I wonder how many of you spotted the extra word – one that would have been in every marriage ceremony 40 years ago but was used today for the first time this year in this church?

The bible uses the images of family love as a picture of the love that God has for us. Relationship is the core of the Christian faith – not living a good life – if virtue was the defining mark of a Christian then the church would be full of Ruths. It’s not; it’s full of sinners. The love of God is there whether we deserve it or not, it never changes, it is unaffected by what we do or say or think. It is impossible to stop God from loving you.

That love is the one that decided to live and die as one of us, to bear itself the pains and grief that we bring upon ourselves, to literally crucify what we have done wrong. All we have to do is to respond to that love, to return. For relationships are two-way.

The relationship between husband and wife is used to illustrate the relationship which Jesus longs to have with his people. It is when Paul is writing about this that he makes the almost throw-away remark “wives, submit to your husbands” which Mr Cranmer put into the marriage service in 1549 as obey. A bit of theology here – the Greek for submit is part of the same word as subdue – it means that I voluntarily overcome, I fight against my own desires so that I will go with you, follow you, anywhere, regardless. It is the response of love to the love that is freely given. It is the response that Jesus calls us to make.

What Mr Cranmer omitted to include was the much longer passage that Paul adds after that simple command to wives. He says “husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” The love of Jesus was total, absolute sacrifice. He gave his very life to set his bride free.

A wife is the greatest treasure you can be given. God has entrusted your bride to your care and you are called to love her without measure, without needing cause or reason, to maintain that love regardless of what happens in the future, to be willing to sacrifice your wants, your desires, your needs so that she can be truly herself.

You have committed yourself to go with your husband wherever life takes you in the future, not as a burden but a loving support. To hold on to him in the bad times and to dance with him through the good.

Together you have committed yourselves to live out these vows within the love of God, Father Son and Holy Spirit. There is no more important journey for you to make as a couple than that you discover together the enormity of God’s love for you – it is greater than you have ever imagined. It is in that love that you can truly fulfil the vows you have made.

The Saturday after September 11^th 2001

One newspaper headline I saw on Wednesday morning asked: “Is this the end of the world?” Amidst the terrible images and sounds of the past week I found three causes for hope. The first two are similar: the picture of fire officers running up the stairs of a doomed building; and the voice of a man telling his wife they were going to bring down the plane they were on so that it could not be used as a missile. Jesus said “Greater love has no-one than this, that they lay down their lives for their friends”. I think for once Jesus did not go far enough. How much greater is the love of those who lay down their lives for people they have never met? If that sense of self‑sacrifice is preserved and honoured in our communities then the world did not end on Tuesday.

My third cause for hope is today. Here and in thousands of churches, registry offices, hotels and hot air balloons, men and women like Kerry and Mark will pledge their lifelong commitment to, and love for, each other.

For in marriage, the ideal of humanity and of divinity is found. The biblical story tells of people springing from a single being – the earth creature formed from the dust. Recent genetics studies suggest that indeed we can all trace our descent through a common ancestor. Adam and Eve, man and woman, each one of us, were formed from the one being. We were made as one to be one.

After God had made them man and woman, he placed them back together, side-by-side, and in their delight and tenderness they became again the one creature. You were made to be together to discover what it is to be truly human.

The Genesis story has God saying, let us make mankind in our own image, so in the image of God he created them, male and female he created them. I do sometimes wonder about God when I look at my image in the bathroom mirror. You were brought together to discover for yourselves something of the nature of God, the unity that causes us to see God as one, yet the individuality that allows us to know him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You were made to be together to know what it is to be divine.

There is one quality that you must have to discover and preserve this depth of knowledge. It is the kind of love that Paul writes about, the love that took Jesus to the cross, the love that drove a fireman to his death. It is a deliberate decision to put the needs of others before my own, and specifically within marriage, to put my lover’s needs before my own. It is the decision to seek good and not evil.

This day, this service, is your declaration to your family and friends, to the world at large, that you have chosen this way of life. And that because of that choice there is a future for you, for your family, for your community.

Tomorrow and in the years to come, do not look in the mirror for the image of God; you will not see it there. Do not look into your own life, your work, your needs, it is not there. But look deep into your lover and deep into your love for each other and there you will see what God saw when he started this whole crazy business we call human life and love - the true image of God.

Love

The original languages of the bible use four different words that we now translate as love, and each has an important place in marriage.

The first is devotion, the total giving up of one to another. The original meaning was to sacrifice by fire, but I don’t recommend it. Some are devoted to a football club, some to a car, some to a house. You have devoted yourselves to each other: all that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you.

The second love is sexual love. In the bible this is what constitutes a marriage. It is the re-forming of the perfect creature. You remember the story of how God made an earth creature – it is only our translation that makes it man – and placed it in the garden of Eden? He then tore the creature in two whilst it slept and formed from it a man and a woman, and then, placed them back together. And in bodily love you again become that perfect creature that God first made.

Look after your earth creature as you fulfil your vows: With my body I honour you, and: forsaking all others, be faithful to you as long as we both shall live

The third love is family love – motherly, brotherly love. It is that indefinable commitment to our own people. In this service you started on the side of your own family, but when you walk out of the church you will be walking with the family of your beloved.

Each of these loves is emotional, physical, affected by our moods. But Paul introduces us to another kind of love. This is a love that is a deliberate decision about how we behave.

This love decides to be patient and kind. Not to envy, be proud or boastful. Never to be rude. Not to seek what I want. Not allowing myself to get cross. Most importantly in marriage, not to keep a record of past wrongs.

Rather I decide to bear my lover’s burdens, to love, comfort, honour and protect. To believe in my lover and in our marriage, remembering that I gave you this ring as a sign of our marriage. To hope for the future, each day looking from this day forward. And to endure, to keep going, to keep working at our relationship: for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.

Devotion may falter, the flame of passion may dim, family love may be strained. Without the love that you have vowed today, you would soon become a clanging gong and clashing cymbal.

But you have been brought together to love and to cherish, till death us do part.

We pray that God will give you the grace to live the vows you have made today, to be a beautiful love song.

Candles

For reasons I’ll leave the groom to explain, I’d expected our couple to choose the reading about Jesus at the wedding with no wine or the story about the bridesmaids who were not ready.

But they chose a reading that reflects their understanding of marriage and their commitment to each other.

A story of one of Jesus’ conflicts with the religious people of his day where he takes their rules and makes them ten times harder. It is in contrast to his dealings with those who admit to failing. Faced with an adulterous woman he looks round at her accusers and tells them to stone her as it requires in their law – but adds “and let him who is without sin throw the first stone.” And they slink away, and the one who sets such a high standard for marriage tells this woman to go in peace. It is the paradox of God and of faith – the only standard is perfection but the offer to those who admit to failing is perfect mercy.

Enough theology. Let me tell you a story.

We were showing some children around the church and a little 5 year old sat in this pew and declared “I feel so safe in here”.

There’s been a church here for about 900 years. It’s had its ups and downs. At one point the roof almost fell in. One vicar kept his horse in the side chapel. The village moved away, nearer the Bell.

In happier times the people lavished their care and attention on it, each restoration making it yet more lovely.

It has seen happy days –marriages Christenings, harvests, Christmases, Easter days. It has seen sad days, holding its people through sickness, famine, death and war. And here it stands, solid, a symbol of stability in an unstable world.

It almost didn’t stand – I left some candles burning here a few weeks ago. Fortunately someone came and put the fire out. It’s not storms or floods that destroy buildings like this, but little flames.

The church is actually two main buildings and some later additions – the oldest parts are the choir area and the side chapel. Two different buildings, each lovely, but together truly beautiful. The original bit had a solid wall at its side, but then the wall was taken away and the two became one.

You were made to be together, to be one, to be truly beautiful. May your marriage be to you like this church, a place to be safe, to celebrate, to hold you in sorrow, to be itself loved and restored.

And, if you leave a candle burning, put it out quickly.

Faith, Hope and Love

There are three levels of believing – knowledge, faith and hope. There are things we can know as fact; where the evidence is not so strong we need faith, and where there is no evidence at all we need hope. So, as Christians we know that Christ died, we have faith that he rose from the dead and we hope that he will return and that we will share in his life after our death.

In your marriage, you will have the fact of this day. You were married and there were dozens of witnesses. But Paul, who wrote the passage that Joe read to us ignores fact – it’s not important to him. He is writing to a church troubled by arguments, immorality, and most of all fear – why do we suffer? Why do we die? What happens next? Paul ignores the facts – this life is temporary and we will never fully understand it. We are like flowers in the field, but faith, hope and love last beyond our despair, beyond even death.

Your marriage faith is based on your experience, which will never leave you, of the past years together, and especially the families you grew up in. Your marriage hope lives in your shared dreams, which will never dim, maybe of children, of lazy summer days together, or of being grey haired and playing trains in the back garden. But the greatest thing you have is your love. Not Eastenders love, that will pass, but the love that puts my lover’s needs before my own, that cries when they cry, dances with them when they rejoice; that believes their perfection, that hopes for their happiness that endures when perfection fails or happiness melts away. Such love never ends.

A Good Wife

Proverbs 31 and John 15

The book of Proverbs, a collection of wise sayings, which was probably compiled a few hundred years before the birth of Jesus, has a theme running through it in which the young man to whom it is addressed is warned about chasing after the brazen hussy of self-seeking pleasure and encouraged to seek the good-natured, gentle wife of wisdom. So this hymn of praise to a woman of sickening perfection is actually a hymn of praise to the wisdom that the young man should seek, and it is wisdom that will bring him all he desires.

So, does that let our bride off the hook? Not really. From the earliest times this passage was taken as describing the perfect wife. In many Jewish homes this passage formed part of the Friday night ritual, when a woman’s husband and children would recite it to her. The funny thing is that it is most unlikely, my Marilyn excepted of course, that such a woman ever existed. But that did not stop this being used in homes which had never seen a scrap of purple cloth and who could never scrape together the cash for a field let alone a vineyard. For perfection, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

So what appears to be a description of wifely perfection turns out to be a description of how a husband is called to see his wife, no matter what their circumstances, no matter what her abilities.

The slightly awkward arrangement of the thoughts come from this being an acrostic poem – which means that in the original Hebrew, the first line begins with the letter aleph and each subsequent line begins with the next letter of the alphabet. To the writer it was more important that the poem kept to the rules than that it went together neatly. Marriage is rarely a perfect match, no matter what Jane Austen says, and you are called to stick to those rules that define your marriage, the vows that you made to one another, even if the result looks a little messy

And a final bit of theology –

These acrostic poems occur throughout the Old Testament. There is one in Psalm 111, which mirrors the thoughts of this passage from Proverbs, except that the person addressed is God. In all our lives, but most especially in marriage, we are called to mirror the image of God in which we were made. Back in the Genesis story we are told that he made us in his own image, as male and female, as husband and wife. In the psalm, God is portrayed as generous, creative, and steadfast in his love. In our second reading, Jesus tells us that the defining characteristic of both God and his followers is self-denying love; the love that is blind to the other’s faults but far seeing of their needs, that is deaf to its own desires but alert to the unspoken cry for help.

You are not to consider each other as servant, but you are to serve each other. You are not to demand anything but you are to give everything. You did not make each other your own, but you have given yourselves freely to each other. And that is how you are to continue, as a good wife and a noble husband, living with wisdom.

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