A friend looked me in the eye a few weeks ago and said, “Howard, I appreciate the way you keep politics out of the pulpit.” I can only hope that person is still my friend after this sermon. For when it comes to the private and public aspects of marriage, politics and religion become strange and often conflicted bedfellows. First you need to know that I am not a politician, not even a very good church politician, and it’s certainly not my intent to make a political statement today. Furthermore, it would not be correct to classify me as a theologian. The deeper caverns of religious thought I have gladly left to those more scholarly than I. What I try to be is a local pastor who lives among the people and climbs the steps of this pulpit every seven days on trembling knees trying to make sense…