Trinity Church in the City of Boston
The Rev. Morgan S. Allen
November 1, 2026
All Saints Day, Matthew 5:1-12
In you, O Lord, have we taken refuge; for the sake of your name, lead us and guide us.1 From Psalm 31. Amen.
“From a fifteen-minute videotape2“What Really Happens In Marriage.” The reference to “videotape” dates this episode of This American Life, which introduced me to Gottman some twenty years ago. For many of those years, I shared a burned CD-R of the segment with couples I readied for marriage. of a couple talking about an area of disagreement, we have an 85% probability of predicting … if they’ll be together in the next four years, [and] if they are, whether they’ll be happy or miserable … [If we spend] another hour with a couple, asking them about how they met, what kinds of things they share … then [that probability] goes up to 94%.’”
So claims Dr. John Gottman,3The Gottman Institute offers convincing research, though I acknowledge my suspicion of the way it cultivates ardent devotees. the social scientist who has studied American relationships for going on 60 years. During that time, Gottman has filmed thousands of couples’ interactions, and following their marriages across decades, he reviewed the audio and video for signals that could have predicted either the marriages’ endurance or end. Well before the rise of analytics and machine learning, Gottman developed a taxonomy of interactions he used to convert relationship behaviors into hard datapoints.
After recording a couple, Gottman and his team would score the discussion, “moment-by-moment, on side-by-side computers[, one for each partner. And] every time one of [the pair would show] anger, sadness, defensiveness, disgust, neutrality, humor, affection – any of twenty different expressions – [it would be] coded … along with data of their heart rate and breathing … [Evaluators would assign] every [one of these] momentary interaction[s] a score: plus-one to plus-four for the good ones, negative-one to negative-four for the bad ones.”4“What Really Happens in Marriage.”
Gottman explains, “So if they do ‘a disgust’ they get a negative-four. If they do ‘a contempt,’ they get a negative-four.” If they parry with humor or understanding, perhaps they get a plus-two, a plus-four. “And the computer keeps track of when [these expressions] happen and how long they last.”5Ibid.
In an episode of This American Life, Ira Glass reports on Gottman’s work, allowing us listeners to press a glass to our neighbors’ wall.6Ibid. Glass and Gottman use language of “successful” and “unsuccessful” marriages, and some of that language finds its way into this sermon. Some marriages end, yet the divorced partners might still mark the relationship a “success,” whether for the advent of children, a learning from the experience, etc. I expect the reverse is true for some marriages that endure/d. In the radio program, we hear one such couple argue with increasing volume and intensity about a husband’s persistent tardiness. What begins about a single issue: “I can’t believe you made us late again;” quickly becomes sharply personal: “You don’t like to hear my voice, it’s just like the tone of your mother’s;” before a global indictment: “You don’t know what I would do, because you never give me a chance.”7Ibid. The audio-only format holds its force. I lightly edited these for context in the sermon.
Gottman observes, “This kind of fight, [the sort] that gets worse and worse [is a primary indicator] for couples heading for divorce. When they argue … they don’t take a break, they don’t see each other’s side, and they don’t accept influence.”8Ibid.
The psychologist explains, “Couples who are in [this], what we call the ‘attack-defend mode’ (where there’s [continually] escalating [conflict]), we can actually tell from the first three minutes of their conversation[, that most] will divorce very early, an average of five years after the wedding.”9Ibid.
The real power of the study proves neither its prognostications nor our eavesdroping nameless neighbors; rather, putting our ear to the glass, we hear our own relationships – husbands and wives, mothers and sons, neighbors and friends.
“When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak and taught them …”10Matthew 5:1-2. So begins Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which launches the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. Fewer than 25 verses since Jesus’ baptism, today we encounter Jesus at the very outset of his ministry, and this Sermon serves as a thesis for his life’s proclamation. He begins his premise paragraph with The Beatitudes:
“Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven …”11Matthew 5:3.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled …”12Matthew 5:6.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God …”13Matthew 5:9.
Just beyond today’s appointment, an affirming couplet: “You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus declares; and again: “You are the light of the world,” he encourages.14Matthew 5:13-14.
Jesus then leverages this generous opening to introduce more critical ideas, warning the crowds: “Do not think I have come to abolish the law … I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”15Matthew 5:16-17. Then, in a lengthy section of calls – “You have heard it said …” – and responses – “But I say to you …” – Jesus explains what fulfillment of the law, rather than mere adherence, will require:
“You have heard it said … ‘you shall not murder’ … But I say to you that if you are angry … you shall be liable to judgment.”16Matthew 5:21-22.
“Again, [you have heard it said,] ‘You shall not swear falsely …” But I say to you, “Do not swear at all.”17Matthew 5:33-34.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer … if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other …”18Matthew 5:38-39.
The back-and-forth – Blessed are … for they will … and You have heard that it was said … But I say to you … We can picture heaven’s psychology cubicles: weathered angels sitting at chunky desktop computers fenced by smoldering ashtrays and Diet Coke cans. With the eraser of a #2 they pull from their set, they tally our plus-twos and negative-fours in good Gottman style.19Matthew 5:38-39.
Taking a few steps back, we can let loose of some particulars here, and recognize the blessings and warnings make clear that the standard of fulfillment exceeds the standard of adherence. Likewise, we realize Jesus offers these catalogues not as exhaustive, but as illustrative, charging us to approach all the Law – indeed, all our lives – with the Sermon on the Mount’s fulfillment standard. Therefore, the power of Jesus’ sermon proves not that we can more specifically identify our neighbors’ graces or faults. Rather, returning our ear to the glass, we once more recognize our relationships – husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, neighbors and friends.
Ira Glass explains that one of Gottman’s studies had been underway for more than a decade when the scientist and his colleagues noticed a second group of couples they considered durable began divorcing. At first, the researchers could not figure out what was happening. Gottman had already demonstrated that couples who stay married disagree about the same amount as couples who divorce … that’s probably worth saying again: couples who stay married disagree about the same amount as couples who divorce. Further, his study demonstrated that couples basically disagree about the same issues: money, kids, intimacy, others, and time. So, if couples disagree about the same amount, and they disagree about the same issues, then why was this second set divorcing?
Before answering that question, I invite you to take the lens Gottman offers, and see through it our experience of Church: “Parishioners who stay in a church disagree with the parish and fellow congregants about the same amount as people who leave. Further, church members tend to disagree about basically the same issues: money, kids, intimacy, others, and time.” So Gottman might suggest that being a member of Trinity is like being married to 3,000 different people.
According to this study, the key to a successful marriage is not finding a person with whom one agrees on everything, no more than the key to a fulfilling Christian experience is finding a Church that exactly reflects one’s politics, philosophy, and theology. Rather, the keys remain core agreements that a couple or community unshakably share, and the practical dispositions they offer when encountering inevitable disagreements. And as both Gottman and the Beatitudes propose, there also must be more.
After re-evaluating these unexpectedly divorcing couples’ recordings, Gottman and his associates began to observe that there was “no positive emotion [being] shared. One of them [might] laugh, but the other one [would not]. One of them [might look] warm and interested, but the other [would pull] away. There’s just no fun,” he observes. “They don’t seem to enjoy each other at all.” These are the couples we see at a restaurant, sitting across a candlelit table looking at their smartphones.20[Hearing knowing laughter, he defensively adds] We all do this … right? “They can last a long time being quite unhappy[, but not quite unhappy enough.] They can be great parents, but especially after the kids leave home, they’re at risk for really falling apart.”
In time, Gottman would observe of loving couples, that for every negative mark in their relational score, they have FIVE positive marks.
I wonder what the affirmation-to-argument – blessing-to-warning – ratios are in our living rooms? Our car rides to school, to work? At our kitchen tables?
What are those ratios here in Trinity Church’s pews? In the Community Breakfast or coffee queue? Out in the city, serving?
Perhaps especially during an election season [though in these days, maybe every season has become an election season?], we ferry the attack-defend mode of our national politics and social-media feeds into our more local and even most personal relationships. We spend our first energies to guard ourselves from the approaching bad – the terrible!
We soldier toward this Tuesday beneath a gently swinging piano, hearing with every step the creaking of its taught wire. One strand of its braid pops, and we declare the risks of high hopes too great. Instead, we steel ourselves for either disaster or relief – like in an old cartoon, the piano either falling on top of us, or just behind our last step in a cloud of dust and sidewalk.
Extending Gottman’s categories to our civic life, I suspect most of us can find some sliver of common ground with most others in these United States, disagreeing about the same amount from one neighbor to another, about basically those same issues. Yes, hit that punchline again: life as an American can feel like being married to 343 million people … and unless we want to work tacitly for division, we must do better – must do more than only smugly tolerate those we consider on the other side of the idea, the aisle, the line.
From the Sermon on the Mount, the fulfillment standard is not simply a more rigorous avoidance of the bad or disagreeable, but a more devoted pursuit of the Good, the righteous! Finding strength in these pews (if nowhere else), we must dare righteousness – no matter the circumstances, no matter the electoral outcome. Even when the moment feels fraught, feels perilous, we take a break from arguing … we turn the other cheek … we make an effort to see one another’s side … we mine humility and offer mercy … we accept influence up to and including that wild possibility of admitting we were wrong or changing our position.
Claiming God’s love of us and all people as our unshakeable core, with such faithfulness Jesus promises blessing, calling us to “Rejoice and be glad!”21Matthew 5:12.
That faithfulness would come From These Stones,
Amen.