On Sunday, October 25 I was honored to officiate at the wedding of J and J, a delightful couple who had planned their entire wedding during the COVID pandemic and who ran into an array of pitfalls and difficulties that would have scared off many people. But not this couple. They persevered.
After the wedding I would drive to Augusta, GA where my mother-in-law would die the next morning from the effects of a massive stroke the week before. It was a huge contrast and working on the wedding message during the grief and sorrow of watching my mother-in-law decline into death made it all the more special. A new life together for J and J, and a life well-lived as my mother-in-law left this earth as her husband had done several years before, leaving her middle-aged children orphaned.
I'm not sure I would be sharing this otherwise, but given the circumstances, it's all pretty special to me. So here it is... the readings and wedding message from the wedding of J and J on Sunday, October 25, 2020.
It is remembering to say "I love you" at least once a day.
It is at no time taking the other for granted;
the courtship should not end with the honeymoon,
it should continue through all the years.
gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have wings of an angel.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful. It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner, it is being the right partner.
***
The second reading you requested is from the New Testament of the Bible,
In this passage Paul is speaking to the Christians in a place called Corinth who have been plagued with arguments. Paul is explaining a better way to be in relationship with one another with a rundown of the dos and don’ts of loving. Listen now:
1 Corinthians 13
13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Can you even believe you are standing here today?
It certainly has been a long haul. A global pandemic that keeps dragging on.
Job changes – even if you thought you are in the same job!
Uncertainty about the weather… uncertainty about all sorts of things.
Delayed planning – because that’s how it goes in a time of global pandemic.
But HERE. YOU. ARE.
Standing here in front of your closest friends and family members and in front of God. Defying the forces that would keep you apart and refusing to give in to the negatives that are so readily available to all of us right now.
Today, Josh and Jen, you have stepped forward in this time of extreme uncertainty to do something very definite.
You are getting married.
And you know, marriage is not a contract. It is not a thing that you can say “well, we said this and that, and you broke the contract, so that’s the end of that.”
What you are promising today is a vow. A covenant.
You are promising to be there for each other, to cling to one another, to turn away from everyone else and towards each other as you move through your life.
You are also promising that when things do not go well – and I am sad to tell you that there will be times when they most definitely do not go well – then you will work through it.
You will remember the covenant that you would be there for each other and you will work it out. You will do what it takes, because you will be married to each other.
We have talked about how you both think that Jesus was a pretty awesome person. That Jesus showed love in ways that sometimes did not make logical sense, but that always meant so much to the people being loved.
Even in his death, Jesus somehow managed to take care of his own needs in ways that helped him care for others. That is the kind of love you have said you want to have for each other. And the passage you picked from 1 Corinthians 13 is a very nice summary of the kind of love that Jesus demonstrated constantly.
When you show that Jesus-style love to each other it will show up as being patient and kind, not boastful or arrogant or rude. Even when the fashion is to make fun of others, you will look at each other and decide… I have a covenant with this person. I will not hurt their beautiful heart. I will love them before I throw those sharp barbs.
This kind of covenant love never ends. It rejoices in the truth – even really hard truths that mean saying “oh… yeah… I was wrong about that.”
It bears all things, including watching your beloved struggle with pain that you cannot heal no matter how badly you want to do just that. And instead of trying to fix things anyway, you turn to each other in love and support and being present for and with each other.
It means that even when you are irritable with one another you will not WANT to be irritable with one another, and at the end of the day you will always turn back to each other and soothe the hurt feelings with the balm of love.
Today you are putting away childish ways of being together and choosing the adult way of caring for each other with a self-sacrificing love.
TODAY you are making that bond. No matter what happens in the future, today is the start of your marriage, the start of loving each other with covenant love that is worth the work it will take to make it endure.
And if you can remember that covenant to love each other, then someday when your dream of having children together comes true, those children will be born to parents who are bonded together.
When those children come, and you both love them to the moon and back, my hope is that you remember that being parents is not the same as being married. The best gift you will give your children is to love each other with the covenant love you are promising today. To make a home for them that is secure because you are secure with each other.
That will mean continuing to turn to each other even when the babies are crying, or the middle schoolers are being endlessly inconsistent or your grown children are so beautiful that you hardly have eyes for anyone else.
When that temptation comes, remember the vow you are making here today. Make sure to always have eyes for each other first.
Starting today you are binding yourselves to each other legally and emotionally, spiritually and physically. Today is the day you are announcing your commitment to the whole world – your intention to practice loving each other every day in the little things and through the big things.
Remember that joy. Remember that it is the love of Jesus you seek to share. Remember each other.
Amen.
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