A Wedding Homily

Readings: Proverbs 31:10-13, 19-20, 30-31; 1 John 4:7-12; John 15:9-12

If you do enough weddings
you can begin to feel as if 
the wedding ceremony itself is just an appendage 
to a much bigger and more important event
that includes many hours of photography 
and one or more very lavish and expensive parties,
into which months and even years 
of planning are invested.
It can begin to feel like the actual exchange of vows
in the presence of God, his minister, and his people
is something of secondary importance,
even when occurring in a beautiful setting
and adorned with flowers and music.
This is not to cast any doubt on the sincerity
of the couples taking their vows,
but it is simply to note how difficult it is
to resist cultural pressure and expectations
and what I like to call 
the Wedding-Industrial Complex,
that is devoted to finding new things 
you can spend money on.

From the first time I met with Stephen and Theresa
I knew that this was not the case with them.
They simply wanted to get married.
They did not want to host a lavish event,
or stage a photo op,
or make themselves the center of attention.
They simply wanted to vow their love to each other
in the presence of God and in the midst of people 
whom they love and who love them.
I knew that they did not just want to get married,
they wanted to be married.
They wanted to be joined to one another
in a sacrament that would give them 
the grace that they need 
to live life together 
in the many years to come.
They wanted what really matters.

This is, of course, a beautiful event:
the Cathedral is beautiful,
the music is beautiful,
the couple, in particular, is beautiful.
But the most beautiful thing here
is God’s grace.
Like the wise writer of the book of Proverbs,
Theresa and Stephen know 
that “charm is deceptive and beauty fleeting.”
They know that what matters on this day
is the one thing that is not deceptive and fleeting:
the love of God
that has become real for them
in their love for one another.

We call this love “grace” 
because it is something God gives us 
without our ever deserving it,
just as Theresa and Stephen 
have given their love to each other
freely and generously and not really caring
if the other one has earned it.
That’s how love works,
and that’s how God works.
The beauty of God’s grace 
that we celebrate in this sacrament
is that we love God because God loves us first,
and God loves us not because we are good
but because God is good.

Stephen and Theresa, in the Gospel
Jesus tells his followers to remain in his love
so that they might have fullness of joy.
It is this love that really matters today,
and in the years of marriage that lie ahead of you
the challenge will be simply 
to remain in Christ’s love—
to abide in this eternal moment
when God gives you his love
through your love for one another.
And when life brings you hardships,
as it undoubtedly will,
when you feel misunderstood,
as you undoubtedly will,
when you wonder what 
you have gotten yourself into,
as you undoubtedly will,
return to this moment and remain in it,
for this is the moment when eternal love
shows itself in time and space
in the words of promise
that you will speak to each other.

If you remain in the love 
that God gives you today,
then your life together
will be a life of joy, 
even in the face of hardship 
and misunderstanding
and doubt,
because it will be a life 
graced by God’s love,
the one thing that really matters.

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Readings: Wisdom 2:12, 17-20; James 3:16-4:3; Mark 9:30-37

VIDEO

Like many people, 
I lament the conflicts and divisions of our culture
as we drag ourselves through yet another season
of the contentious sniping and truth-bending
that we call politics.
I likewise brood over ongoing and escalating wars,
the economic hardship and inequality suffered by so many,
our fear and vilification of those who are different from us, 
our unchecked consumption of the earth’s limited resources.
So much seems so wrong with the world,
and I can certainly marshal the tools 
of political science and economics and sociology
in order to try to trace out the causes
of everything that makes me lament and brood. 
But, the Letter of James cuts to the chase
and tells me that, at the end of the day,
the problem is me.

Not, I should be clear, 
me as Deacon Fritz Bauerschmidt—
I’m not quite arrogant enough to think 
that I am the unique source of the world’s woes.
What James tells us 
is that each of us must look within
if we want to really know why we live 
in a world of conflict
that makes us lament and brood,
and if we do we will find 
that we are our own worst enemies.
James speaks of “our passions”—
those chaotic primal emotions 
that rise up within us—
as the source of the world’s strife:
jealousy, selfish ambition, envy and covetousness.
These passions create not simply conflict in the world,
as we strive to assert our wills over others,
but conflict within ourselves:
they frustrate us,
they make us miserable,
they cannot deliver on the things
they make us want so much.
James tells us, 
“You ask but do not receive,
because you ask wrongly, 
to spend it on your passions.”
The world is at war with itself
because I am at war with myself.

We see this in today’s Gospel story,
when Jesus predicts 
his coming death and resurrection
only to have his disciples unable to understand
and unwilling even to ask questions.
Instead, as they walk the path to Jerusalem
where the events foretold by Jesus 
will come to pass,
they decide to bicker among themselves
about which of them is the greatest,
as if to demonstrate their lack of understanding.
The words of Jesus are confusing and upsetting;
it is so much simpler for them
to give free rein to their passions
of jealousy, selfish ambition, 
envy and covetousness,
perhaps not even realizing 
that these are the same chaotic passions
that will result in Jesus’ death in Jerusalem,
at the hand of those who say,
in the words of the book of Wisdom, 
“Let us beset the just one, 
because…he sets himself against our doings.”
The fruitless and frustrating 
jockeying for greatness
that will be displayed 
in the arrest, trial, and killing of Jesus
is enacted among Jesus’s own disciples,
just as it is enacted in me
as I war with myself and the world.

Jesus, unlike me, 
does not lament and brood over this conflict;
nor is he content simply to sit back
and take in the irony of the situation.
Rather he seeks to teach the disciples
how to end the war within themselves
that overflows into the conflict among them;
he teaches them how to desire and act 
so that they can calm the chaos of their passions
and receive what it is that they truly desire.
He seeks to impart to them—
and he seeks to impart to us—
“the wisdom from above,”
which can relieve our lamentation and brooding
because it is “peaceable, gentle, compliant,
full of mercy and good fruits,
without inconstancy or insincerity.”

He tells us first that our desire for greatness
will only be frustrated if it is ruled by the passions
of jealousy, selfish ambition, envy and covetousness.
As long as these passion war within us
we will never find true greatness,
but only engender conflict among ourselves.
According to the strange wisdom that comes from above,
to be first you must desire to be last;
to have true greatness you must embrace the role
that the selfish ambitions of our passions reject:
the role of servant of all.
And if we embrace the role of servant,
if we think above all of serving others
and not of serving our passions—
our jealousy, selfish ambition, 
envy and covetousness—
then we make space for the wisdom from above
to come and make its home within us 
and calm the chaos of our passions
and make us “peaceable, gentle, compliant,
full of mercy and good fruits.”
This wisdom from above is embodied
in the child that Jesus takes in his arms:
one who has no greatness 
as our passions judge greatness,
one who seems to offer us nothing
that our passions might desire.
Yet in receiving that child
we receive Jesus,
and in receiving him
we receive the One who sent him,
the One who is Wisdom itself,
the One who can end the war within us
and the war between us.

We ask but do not receive,
because we ask wrongly,
in service of our passions.
Let us pray that God’s Spirit
would lead us to ask rightly
by making us the servant of all,
so that we might leave our lamenting
and be done with our brooding,
so that we might know 
the true wisdom from above,
and that God, who is merciful,
might have mercy on us all.