A WEdding Meditation

In Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth we read these words:

If I speak in the tongues of humans and of angels but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 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. ...

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. ... And now faith, hope, and love remain, these three, and the greatest of these is love

This morning in churches around the globe candles were lit. As we prepare for the coming of Christmas we light candles reminding us that we need hope, we seek peace, we look for joy and this morning a candle was lit to remind us that love is central to how God acts in the world. Love, I believe, is the creative word that brings out life. Love is the force that keeps us together.

Today we gather together to celebrate a particular face of love. We have come to celebrate with A&M as they declare their love for and commitment to each other. Marriage, at its best, is an incarnation of love. Family, at its best, is held together by love – both the families into which we are born and also the families which we choose, or which choose us.

Now if we are honest, marriage, family are not always easy. There are days we disagree, sometimes strongly. There are days we just need to spend time away from each other. The road of life sometimes has potholes or speed bumps or periods of construction. Thankfully love which flows from God is strong and resilient.

The love that Paul describes in his letter to Corinth is not just the love of Hallmark movies, of candlelight and roses. It is a love that is deep and resilient. It, as Paul says, bears all things, hopes all things, believes all things. This is the love that carries us through the tough days.

In marriage we make ourselves more vulnerable than in almost any other relationship. We choose to put our hearts and souls in the care of another person. And we do that knowing that neither of us is perfect. It is a great act of deep trust. Trust at that level comes from being loved by and loving the other. Trust at that level is something we need to hold very precious.

M&A, today a new family is being formed. To a degree it will combine the families from which you have come as you bring forward what you have learned about life from them. At the same time it will be something new, a place where the two of you will learn and grow together. May this new family be a place of deep trust and love. May it be a place where you both can continue to grow into who you were meant to be. As time passes may your love deepen and mature.

In the book of Ecclesiastes there is a passage that says:

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other, but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? ... A threefold cord is not quickly broken.

M&A, may you be there to pick each other up, to keep each other warm. And may God, who gives us love, who is best known through love, be the third strand in the cord of your life, the strand that adds strength and stability when the other two are stretched to their limit. May you be blessed, may you be a blessing to each other and to all others in your lives. Amen.