Introduction
This is a wedding homily I preached for a couple in, Beatrice, Neb., on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2010.
Readings
Deuteronomy 28:1–2
1 Corinthians 12:31–13:13
Message
In “Beautiful Boy,” John Lennon sang,
“Life is just what happens to you
while you’re busy making other plans.”
When we stop to think about all the twists and turns
that have brought us together here today
to celebrate your marriage, Beatrice and John,
we could fill a book.
It would tell the story of the lives that have happened to us,
the plans that we made in hope
and then have set aside
when reality came knocking on our doors.
John was a great musician,
but he was not much of a man of faith.
And so he really missed out on something we all share.
Life has happened to us—
both the joyful and the painful—
but underneath all of our lives
we find the strong and compassionate arms of God.
He watches over us and cares for us.
He knows when we are filled with joy
and when we are weighed down by grief.
He is patient with us when we stray from him,
and he is relentless in finding ways
to draw us back, closer to him.
And so we could change what John wrote,
and we could sing instead,
“God is who watches over us
while we’re busy making other plans.”
That’s true and it’s a comfort,
but there’s more to our faith than that.
God not only watches over us and cares for us,
he desires for us to love and to follow him
and to love and to care for one another.
He blesses us with the gifts to do just that.
In today’s world, in our common culture,
we don’t much like the word “obedience.”
We don’t want anyone telling us what to do.
But obedience to God is not a burden;
it’s a privilege and a joy.
That’s what lies behind
that passage from Deuteronomy we just heard.
Obedience and blessing go hand-in-hand.
God gives us the faith to trust him.
And when we trust, we naturally love and obey him.
And when we obey him, he pours out his blessings upon us.
That’s one half of what Jesus tells us
lies at the center of living by faith.
He says we ought to love God with all that is in us
and love our neighbors as ourselves.
The other half is what Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians.
This is the love we share with others,
most especially with our spouses.
In marriage God blesses us with a partner
and he calls us to give ourselves in love.
And together, John and Beatrice,
you share a love given to you by God,
one that “bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:7, NRSV)
And that is enough,
enough to celebrate this day,
enough to sustain you each and every day,
so that you may abide confidently, obediently,
in the “faith, hope, and love” of God our heavenly Father. Amen.