A Wedding Sermon

I wrote this because I was tired of writing my thesis and after I finished I thought I would post it. Though I am not a Priest, Preacher or Rabbi. I now have a wedding sermon any taker?

Dawson's first wedding sermon

Introduction
We are gathered hear to day to watch two worlds collide. I say “worlds” because before me are not just two people but two lives. Lives with worlds of experience between them and ways of viewing that world, such worlds are bound to collide. This coalition, this two becoming one flesh, God calls marriage. Marriage is his idea. In Genesis 2:22-25, God preformed the wedding. He even let Adam write his own vows.

The LORD God … brought her to the man. 23

The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman ,
Because she was taken out of Man ." 24

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

I believe it was the first and last wedding in which all participants were naked. (Ha ha)

If you keep reading this great story does not have a happy ending. Sadly, one chapter over from where I read Adam and Eve experience failure and deep disappointment. The up side to such a fall was threw it all they where still one because God had made them One.

My point is that a wedding is the beginning of being one.

U2 has a song call “One.”
They have many songs, but the song One is one of their finest.

The song starts

Is it getting better
Or do you feel the same
Will it make it easier on you
Now you got someone to blame

So is this the best thing about being married, about being one?
That you get someone to blame.

To the Groom
Repeat after me

I ______ _______
take you ________ _________
so I’ve got someone to blame.

To the Bride
Repeat after me

I ______ _______
take you ________ _________
so I’ve got someone to blame.

That’s not all being One means.
The song by U2 continues

Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?

To the Groom
Repeat after me
I, ______ _______
take you ______ ______,
to disappoint me
to leave a bad taste in my mouth

To the Bride
Repeat after me
I, ______ _______
take you ______ ______,
to disappoint me
to leave a bad taste in my mouth

What does it mean to be one?
For U2, being one includes times of disappointment and of blame. God would agree.

There is a French philosopher with the rather unfortunate name of Nancy. Jean Luc Nancy. Mr Nancy can’t stand false “oneness”. He can’t stand relationships and marriages and communities that just put up a good front. But Mr Nancy does not give up on marriage. Instead Mr Nancy argues that true relationships, deep oneness, starts with us being real.

True relationships start with each of us acknowledging that there will be disappointment and blame and a bad taste for this or that offense.

Because when we are real, when we face our limitations and name our struggles. We are then able to see the world of another; we can see the other’s reality. This opens us to face others limitations and struggles.

And in that shared reality, we are one.
World’s collide and we are one.

And so the key to building a good marriage is to be real.
to face your limitations and struggles.

Or as U2 sings,
One life
But we’re not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other.

Personal words to the groom (something like)
I remember sitting with you, slumped over a café table in Raleigh
Two weeks before you had asked for some advice on how to choose a marriage companion, how to know someone was “the one.”

And then there you were, slumped over the café table, telling me that it was over.
In that moment, your relationship had a sense of reality,
a since of disappointment.

Yet here you are today and you are looking very handsome. Look at your bride, isn’t she beautiful? Now tell me and was it all worth it?

So my charge to you is Remember
Remember that times of disappointment there will be many more but do not remember it without remembering the risk, and courage and fortitude you mustered to continue after her. Do not remember without the memory that in the end being ONE is worth it all!

Personal words to the Bride (something like)
On your website on May 16th you wrote:
I am sooo over being engaged. I am sick of organising stuff. Why does deciding you want to spend the rest of your life with someone equal becoming a manic, diarised control freak? I hate who I am becoming! And sometimes I just want to shut down and just quit. But I cant.. I just can’t.

And so you have built your relationship on reality and on struggle.
Yet here you are today and you are looking beautiful and you’re soon to be husband is looking handsome. The struggle was worth it. The pain of being real was worth it. It was all worth it.

So my charge to you is Continue
From this day on you will build a house and a family, it will be a struggle and as long as you open yourself to be real it can be a joy. Look at your husband, He can be trusted, He is willing to fight for you, willing to be one. In all the ups and downs of life build your marriage on reality and in the knowledge that the struggle is worth it, and it will be! So I say to you continue to be real. Continue, for it is worth it!

You both are Christians

You follow a God who accepted you.
Who knew your reality and your limitations.

Who loved you as you are.
This is what love is:
That God loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which are sins are forgiven.

God
who did not accept false oneness
who looked past all our “good fronts”, our “love-like phoniness”, our “painted smiles”
God send his son when we were yet sinners to die for us, in our place, for us.

So God
Who looks past our “Good Fronts” and Self-righteous actions and saw hearts that said
I don’t like you!
I hate you!
You make me sick!
I am indifferent to you!
I don’t know how I feel about you!”

and still he Loved and Still he died! ------ For US.

God accepting our reality and our limitations.

Marriage is now a part of your Christian spirituality.

Remember Adam and Eve, they messed everything up and ended blaming each other. After being given the punishment for there disobedience, God for there own Good, kicked then out of the Garden I imagine them hand in hand walking with heads down, for the weight of there actions rested squarely on there heads. But if you read closely you see God's grace at work in this mess. God likes to work in the middle of the mess. Adam and Eve fell but God did not kick them out and write them off. God did not give up on them.. The last thing we hear of there marriage is the two dealing with the lose of one son and the other son being the killer. MESS! But God is not done! that is not the end of there story. The end of there story is the same as ours, the human story ends in the same place ours does - At the Cross. God works in mess and thought the mess of the cross to make a way for man. God will work in all the messes that happen in your marriage if you let him be the center of your marriage.

Keeping short accounts, not taking each other for granted, making time to listen.
Is not part of romance or love, it is part of your life in God.
Romance can’t secure forgive but a life in God can.
Life-together in God can forgive, and endure the hurt,
Life in God can open us to say I’m wrong and grow closer through the pain.
For your part of a bigger story, your story is part of God’s story,
Your life is no more it is now Our Life with God for you are ONE.

Christian spirituality is a journey Marriage is part of the journey.
A journey of a shared commitment to grow and change.
And the only way you can grow and change,
the only way you can wrinkle and mature with each other,
is to be real with each other, to accept your limitations and “name” your struggles.
But take time to
Have Fun!
Be adventitious!
Enjoy each other!

Have Sex all the time! - God Invented it for your "oneness"!

It's all part of the journey get into it!

Conclusion
You will probably not remember a single word I say.

When you watch the video tape, you will hear me say

Build you marriage on reality.
Build your marriage on your limitations and struggles.

But every time you hear U2, I hope you will remember

One life
Because you’re not the same
You get to carry each other
Carry each other

AMEN.