Wedding Homily 9/5/2015
I’ve never enjoyed working with a couple as much as I have with both of you and not just because I take full credit for your recent house purchase and will now be doubling my hourly rate for all future pre-marital counseling services. I already told my husband that you guys are good to go. I could’ve totally just say “you’ve got this” and lead you into the vows but I think that would just relieve Andrew way too much and it’s your wedding, not your birthday, Andrew.
Twelve years from now you two will be trying to get to a wedding; maybe a close friend, a family member, a work colleague you barely know….and the babysitter will call two hours before you need to leave the house to say she is sick and can’t make it and one of you will text the other in a panic and the other may or may not text back depending on your luck and you’ll scramble to find a fill in and to pack up your kids bag and to get the pets out to go potty and one of you will predictably be running behind and the other one of you will chase them around like a referee on a soccer field reminding them that you need to leave in 5 minutes and 10 minutes later they will finally sign the wedding card as you shout from the lawn “SHE POOPED!” “SHE POOPED!” and maybe that’s about a kid or maybe that’s about a pet but either way this is good news and the envelope will be sealed and the family will be literally pushed down the stairs while simultaneously screaming and singing and talking and arguing and you’ll get the kids buckled in their seats close, the door, open your own sit down, start the car and realize you have no shoes on …and because you are married, because you are going to say your vows to live this crazy life together through all the up, up, highs and all the low, low downs, you’ll have someone to look at and laugh about the crazy, exhausting, fabulous life you have built. This, to me, is why God offered us the opportunity of marriage.
All week I have been thinking about how unique officiating this wedding is for me. I don’t do many weddings and when I do officiate weddings it is never in this church I call my spiritual home nor is it for a couple that has asked for premarital counseling. The weddings I do typically are for lovely couples who have no connection to any church, want really nothing to do with any church, and begin their inquiry for my services with a distinct request to get them to the reception as quick as possible. When it comes to weddings I think of myself as more of a ceremony broker than a spiritual resource. It seems too often people look at wedding as more of a party than a ritual to be faithful too. The first time we met I knew this was not the case for either of you but I also did not predict that I would be the one standing here with you on this day; Jordan found comfort in the ritual and tradition of the Catholic Church and Andrew wanted to marry Jordan in the church he had grown up in. We needed a Catholic priest who would perform a ceremony in a Methodist Church. I made a few phone calls to friends. I made a few cold calls to well-known Catholic congregations. I googled various phrases that are way to embarrassing to disclose in front of all of you today just hoping to find some Catholic-Methodist Hybrid that would fully embody the roots of both of you…and, well, long story short…here I am.
I am so glad I am. Neither of you know this but you have given me a gift. See every time a couple approaches me about getting married or doing counseling I jump to what I like to call panicked referral. This I’ve decided it for two reasons; Jesus was never married and I have been married for twelve years which means “what do I know.” Marriage is hard; its so hard and its so wonderful and its so infuriating and its so life giving and all of these ingredients go into this nonstop blender we call marriage. So here’s the deal. Whenever I know I don’t know what I’m doing when I’m doing it; like being a wife or a mother or a pastor…I look at Jesus and I say, “Jesus what did you do?” only here’s a spoiler alert; Jesus was never a mother or a wife and he certainly never did all three in spite of being the Holy Son of God and so we just don’t always know. We don’t always know exactly what Jesus would have done when his wife told him washing the coffee pot was super important to her and she woke up and it was dirty and she just lost it on him. We don’t know what Jesus would have done when work needed him but he hadn’t seen his wife in three nights. We don’t know. But we do know what love looks like. And we do know that marriage is the embodiment of this Trinitarian relational love flowing through two people committed never to give up on one another. God doesn’t show us how to Love; God is Love. And over and over we will depend on God to love the other person for us when we fall short. We can’t do this thing on our own. It’s not just a party; sometimes it a hail storm. There’s grace in not having a marital to-do list because in the absence of Jesus marital experience and in the fullness of God’s love and grace you get to love one another you’re way; a unique way; you get to make mistakes and ask for second chances and take risks and laugh often and loud and together.
Jordan, Andrew’s already said his non-negotiable is essentially if you were to steal a car, kidnap your children, and run through a store front window. So I may be going out on a limb here …but I think you’ve got this. You do have to speak up. This is going to be tough because sometimes you won’t even know what you’re trying to say. So here’s my gift to you today….Even when you don’t know why you’re upset I give you permission to say “I am upset but I don’t know why.” You have to remind yourself with this ring on the finger that all those deep, wise, thoughts that run through your gifted mind need to be shared with Andrew. And Andrew….you are going to be in trouble. Often. It’s the way it is. You’re challenge is going to be to never get to the point where that doesn’t matter to you, where you grow tired, or where you give up. No matter how ridiculous or complicated or beyond reason the actual issue might be that dumps you into the doghouse; the real issue is that your partner, your love, is feeling lost or alone or afraid or sad or abandoned and your job is not to fix these feelings or these problems but to be present with her through every moment of them.
I had a seminary professor once tell me that marriage as an institution, as a contract, is there to hold us together when nothing else does. This sounds miserable but after a short twelve years of marriage I can tell you, really, it’s anything but. This security, this marriage it will be the helium in your life’s balloon. You get to have crazy days. Days you forget your shoes and lose your ring and cry your eyes out and beat your head against a wall and still, still, you turn, and laugh with the one you love.
