Note: This is a sermon I offered for my sister-in-law, Sam, and her new husband, Jim. I don't normally post wedding or funeral sermons, but this one is special and so I'm sharing it. The sermon is directed to the two of them and is only slightly modified for this blog format, so I apologize if it is hard to connect with this one. Such is wedding sermons.
So, let’s be straight about this from the top: this is an awfully
tough sermon for me because not only am I a member of your family and not just
the pastor, but let’s face it, Sam, you won’t tolerate some generic,
lubby-dubby, full of fluff message. So, unfortunately, I have to actually say
something substantive, which is sometimes difficult for pastors to do. Then,
you selected Colossians 3 for your reading, which just about holds the record
for most fluffy passage in all of scripture, and you dangled it in front of me
as if to say, “Preach on it, Pastor Frank. I dare you. Preach on compassion and
kindness and humility and meekness and patience. Preach on clothing yourselves
with love.”
Well, you know
what? I’m going to do it, but, since you young ‘uns—like many your age—haven’t
been going to church much lately, I think I’m going to need to translate Colossians
from the Apostle Paul’s language into a voice you will recognize. So, today I’m
going to enlist the help of Sheldon Cooper and friends from The Big Bang
Theory to tell you what kind of clothing you should not be
putting on. These are quotes of wisdom that you might recognize.
#1: How not to clothe yourselves with compassion, from Sheldon Cooper I quote: “If you don't mind, I'd like to stop listening to
you and start talking.”
#2: How not to clothe yourselves with kindness—this time from Raj:
“You have lost so much weight. That must have been difficult for you because
you were so, so fat. Do you remember?”
#3: How not to clothe yourselves with humility—care of Sheldon
Cooper: “Howard, you know me to be a very smart man. Don't you think that if I
were wrong, I'd know it?”
#4: How not to clothe yourselves with meekness—again from Sheldon Cooper: “I often forget other people have limitations. It's so sad.”
#5: How not to clothe yourselves with patience—from Raj: “I
couldn't find you guys, so I bought six new friends! Sadly, three of them are
dead.”
And #6, and most importantly, how not to clothe yourselves with
love—care of Howard Wolowitz: “If it's ‘creepy’ to use the Internet, military
satellites, and robot aircraft to find a house full of gorgeous young models so
I can drop in on them unexpected, then fine, I'm ‘creepy.’”
What The
Big Bang Theory really tells us is that it’s simple to find examples of
what love is not, of what commitment is not, of what humility and meekness and
patience are not. Every day of your lives together you will be bombarded with
examples, some humorous but many just depressing, of ways not to live. And, you
know, sometimes Jim isn’t going to be kind or humble; sometimes Sammy isn’t going
to be compassionate or patient. You are going to get a lot of advice about your
marriage: just be this, be that, do this, do that, support one another,
love—just love each other—and as well-meaning as all that advice is, your
marriage will not be made by following paths that others have cut for you.
What’s important
is not the advice of your friends or family, my advice, or the Bible’s advice
for that matter. In fact, what’s important is not what everyone here today says;
what’s important is they are here for you. Most of these wedding
guests—friends and family—thought the big commitment was going to be made
between the two of you, Sammy and Jim, but if that were the only commitment
that mattered we could have done that two days ago at lunch or over the phone
weeks ago. The big commitment isn’t only between you two; it’s between the two
of you and all of us who are here today.
As the two of
you make this commitment to one another today you do not do it on your own; you
are surrounded by people whose commitment to your success as husband and wife
is unparalleled. Many of them are here; some of them are with you from afar. They
aren’t perfect people; they don’t have perfect marriages; they don’t know
everything… and some of them honestly don’t know very much. None of that
matters. What matters is that they are here, behind you, supporting you, today
and from now on in your lives together.
If all of the
scriptural witness around marriage could be summed up in a single line it would
sound something like this: “You are not alone.” Today, you are not
alone. But, you know what? You never were; you never will be. Kindness,
humility, meekness—all of these things you will discover in the community of
friends, family and loved ones who surround you now. In Genesis, God said, “It
is not good that [the] man should be alone.” And from that moment on, none of
us have been. We are all tied to one another; we are all in this together. A
marriage does not succeed or fail solely because of the love that two people
have; it succeeds or fails because the community either succeeds or fails to be
there for it; to nurture it, to demonstrate everything that Paul tells us to
value—compassion, meekness, kindness, humility, patience, love.
So, Sam and Jim,
you have a difficult and, yet, simple task ahead of you. Your job is to
remember that you are not alone. Remember that a community of friends and
family are standing behind you, ready to tell you when you are wonderful and
humble and meek and kind, and ready to tell you when you are crazy. Sam,
sometimes you are crazy. Jim, sometimes you are crazy.
Turn around and
look at everybody here.
Each and every one of them is willing to clothe you in love
and, more importantly still, to look you in the eyes when you think you are
alone and tell you that you are crazy. Each and every one of them is ready to
tell you you’re not alone.
That’s what we
celebrate. That’s why we’re here. Thanks to be to God for Sam and Jim, may they
never again feel as if they are alone.
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