Wedding of Elizabeth and
Nathan
Before we ever knew that
this day, the last day of 2017 was going to be your wedding day, Nathan and
Elizabeth, we set the theme for today as “Thanks and Yes.” Since tonight is New
Year’s Eve, it seemed like a great way to look back on the year—picking out
reasons for remembering with gratitude—and a way to be open to all that is
coming in 2018, all that we might approach with open-heartedness and curiosity,
all that might be challenging (but who doesn’t like a good challenge?) and all
that we are called by God to be part of doing… to all that, we might say, “yes!”
And so that theme was set, when all we knew is that we’d have this story from
John 1 of John the Baptist looking at Jesus and saying “Yes!” That’s the One!
But I’m getting ahead of
myself… when we found out that today, this very Sunday morning, would be your wedding day, that theme seemed even
more delightful!
Two and half years ago, I
participated in a Tea Ceremony at the Como Teahouse, in the Japanese Garden at
the Conservatory. I had been waiting for this for a very long time, and I have
to admit that even as I tried to get really into it, I did have some thoughts
like… “Wow… and people think church
is structured!” Every action in the tea ceremony is very prescribed, but within
all those set patterns, the host calls attention to the fact that in spite of
what might at first glance seem to be the same every time, within this ceremony
are many unrepeatable moments. It’s an invitation to pay close attention and
delight in this moment that will never be exactly this one again.
We will never gather with
exactly this group of people again, people who have gathered to surround you,
Elizabeth and Nathan, with their love and support, cheering you on because at
some point, your lives have touched ours. We’ll never have a New Year’s Eve
morning quite like this again…. and so it’s an invitation to be fully here
because this Seventh Day of Christmas is like no other.
In the reading from 1st
John, we heard, “No one has ever seen God… but if we love one another, God
lives in us and God’s love is perfected in us.” Just like the unrepeatable
moment, we can’t hold onto or contain God; however, God shows up on the scene, sometimes
mysteriously, sometimes clearly. God invites us to be in God and to keep
opening ourselves up to God in other people in ways that change and transform
us.
When you first met online… your
profiles were a 99% match. Wow! As
you began to get to know each other, you learned that you share not only big
values (like equity and caring and generosity and openness) but you share the
same “nerdy interests”—Star Wars, Star Trek, strategy board games, Renaissance
Festival, Marvel Universe, and... as you got to know each other even better
through travels and experiences you’ve shared over the past years, you’ve found
someone whose faith you lean on, whose gentleness, patience, caring and
strength of character help you to articulate what you need and help you become
who you are and who you want to become. Not only that… but both of your circles
have expanded as you’ve been welcomed into a really diverse and inclusive
friends’ circle, where people express their choices and are supported in them… your
circles have grown as you’ve been welcomed by each other’s families… You’ve not
only found each other but a bigger community who nurtures you.
When we met recently, one
of you mentioned Fr. Greg Boyle, and so I found myself reading article after
article by Fr. Greg. He works with gang members in L.A., anyone who wants
belonging, anyone who wants to live… in several of these stories that I read,
Fr. Greg talked about taking rival gang members on plane trips with him,
because when you have a brand new experience together it can bring you together.
In one of these trips, two
of them, Mario and Bobby, told their stories to a crowd of maybe 1000 college
students.
Here’s’ how Fr. Greg told
this story—
Nervous, hands and voices shaking, they told
their stories of violence, terror and abuse of all kinds. Honest to God, their words were like
flames; you had to keep your distance or get scorched.
I
asked Bobby and Mario to join me for the question-and-answer period. A woman
near the front spoke first. “You say you’re a father,” she said to Mario, “and
your son and daughter are starting to reach their teenage years. “What advice
do you give them?” She sat, and Mario sifted her words, looking for a response.
“I just…”
Standing
next to him, I could feel his effort to complete his thought. He clutched the
microphone and teared up, stretching his arm toward the woman as if he were
pleading with her. “I just, I just don’t want my kids to turn out to be like
me.”
The
woman stood again. Now it was her turn to cry. “You are loving, you are kind,”
she said, steadying herself. “I hope your
kids turn out to be like you.”
There
wasn’t much of a pause before the audience stood and began to clap. All Mario
could do was hold his face in his hands. A lanky, tattooed gang member revealed
his wounds in front of a thousand strangers, who lost the temptation to despise
him and recognized themselves in his brokenness. Suddenly, kinship — an
exquisite mutuality.
Today, you two, Nathan and
Elizabeth, stand and will declare that you are family—an exquisite mutuality.
Today, we’ll notice how strangers can become friends, and how—just like the
words we heard in Psalm 32, God’s love is all about transparency, forgiveness,
authenticity… those qualities that you have been practicing up to this day and
those practices that will sustain you into the future.
Many of you, all the most
devoted fans, I trust have by now seen the most recent Star Wars film—The Last Jedi—and so it’s no spoiler, I
hope, to quote Rose Tico, “We’re going to win… not by fighting what we hate,
but by saving what we love!”
Saving what we love… and in
the many things I read by Fr. Greg, he said over and over again in different
ways that we can’t actually save others and probably shouldn’t try, but we can savor
life with them—and in that way, we save each other.
This is the calling that
we celebrate today at your wedding—“finding kinship. The point of Christian
service… is about “our common calling to delight in one another.”
As Jesus arrived on the scene
for the very first time, people were asking, “Who are you? Who are you? Of course I went straight to Hamilton: Ooh, who is this kid?
What’s he gonna do?[1]
As the gospel of John tells
the story, one of the very first things that Jesus did was change water to wine
(the best wine!) at a wedding. Jesus savored life with people in such a
different way than they were used to that it was life-changing. This is our
prayer for you—that the love you share today will deepen and grow as you
delight in one another, looking to Jesus, the guest and the host at the feast
that we savor today at your wedding. That the blessing that Jesus provides will
never run dry but will sustain you at every table, through life’s joys and
sorrows. That you will know on this eve of the new year how you are embraced by
a whole community of people who celebrate our shared calling to be family.
To all that we say, “thanks
and yes!”
