A Calling that Gives Love Somewhere to Live
A Wedding Homily
Colossians 3:12-17; Psalm 23; John 15:9-11
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
- John 15:9-11
†
Remain in my love.1
This is Jesus’ calling to us. To his church. And now to you two today. Tory. Madeline. You are to be married. That is why we are all here. This is why you are dressed up. It’s why we are all dressed up.
You are to be married. You are to be married because you have chosen to be. It’s your decision. But it’s also God’s calling.
We could mistakenly assume that we are here today because you love each other, because you do. But we are here because you have taken your love for each other and made a choice, a choice to be married.
When Christ tells us to “remain in my love” he’s telling us that love needs a choice. Love alone is passion, fire, and desire - desire to love and be loved. Marriage is a calling, a vocation, a vow. Marriage takes our love and gives it somewhere to remain. To remain, to abide, to live somewhere. In marriage God gives us a home for our love.
Marriage is the calling that gives our love somewhere to abide. This is an important definition. Marriage is a constraint, but not to diminish our love, but to strengthen it, to focus it. Gregory of Nyssa likened the marriage vow to the banks of a river that stop the water dissipating into weak streams and trickles.2 Or as Bonhoeffer famously said, it’s not your love that sustains your marriage, but marriage that sustains your love.3 Marriage does this by giving your love somewhere to remain, to abide, to live and grow. The constraint of marriage does not diminish you or your love, it intensifies you and your love.
The marriage vow is a choice to remain. It is the decision to adopt a revised rule of life towards one another - of Christlike self-giving, self-sacrifice and self-forgetting. This is what St Paul offers us in Colossians - a rule of life for abiding with one another.
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
- Colossians 3:12-17
Much like we are dressed up today, Paul calls you as chosen people to dress yourselves daily in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. But try not to think of these as things to aim for, but as your clothes. These are not the goals of the day; these are the things you don’t leave the house without putting on. Let them be your constraints towards one another, your vows, your rule of life.
Now if you can “dress” in those things you might find yourself able to heed Paul’s next advice: to bear with and forgive each other. Note what he said to us. To bear and to forgive. He does not mean “tolerate and forget” as we so often translate this. Rather, in being asked to do what Christ does, you are invited into the deep mystery of the gospel and marriage when you hold these things dear.
In “bearing and forgiving” you are being called into selflessness. Bear each other, not as burdens to tolerate, but as a mother carries her child, as Christ carries us. And forgive, not by saying “oh forget about it”, but by forgiving like Christ does. Karl Rahner reminds us how:
“He forgives us by seeking us out, by loving us, by loving us with all his heart, by giving us everything - that is, himself. He forgives us by making something else out of our evil deed, our sin, the ill will of our hearts, the injury we have done him, giving us another chance, a new start in life, forgiving without reserve and with all his heart, thinking of nothing now but mercy, compassion, love, and faithfulness unto the end, so that all that is left of the past is the goodness of it.”4
When you choose a life like this, you are able to be thankful, as Paul commands. Thankfulness draws you out of your inner selfishness and desire to grasp and clutch at what you want and rather to open your eyes to the goodness of living in each other’s love.
So take this passage and make it your marriage “rule of life”, use it to guide how you abide together. Write it on your hearts, live by it, hang it on the walls of your home. Hear it as your calling, the affirmation of the vows you are about to take.
But one more thing needs to be said, well today at least. This is something truly stunning about marriage. It is not a burden being placed upon you today. This is a sacrament you are receiving; a sign that changes reality. This is a calling you are responding to. It is Christ who says “remain”.
So while on one hand we are all gathered here today to witness your vow, to affirm your calling, on the other hand, as a priest, I’m here to add God’s blessing to your choice. To your yes I affirm God’s yes. To affirm and to bless because God wants marriage, God wants your marriage and blesses your love and your choice of each other.
May you remain in Christ’s love, abide there with one another, be guided by him into goodness, love one another as he loves you, and “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts”.
So in the name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the presence of your friends and family, confident in the blessing of God, I invite you to come and take your vows.
Amen.
This week I was privileged to officiate the wedding of friends. So this sermon isn’t connected to the weekly Lectionary texts, but is instead taken from the texts chosen for their wedding.
Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity 7.1
“Nicht eure Liebe trägt die Ehe, sondern von nun an trägt die Ehe eure Liebe.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “18. Traupredigt aus der Zelle”, Widerstand und Ergebung: Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft. DBW8, p.75. An English Translation is posted here
Karl Rahner, The Great Church Year, p.98.
This is a truly beautiful view of love!