Of Preaching at A Score of Weddings and Three Score and Ten Funerals

Recently this blog turned fifteen. It has been far from viral but I’ve enjoyed writing it and it has been interesting to watch and wonder at the number of visits over the years. Sometimes they are thinly and evenly spread from around the world as things putter along. And then there has been the occasional burst of interest from Russia, of all places, to the tune of hundreds of views for a few days. Perhaps our brief (and most enjoyable) visit to St Petersburg in 2015 excited the fevered imagination of some algorithm or other, or one of their hack-factories is assessing my Anglican scribblings as a potential vehicle for cyber mischief. But I digress. 

The most traffic has been not so much to do with the potential for espionage as it has been funeral and wedding sermons related—of which there are around 70 and 20 or so posted on GENEralities respectively. I don’t know whether anyone has gleaned any useful ideas from them or found them helpful, but they get the most clicks. The two most visited are a funeral sermon delivered on Holy Saturday in 2012—22, 600 visits—and a sermon for a wedding in July of the same year—21, 100 visits. You can read them here and here. 

Why these two in particular? I have no idea. 

To let you in on a little secret, the thing about my funeral and wedding sermons, especially the funeral ones, is that they’re pretty much all the same. Perhaps people have noticed and are too polite to say anything. If ever I was asked to suggest readings for a funeral, as happened frequently, I always suggested Ecclesiastes 3 (There’s a Time for Everything) and John 14 (In My Father’s House Are Many Rooms). Then I would try to weave the story of the person who had died and the people who were remembering him or her into the Biblical story and draw their attention to Jesus and what he can do for them. So my funeral sermons were variations on that same theme. Over and over again. 

Weddings tended be variations on the 1 Corinthians 13—The Love Chapter—theme. Which is not about weddings as much as it is about how to do the charismatic gifts and church. But it can be spun into loving one another and a discussion about the difference between the love the couple have fallen into and the agapé-1-Corinthians-13-Jesus-kind-of-love they will have to rise into if their marriage is to grow and last. 

The truth is that most of the people who are there are not really thinking about Jesus or the things of God. They’re grieving and thinking about the loved one or friend who has died or they’re wishing the nuptial couple well and looking forward to the fun of the reception party to follow. But still, such occasions are good opportunities to address real life and death—from “until death do us part” to when it has. 

And the most important, the best, the abundant life giving thing that everyone needs to hear and be reminded of is that a marriage, even a really good one, without Jesus will end eventually. So will a life without him. Lives and marriages with Jesus as an active participant, on the other hand, never end. They just go from glory to glory for ever and ever. 

Amen. Alleluia!

Love With Teeth: a Short Wedding Homily—for Tanya Chacko and Stefan Rothschuh—with reference to 1 Cor 13.1-7 and John 15.9-12

Jesus said I love you like the Father loves me. What kind of love is that? It’s the John 3.16 for-God-so-loved-the-world kind. Steadfast. Intelligent. Determined. Always focused on the other and hoping for the best for him or her, no matter what, kind. Do you know that God loves each one of us like that? Nothing we can do, or not do, can make him stop loving us, or even love us less. That’s how Jesus loves you, Stefan and Tanya, and all of you and me. 

Then Jesus says REMAIN in my love—ABIDE in it, SETTLE into it, LIVE in it, let it soak into your bones. How is this done? How do we remain in and enjoy the love of Jesus? Keep my commandments, he said. What’s the main one? LOVE one another. This is MY commandment, said Jesus. 

How shall we love one another? Holy matrimony—marriage—is a good way, a special and delightful way designed by God in the very beginning—part of creation in the second chapter of the whole Bible. After all, as we have just heard:  

It is God’s purpose that, as husband and wife give themselves to each other in love, they shall grow together and be united in that love, as Christ is united with his Church. 

The union of man and woman in heart, body, and mind is intended for their mutual comfort and help, that they may know each other with delight and tenderness in acts of love.  

God our Father, you have taught us through your Son that love is the fulfilling of the law. Grant to these your servants that loving one another they may continue in your love until their lives’ end; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

All of which sounds like remaining in the love of Jesus—the kind of love that makes a good marriage. So when I ask Tanya and Stefan if they will each give themselves to the other, the very first thing on the list of things they are promising each other is that they will love each other. They’ll promise it again in their vows. This love is not the the exciting, romantic love they’ve fallen in and that makes your mind go away. It is the kind of love St Paul is writing about as we heard Stefan’s grandfather, Herr Woith, read in German a few moments ago, and which Jesus says we are to remain. Love which is patient, kind, without envy, doesn’t boast, or behave arrogantly, is not rude, does not insist on its own way, is not irritable or resentful and without which we are really nothing but noisy, clanging, empty things.

Romantic love you can fall in and out of. Even in a good marriage. Warm fuzzies can cool with the rigors of parental sleep deprivation and life’s worries. But you can’t fall out of the love to which Jesus, St Paul and this marriage service refer. You can’t fall out of it, because you didn’t fall into it in the first place. You fell in love, then as you enjoyed that and got to know each other the Spirit of Jesus who loves you prompted you to realize this IS the one my soul loves (Song of Solomon 3.4) as it says on the first page of our leaflet, this is someone I’d like to give myself to completely, to love and to cherish for the rest of my life. This, with apologies to the dentists in the room (Tanya is a dentist—Ed.), is love with teeth. Love you choose to give. Love you then have to brush and floss and keep clean and healthy. Daily. Love which makes the smiles you share dazzling and white. Love to remain in. For the rest of your lives, no matter what, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, toilet seat up or down, messy or tidy, toothpaste tube all scrunched up or neatly rolled. 

Stefan and Tanya I hope and pray you will accept the invitation Jesus has extended today and that you will choose to remain in His love. The best way of doing that is by going to Church. That’s his Body and his Bride. Think of him as a benign and Divine Hygienist. There he will feed your souls and your relationship and keep your smiles bright. There he will keep you as one flesh so that, LORD willing, on the 21st of July, 2068, you’ll celebrate your fiftieth wedding anniversary. Mark your calendars. 

So love one another with all you’ve got. Live out and enjoy your married life together as you have begun it, in the presence of Jesus. 

Holy Ground: a Short Wedding Homily—for Hugh and Bonnie McDonald

…with reference to Exodus 3.1-6 and Mark 10.6-9. Exodus??!!?? For a wedding? I love atypical reading choices. 

Hugh and Bonnie were just living their lives, their plain, ordinary lives, just like Moses when he was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law. (Ex 3.1) Bonnie was running her store and Hugh was enjoying retirement and wood-carving, they both did a little dancing. Then one day, they headed off their separate, familiar beaten tracks a little, like that time when Moses led his flock to the far side of the desert, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God, (Ex 3.1) and saw something that he wasn't expecting. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “Wow! Look at that! I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” (Ex 3.2-3)

One day Bonnie and Hugh saw something they weren't expecting, either, and Bonnie said to herself, “Wow! Look at that! I like the look of him.” And who knows what Hugh thought, but secretly, and in a very gentlemanly way, something inside him was going, “Va-va-voom!” Which is an old-fashioned and more polite way of saying…well…you know. And something started to smolder. It burned but nothing was singed or blackened or burned up with them, either.  It was actually rather nice. Heart warming. And then, like Moses, one of them said, or maybe it was both of them, "I will go over and look at more closely at this hotness and see what's causing my temperature to rise." Pretty soon they were both feeling pretty cosy and warm and they discovered that it got warmest when they were together and they liked the feeling and they started turning aside to enjoy the flame more and more often.

And When the LORD saw that they, like Moses, had gone over to have a look, only in their case it was at each other, and they kept hanging out there warming their hands and grinning at each other all the time. God called to them from within the bush, just like he did to Moses, and he said, “Hugh and Bonnie! Bonnie and Hugh!” And they said, “Here we am…are.” Then God said, “Before you get any closer to each other, it's time to get serious! The first thing you have to do is to realize that, as a couple, for you to be on holy ground with me we’ve got to get Jesus involved. Your ground can never be truly holy without him. And for that to happen, you have to take off your sandals.” Why did God want Moses then, and Hugh and Bonnie now, to take their sandals off? Because if they left them on, they would track the unholy dirt and dust and grime of the world into what is supposed to be a holy place, which needs to be kept clean and pure because it’s holy. We do something similar, as a sign of respect, when we take our shoes off when we get home or visit someone else's home.

Hugh and Bonnie looked at each other, and Hugh said, “I think we’d better get over on that holy ground. Will you marry me?"

Which brings us here this evening. Bonnie and Hugh “have come to enter this holy state” (The Book of Alternative Services, p529), as we heard earlier, will make vows to each other “according to God’s holy law,” (Ibid, p 531) as they will say to each other shortly. Making their vows is like taking off their sandals so they can step onto holy ground and meet there heart to heart enveloped by the warmth and love of the God and Father of our LORD Jesus Christ who met Moses in that burning bush and who will make them into one flesh before our very eyes.

A Short Christmastide Wedding Giving-the-Gift-of-Yourselves Homily: for Neil and Leah Broadbent

Jesus is the reason for the season as the saying goes. The season being Christmastide still; until sundown tomorrow to be precise. Then Epiphany kicks in. Christmastide is a great time for a wedding and this is why. “For to us a child is born,” wrote the great prophet Isaiah, “to us a son is given.” (Is 9.6)

Jesus was given—a God-given gift to the world. In a few moments I will ask Neil and Leah, in turn, if they will each give the greatest and most precious gift they have to offer; the gift of themselves; to the other—even more lovingly wrapped and prepared, I'd like to think, because it's given in Christmastide. And it's especially fitting because, as we just heard, marriage itself is a gift of God. In this case, a special Christmastide gift for Neil and Leah, in which "husband and wife give themselves to each other in love" so they will "grow together and be united in that love, as Jesus, the great Bridegroom, is united with his Bride, the Church—which brings us back to Jesus being the reason for the season and for this Christmastide wedding.

So, Leah and Neil, as Robert Fulgham wrote in the first reading, “shortly you shall say a few words that will take you across a threshold of life, and things between you will never quite be the same." You’ll spend the rest of your lives opening, being challenged by, delighting in, misunderstanding and enjoying this Christmastide gift of each other.

Here are some Christmastide wedding gift-of-yourselves opening tips:

First, I noticed not everybody and everything you hoped would be here this weekend is here. It will be the same in your marriage, you will both miss things, make mistakes, be careless, take one another for granted. You won’t always be there and present for one another. Jesus always is. “I am with you always” (Mt 28.20), he said. Look to Him. He is the very best helper and comforter through life’s disappointments.

Second, change is the only constant in life. You will change—they way you look, the way you behave, what you like and don’t like; sometimes for the best and sometimes for the worse. Jesus never changes. He stays the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb 3.18). He is the very best and absolutely constant source of help through life’s changes.

Third, life is noisy. Have you noticed? (Lots of kids present and a good thing, too!) All this gift opening and discovery and growing together and being united in love happens in the midst of kids, work, anxieties, distractions, temptations—all vieing for our attention and having the power to divert our attention from the most important people in our lives. Robert Fulgham, reminds us to remember the "common things," the conversations, walks, informal little day by day commitments made to each other. He called these little, seemingly inconsequential things, "the real process” of a marriage. I agree.

Finally, the “still more excellent way” (1 Cor 12.31) to unwrap and enjoy the Christmastide wedding gift you’ve given each other today. Live in love—not so much the romantic love into which you’ve fallen, delightful as it is, but the more determined, act-of-the-will, toilet-seat-up-or-down, toothpaste-tube-scrunched-or-not kind of love which will grow you together as long as you both shall live; the love we heard about in the second reading. Jesus personifies it. Jesus is patient. Jesus is kind, does not seek his own interests. Jesus is not quick-tempered, does not brood over injury, or rejoice over wrong doing. Jesus rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes and hopes for the best for you both in all things. By following his example, you can love each other better than you know how. This is love with muscle which never fails and will have you celebrating your fiftieth wedding anniversary on the fourth of January, 2064. Mark your calendars.

May Jesus by your way, your truth and your life in your marriage as you open and enjoy the Christmastide wedding gifts of yourselves you have given each other today.

All praise be to Jesus Christ.

A Jesus Care Plan for a Healthy Marriage: a Short Wedding Homily for Franz and Dagmara Jonker with reference to Colossians 3:12-17 and Romans 12:9-18

Jesus is the name of The One in whom and through whom everything is taking place this afternoon. He is my boss, this is his church, he is the point all we just heard in the readings, he is the one who, for his first miracle according to John, turned a hundred and twenty or so gallons of water into fine wine for what must have been a most memorable and joyful wedding reception in Cana, he is the great bridegroom who will one day return to wed his bride, the church—an event which will set off the greatest wedding reception there ever was and for all eternity. What we celebrate today, is a foretaste of that event.

So, what’s the difference between Mother Teresa and a nurse? Mother Teresa only has to serve one God (Cami Arnold Miller). So, Franz and Dagmara, do you. One God, through his son, Jesus Christ, our LORD, the GREAT physician. Here’s part of his preventative health care plan for a good marriage from the readings we just heard. First, the Colossians passage Francesca read: Let his peace rule in your hearts, it said. Let it. No matter how clueless he seems. No matter how many jobs she wants done around the house. No matter what. The peace of Jesus. Ruling in our hearts, over every thing else.

Let his word—it's to be found in the Bible—dwell in you richly. Read it. Come to church to listen to it, pray it, sing it, eat it and drink it. Live it out for each other’s sake.

Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the LORD Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Everything. It’s not just the “religious” stuff we need to do in his name. It’s everything—the hand-holding, the loving smile, loading the dishwasher, cleaning the toilets, the hugging, the going out for dinner, having friends over, love-making, and especially, what you’re doing today. Giving thanks.

And from the Romans passage I read: let your love for each other be genuine and mutually affectionate—mutual having and holding, just as the vows will say, from this day forward, mutual loving and cherishing with deep affection for the rest of your lives. How long is that? The prayer of blessing we will pray over you shortly says this: “Finally, in your mercy, bring them to that table where your saints feast for ever in your heavenly home.” Forever, which “can never be long enough for me to feel like I've had long enough with you,” sang Train in the song we heard as you walked up the aisle, Dagmara. Forever, never long enough, because as the song also said, “Marry me, today and every day.”

Outdo one another in showing honour to each other—you begin today as you place a ring on each other's fingers saying, "with all that I am and all that I have I honour you in the name of God."
Serve The LORD. Serving one another is an important, perhaps THE most important way of doing that from now on.

Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering—for better or worse, as the vows will say, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

So there we have it. The perfect care plan for a mutually healthy marriage—peace, his word, genuine love, mutual affection, honour, rejoicing and patience. All from and for Jesus.

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