After both of the readings we just heard, which Ian and Anna chose, but especially following the lesson from 1 John that Aunt Jane just read, I feel like maybe the best a preacher can hope to say in this moment is, “Yes! That! What she said.”
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God…Beloved, since God loves us so much, we also ought to love one another.” Do you hear how, read on this day, in this moment, these verses sound less like a should, like a thing to do, like a burden, and they become more like the opening of an impossible possibility made true? As if it has just dawned on the lover that the love of God, made known in Jesus, received in the heart, might be shared, with another person, across a lifetime, and this dawning comprehension fills both souls with life as when the sunrise breaks the night. “Beloved, since God loves us so much, we also ought to love one another.” We can love one another because “we have known and believe the love that God has for us.”
Amen, Aunt Jane, amen.
Onto this beautiful anchor, the gift of God’s love, I only want to add this one, hopeful encouragement:
Anna and Ian, you have no idea what you are doing. To say that you do not know what you are doing is not some snarky cynicism from a preacher; it is probably not even news to you. It is simply descriptively true. You know that you are promising to love each other, but you do not know what the love you promise will ask of you because life is beautiful and wild, full of gifts and also difficult. No one who gets married knows what they are doing. None of the rest of us who will witness your vows today know what you are doing, either. That’s why it is the church’s wisdom to cover all the bases: sickness and health, richer and poorer, better and worse. Because, who knows? Of course, life will almost certainly give you seasons to practice each of these, but those seasons will be only partly predictable. The unforeseen grief will seize you and you will not know why. From under the parched ground of the dry season you were certain would never end, the unexpected joy will bubble up. In every season, trust that you are loved. God is with you in it all. Let your trust of God’s love be the source of your love for one another. Let your marriage be a pilgrimage of trust. Or as Aunt Jane read to us, “God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
My family and I met Anna nearly five years ago. And we have known Ian for the past couple of years, too. I have known both of them to be incredible people. And I know in my head that incredible people are usually attached to other incredible people, so it is a great joy to finally see the rest of you. That Anna and Ian know God’s love and are able to share it today is probably at least mostly your fault. By your love lived in shapes of generosity and forgiveness, both extended and received, you have shown them what it means to abide in love, even when love is difficult and costly.
Ian and Anna, when love is difficult and costly, do not be afraid. This is not a sign that you are beyond love but that you are near the heart of the love of Jesus. Give and forgive and give and forgive one another and others again and again and again. Walk toward that love, even when you don’t see the way.
Finally, when it comes to your marriage, that you do not know what you are doing does not mean you shouldn’t, or can’t, do it. (And I guess it’s too late now.) No, it means that your marriage is a light of faith to the world. You know very well, and I have gotten to know in each of you, that God has given the two of you everything you need to walk this life together in ways that will grow God’s love in you and make you holy. What’s more, you do not do this thing you do not know alone. I mentioned them before, but take a second to look around and soak in all of those just in this space who are committing their love and their prayers to your flourishing. These are not spectators with scorecards in front of whom you will be asked to perform your lives. This is the Body of Christ that is with you and for you. Even as you deeply love, you are deeply loved.
And most of all by God.
“Love one another,” Jesus tells his friends, “just as I have loved you.”
Amen.
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