Tag Archives: wedding

Marriage is Made in Heaven — So is Thunder and Lightning

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Please read Song of Solomon 8:6-7 and Ephesians 5:22-32

In my stocking this past Christmas Santa gave me a fridge magnet with the following printed on it: “Marriage is Made in Heaven … But so is Thunder and Lightning!”

I appreciate the positive implication of the humour: Marriage is not an idea born from a fairy tale dream of marrying a princess/prince. A healthy marriage is not approached in abstraction, but manifested in real time, in the real world, in real, honest relationships worked out “on the ground.”

And real, healthy relationships also include conflict.

Conflict can be bad, but conflict can be good too. In your vows you wrote a line that implies clearly the potential benefit of facing conflict in your marriage. I appreciate your heads-up, real approach to your marriage. You are not distorting a vision of your marriage by an idealism that denies these sometimes hard realities we all face in relationship.

If marriage and thunder and lightning come from the same place – God, then what can we say about a healthy marriage grounded in reality, not abstraction?

The scriptures you have chosen for your wedding reflect this bold, real approach to your marriage. The text from Ephesians is certainly one that causes much conversation in Christian circles. So, let’s take a brief look at this text. The critical verses in succession are 22, 25 and 31; and, in each let’s focus on the verbs therein:

22. Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands

25. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her

31. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh

From a reading of this text I gather, first, that a healthy marriage is characterized by mutuality. What is “mutuality”? Strictly defined, mutuality is demonstrated when: What you want from the other is what you give to the other. A healthy marriage reflects this dynamic. A healthy marriage is mutual when both members have something to give.

As I said, you are bold to have chosen the text from Paul’s letter from Ephesians to be read at your wedding, especially in this day and age. Often in this text we zero in on is that line where wives must “submit” to their husbands. And we presume that if a marriage will last, it’s all on the woman’s shoulders to make it work; that is, she must always submit to her husband’s whims and wishes. In this case marriage feels more like a one-way street, does it not?

But we make a mistake if we stop there, not to mention creating a distorted image of a healthy marriage. Because later in this scripture Paul instructs the husband to love his wife as Christ loved the church; that is, the husband is called to “give himself up” — sacrifice –himself for the sake of his wife.

In short, both wife and husband have something to give. Submission and Sacrifice are properly exercised in the context of mutuality. If you want your partner to submit and sacrifice to you, then you must also submit and sacrifice yourself to him or her. It’s the only way it will work.

An important life skill learned and practiced by many couples in healthy marriages is the ability to compromise. Let me define “compromise” as the ability to let go of — release your grip on — your total, perceived sense of rightness.

The ability of this giving is fueled by responding to the needs of the other rather than compulsively seeking self-centred solutions to problems – and it goes both ways of course. Both partners have to operate this way, so that both partner’s needs are met.

Perhaps another way of understanding how this is possible is through the process of detachment and attachment. You have to leave something before arriving at the new thing.

For example, imagine taking a ferry boat to cross a channel of water. In order to complete the journey, you first have to step off, leaving an old land, in order to step onto a new country, a new piece of land. It’s impossible to have one foot in the past and the other in the now and future. It’s impossible to demand a total agreement of your point of view in a dispute and still claim a fair marriage. It’s impossible to experience something new and better in your marriage without first letting go, or giving up, a way you normally respond; for example, reacting impulsively the same way to your spouse’s behaviour, every time.

What do you have to give up? To each their own …. is it pride, is it the need to be right all the time? “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?” — another provocative proverb for marriage. In short, you can’t have healthy relationships — in marriage, in the church, at work, in families — unless ALL members learn how to compromise.

The Amish have a period of time, “rumspringa”, during adolescence when teenagers detach from their community for a time. Then most (80 percent) reattach. This experience speaks on the importance in the growth of someone as one leaves a phase of life and transitions ot the next. It also speaks of the need to “detach” from only thinking about your own interests, your own “world”, your own world views …. in order to embrace in love the other’s.

Detachment and attachment means loss, change, yes. It also leads to growth, personal development, and maturity in love. I heard from someone recently a wise comment: They said that we grow more from bad experiences than good experiences; we grow more from those challenging, difficult situations in life than the mountaintop experiences. Facing those hard times square-on makes us grow.

How than can we approach marriage with realism, but without getting mired in negativity and sulking in continuous despair?

Your selection of poetry from Song of Solomon presents a very real depiction of love, a love that is put alongside death. How bold! How real! Love can exist in full passion and strength without denying the hard realities of life.

Your choice to get married is such an expression. You could have chosen not to. But you chose life and love in the midst of all that assails you.

While the text from Song of Solomon at first appears to equate love and death, a further reading may give love the upper hand. The first part of the pericope says that love is as strong as death, passion as fierce as the grave.

But then the latter part of the passage tips its hat to love: not even one of the strongest forces of nature on this planet — water — can overcome love. After all, the force of water can over time literally move mountains; water can pound boulders into sand. Not even the force and strength of water can, however, overcome the power of love.

And while in a real marriage our human love is imperfect, it still has great power for the good. And what is more, the power of God’s love for you and your family is greater than anything we can imagine on earth and in heaven. The power of God’s love assures us that what unites us in relationships is stronger, much stronger, than whatever divides us.

And that’s what we’re here today to celebrate and affirm in our coming together.

On the surface thunder and lightning can scare us. It certainly does me! But thunder and lightning also signifies a positive change in the air mass. Thunder and lightning often means that the air that was once heavy, humid and oppressive needs to change to a climate where the air is clean, light, fresh. And where we can all breathe once again.

Marriage is indeed made in heaven. Thank God so is thunder and lighthing!

Let’s sing together now, “Love Divine, All Love’s Excelling!”

Marriage and Radical Love

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RADICAL LOVE

We are here today because you …. [names] …. have invited us to be with you in this very special moment in your lives. I count myself among those who feel very much honoured to witness to the celebration of your love for each other, and the blessing of God upon your marriage.

Indeed, I suspect we are doing this because you want your relationship — which began years ago — to endure long after this day. You want your relationship of marriage to be strong and long-lasting. You want your marriage to be rooted, and grounded, in the love you share, and the love given to you.

We want this because we know the challenges that will come to your marriage. The storms of life will come: Disappointments. Failures. Illness. Circumstances of life often beyond our control cause us anxiety, fear and suffering. And these can have devastating results on our marriage.

We are enjoying this moment together outside. And we can easily see much of the natural beauty of creation, including the many trees surrounding us.

Trees have been in the news lately, what with hurricane Irene and the record number of tornadoes across this continent over the summer. Billions of dollars of damage, and most of the lives lost in the recent hurricane due to fallen trees in the storms. It seems the trees were the focus of much of the problems from the wind storms.

I just have to look outside in our backyard where the top of a birch tree was ripped off in that wicked storm in Pembroke last month. This image reminds me of an important quality of a healthy marriage: Radical love – rooted love, grounded love – the love of God given to us, and born in our hearts, each and everyone one of us gathered here today.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “The wise man in the storm prays to God not for safety from danger but deliverance from fear.” So it seems to me that the issue is more about our response to the storm rather than the storm itself. Wise people are able to respond in ways that help not hinder their way forward through the storms of life. They are somehow able to remain rooted in themselves and in spiritual truth – I would say, the presence and love of Christ.

And Jesus demonstrated a radical kind of love. “Radical” means the “root” of something, the “source” of whatever it is you are describing. How is this radical love manifested in our lives? What are some signs of the love for which we gather this day?

The one thing we tend to overlook in assessing all the damage wreaked on the land from the wind storms – is all the trees, even ancient ones, that withstood the onslaught. What is it about these trees that have contributed to their endurance?

  1. Healthy trees have an innate ability to bend, to yield, in adversity and in the storm. True strength of character, in a relationship, comes not in remaining rigid and unmoving and stuck-in-a-rut. Otherwise, you’ll break. True strength of being is not about flexing power and muscle and bull-dozing through your point-of-view in an uncompromising, unyielding fashion. True love does not, in Saint Paul’s words, “insist on its own way” (1 Corinthians 13:5). The trees that survive the storms and endure over time are trees that from their youth on, have bent over almost touching the ground in the storms. They have not been shielded from the wind but exposed to them right from the start. I think this is wholesome advice at the beginning of a marriage; usually it’s in the first year or so that the greatest challenges to the marriage surface. The art of compromise, the intuition for mutual giving and receiving is balanced in a healthy two-way marriage. Some of the oldest trees, the Redwoods in California, I am told, intertwine their roots together; and elsewhere, even the tops of the trees offer mutual support through their branches being inter-connected. What a lovely image for marriage, in meeting the storms of life. True strength equals mutuality, compromise.
  2. Trees already have everything they need in their very DNA, their make-up, to not only survive but flourish: The leaves are created to capture the light from sun, converting the sun’s rays to life-giving nutrients and oxygen; the bark protects; the roots are planted in the earth for water they need to grow. Often in marriage it’s easier to focus on the negative, especially when stress-levels rise. But that is a choice. Let’s not forget the positives. And they are many: you already have everything you need in order to make this work. You already have everything you need, not only to survive, but flourish! The second insight is to see the good in each other, acknowledge it. Why? Because we already have “the technology” in us. As much as we are limited, broken people, we are also wired for goodness.
  3. I heard this week a statement that has stuck: “To love, is to be still.” On occasion I have walked early in the morning through a forest. At dawn, a forest is normally quiet, and still. It is truly a beautiful time and place to be. In that stillness love grows in my heart for all of creation. Sometimes in our hectic, high-octane, busy lives, we distract ourselves to oblivion. We are moving constantly, rushing here and there, getting this and that, that we can forget to breath. We forget to be with ourselves. To be still before the Lord (Psalm 46:10). In my marriage many of the precious, loving moments I spend with Jessica are those times in the canoe, paddling silently. Or, sitting quietly beside each other watching a sunset, or reading quietly together. “To love, is to be still.” Nurture the quiet, still, small voices in each other. Remember, God came to Elijah not in a whirlwind or fire ablaze, but in a still, small voice (1 Kings 19:12). Silence is the language of God. And, God is love. (1 John 4:8)

Trees that grow out of their roots, ultimately reach to the sky. People committed to each other in marriage grow out of this radical love, the love God, the glue in your marriage. Married couples ultimately reflect the love of God to the world. Like the tops of the trees reaching to the sky for light and life, our lives reflect and receive and yearn for God.

You are getting married according to a Christian tradition, because you want God to bless your life together. And we worship a God, we praise a God, we give thanks to a God, who went the distance – so to speak – in proving his radical, self-giving, love for us all, in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus gave himself in love, showing us the way to overcome the storms of life together and trust in the ever-present love of God in us and with us.

A Royal Wedding

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Colossians 3:12-17 ” … above all clothe yourselves with love …. ”

Over this past spring and summer, Canadians especially have been enamored by both the royal wedding and royal visit to Canada by Prince William and Kate Middleton. They have become an iconic couple and are changing the perception of the Monarchy especially for younger generations.

Their wedding was royal, to be sure — what with all the pomp and circumstance and world-wide media attention.

If you can imagine with me the various media images of the couple you have seen, would you not agree that what they are wearing bears significantly on their royal identity? Of who they are? After all, who but royalty would don a wedding dress designed by Sarah Burton costing half a million dollars?

Well, just for the record, you two look beautiful, and everything about today — what you are wearing and what is happening here makes you a Prince and Princess in the Kingdom of God. Maybe in the eyes of the world — at least according to the tradition surrounding the Monarchy — you are not a Royal Couple. But, make no mistake about it, in God’s eyes — you are precious, you are beloved, and you are blessed.

On their wedding, Kate and William officially became the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge; on this day, you arrived here as if crowns have already been placed upon your heads.

The Holy Scriptures call us to put on clothing befitting the people of God. What we wear, so to speak, how we behave, what people notice about us – these are all born from an inner source. Saint Paul in his letter to the Ephesians (chapter 4) calls us to be strengthened in our “inner being”.

None of us gathered here may be able to afford a Sarah Burton wedding dress for people to take notice. But when we clothe ourselves with “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience .. and above all love … bearing with one another … and forgiving others”, people will also take notice. When we clothe our lives with these qualities, well, then, we are the royalty of God in the world, the royal priesthood.

Despite all the foofaraw surrounding the wedding of Kate and William, many observers did not fail to notice the most significant moment in the exchange of vows between them. At that moment, what people noticed were the authentic, simple, heart-felt, quiet and mutual expressions of love between the two of them.

“Above all clothe yourself with love.” Love knows no hierarchy. The capacity to love is a gift we all hold in our hearts. The capability to love is the only qualification for royalty in God’s eyes. And this gift will give you a much greater resource than an expensive wedding dress, to deal with all the challenges that married life brings.

It is the love and grace of God born in your hearts that will help you navigate together through the challenges, disappointments, failures, joys and sorrows that life brings to us all. When things don’t go our way, or when things aren’t perfect in the world’s eyes, the gift of grace will help you see things for what they are, and see other people for who they are — God’s precious creation, God’s beloved people.

Today, you present this truth in your coming together to affirm that it is indeed the gift of God’s love that binds you to one another. It is the gift of God’s grace that ultimately defines your marriage. It is the gift of God’s love that will ultimately transform our lives for the better, and through us, the world.

Thanks be to God.