A Wedding Homily

Part of my role as officiant at the wedding was to preach a short homily. I like preaching, but I am never sure how well a sermon or homily is going to "work" until it is delivered. I am always aware that what I mean to be saying may be heard very differently. Doing this wedding homily made me more anxious than usual about all this--I would be preaching both to old friends and family who know me well but had never heard me preach, and to new acquaintences and new family. Scary, and humbling as well.

Here is what I preached. It was, I think, well received.

The Celebration and Blessing of a Marriage
June 24 2006

We come here together today in this beautiful and holy spot to celebrate and bless the marriage of M and J, an occasion we’ve been eagerly anticipating for some time now—anticipating because those of us who have come to know M and J as their parents, their grandparents, their godparents, their siblings and cousins and friends see in them so much promise—promise of love and caring and hope and passion, promise of a life together that can be rich and full and nourishing. Seeing that promise we want to nurture and support them as they forge their lives together.

Weddings are wonderful occasions for celebration —celebration that brings together family from near and far and that is certainly true at this wedding where family is present in full force. Families are complicated structures—tangled webs of relationships, weaving together individuals with distinct and characters and quirks into something new, something that both preserves and enhances the best parts of each individual. These webs of family at their best provide a network of love and support, of friendship and companionship for those who are part of that web. But the frailties of human nature mean that those same tangled webs can be the source of tremendous stress—from the aggravations of everyday life, from the mixing of people with different personalities and different backgrounds, from dealing with the unexpected bumps and bruises that life can bring. Being family is not always an easy thing.

The marriage of M and J signals the beginning of a new family—the weaving of a web of new relationships that brings together the family webs they are already part of, but that also is new and fresh, vital and growing, one that will no doubt change and develop its own character over time. At its best this new family web is one that will nourish the lives of M and J, bringing them joy and a sense of completeness. But realistically, we know that this same new family may at times bring them pain and sadness. As Madeleine L’Engle just reminded us, to marry, to become family is to take the biggest risk in human relations one can take. One cannot take the risk of great love without also taking the risk of great pain.

The words we speak today as M and J marry remind us that we are members not only of those complicated family webs created through birth and marriage, but also of the family of God. God our creator calls us to live fully, to embrace life with all its joys and sorrows, and God our parent nurtures and protects us, supporting us as we attempt to do so. God’s love for us is unconditional, yet God also calls us to live in a particular way, a way that reflects the boundless love God bestows on us. And how might we do that? One of the best pieces of advice I’ve seen comes from one of the readings suggested for weddings in the prayer book. This reading comes from the Letter to the Colossians and it says in part “…clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience…bear with one another…and forgive each other. Above all, clothe yourselves with love which binds everything together in perfect harmony”.

M and J, I give you these words as you come together today before God and this gathering of friends and family to pledge your love for one another, and your promise to live out that love in your lives together. Each of you comes as a fully formed individual, unique and special in your own way. You are choosing to go forward together in marriage, to weave a new web of family as you become partners on life’s journey—a journey that will no doubt be filled with joy and with sadness, with good times and bad, with rough waters and smooth sailing. My prayer for you as you proceed on this journey is that you may be open to an awareness of God’s presence and God’s love in your lives, not only in the times of joy but also in the times of sadness, and that that love and the love you have for each other may sustain you as you become individually and together more fully who God is calling you to be. May your life together as a new family in the family of God may be richly blessed.