in turn, gives us the holy commissioning to care for all of God’s handiwork, all of God’s handicrafts, all of God’s creation.  And so we feed the hungry, we clothe the naked, we shelter the homeless, we cover the cold with blankets, even as God has so fed and clothed us, sheltered and covered us.

Today’s second reading from Hebrews points us to Jesus, who is described as “the exact imprint of God’s very being” in the world and who, by the grace of God, has tasted death for everyone so that we might have the promise of eternal life.   In other words, God has blanketed the world in Christ our brother and through him has made all things holy.  Therefore, as the reading concludes “the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father.  For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters…”   Yes, in Jesus Christ, God has blanketed us with a brother who will pull us through the challenges this life throws in our path, and who ultimately will pull us through this life and lift us up to the next.

Finally, in the Gospel this morning, lest we find condemnation in Jesus’ tough stance on divorce, let us first be reminded of how Jesus radicalizes everything — including Jewish law which only permitted men to divorce their wives, and never the other way around, thus leaving the woman vulnerable and destitute: without status, without identity, and without income.  So when the religious establishment tries to trip Jesus up on a question for which his answer could cause a stir amongst the people, Jesus instead turns everything upside down by asserting that while divorce was permissible it was not what God intended, and in order to lift up the dignity of women Jesus asserts that the man who divorces his wife, which Jewish patriarchal law allowed, is still an adulterer for doing so.  Jesus empowers women a step further by adding, “And if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

The point here is not who is an adulterer and who is not, for if you recall elsewhere in the gospels Jesus radicalized the whole meaning of the 7th commandment (”Thou shalt not commit adultery”) by saying that anyone who even looked upon another person with lust in their hearts had broken the commandment, which pretty much makes adulterers out of the whole lusty lot of us.

What is clear from our texts this morning is that God brings us together — indeed blankets us — in human interconnectedness and relationship and intends that we remain together:  as friends, as human beings, as partners, as married couples, as congregations, as the church.   We at times choose to throw those blankets back and toss off those covers, and in truth sometimes that act of leave-taking is the best and healthiest solution for all parties involved.  Yet God’s forgiveness is never withheld — even for our hardness of heart - and there is never any fine print which excludes any sinner from the salvation that was earned by the only human who ever could: our Savior Jesus Christ.

If you were present last week, I preached a sermon in letter form, a letter written to Pastor Erma Wolf, the vice chair of Lutheran CORE, the group which opposes the ELCA Churchwide Assembly’s actions this past August regarding issues surrounding human sexuality, a group which is considering “divorcing” the ELCA, if you will — or perhaps stated more accurately, feel “divorced by” the ELCA due to its actions in August.   The letter was an invitation to Pastor Erma to come and be with us for a weekend at St. Paul’s, and an invitation to be at peace with one another despite our deep differences on approaching these issues.   She has responded, and I read you her brief note:

Dear James,

Thank you for this kind and gracious letter. I want to make a brief response here, but know that I will take more time in the coming weeks to think more deeply on what you have written.

As I continue to think on the texts from today, I want you to hear that I do accept what Jesus says: all those who are not against him are for him. I do not see you, and others who disagree with my interpretations of Scripture and Confessions, as being against Jesus. I will tell you this now, that by the time the opening worship at the assembly began, I did remember why I found your name familiar, from the assembly in 2005 (I was a volunteer then with Solid Rock). I didn’t tell you that I was with Lutheran CORE because I believe, in the context of worship, that does not matter. (That is one place where being of a particular “party” should not get in the way; my own amended version of Paul in Galatians: “there is neither Goodsoil nor Lutheran CORE” perhaps!)

Thank you for the invitation to visit your congregation. It is not one I am in a position to accept right now, not because of Lutheran CORE but because of personal obligations and family needs. But it is one I will keep in mind, and if the situation changes I will talk with you about taking you up on the opportunity.

In the meantime, we can keep communication open. I think that is one of the healthiest things any of us can do, in this period of mixed reactions and possibilities following the assembly.

In peace,

Erma

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, God’s intentions for us are to remain connected in relationship with one another, our varying fabrics quilted and stitched together into one wondrous blanket of peace and covering of grace.  When those stitches threaten to come apart, and when rips and tears do occur — as they most certainly will — God in Christ will come and mend us, patch us up, and continue to use us to blanket the world with the warmth of God’s love.

In Christ our Quilt, we are covered always in the warmth and security promise that God will never leave us or forsake us.

O Lord, our Lord, how wonderful your name — and your blanketing presence — in all the earth!

Amen.