A few weeks ago I traveled to Port Aransas, Texas, to officiate my first wedding. It was special and strange for me, being that it was my cousin Cheryl's wedding. And even though I am now 25 and she is in her early 30's, in some way she will always be my cool, pretty, older, teenage cousin. The one that used to let me tag along with her and her friends, feeling cool because of my proximity to cool people, sitting in the backseat of her mother's Suburban, with my little can that was supposed to resemble a snuff can full of stuff that was supposed to resemble snuff, but was really only ground up beef jerky, caring nothing about where we were going or what we were actually doing (usually nowhere and nothing). And the one with whom, when it was just the two of us, I could talk about George Strait and Guns 'N Roses in the same sentence. To most of my family that was sacrilegious. But we understood.
Add to this the fact that I myself will be getting married on July 15. So when the time came in the ceremony for me to give my very first wedding homily, I spoke to myself and my fiance as much as I did to Cheryl and Gary, and the whole experience became nearly surreal.
That is the backstory, as well as bits from my introduction. The following is body of the message I spoke.
...That is why we are here. To take part in something truly real. Often we pour our lives into chasing something we think will be real and lasting: wealth, security, prominence. Only to be disappointed when we finally grasp what we've been pursuing, open our hands to behold it, and see that it has disintegrated into dust, as everything that is at the mercy of time will eventually do.
But marriage is not like this, even though you both will die. As you look around today and remember the family members who are not here because they have already passed on, know that one day you too will join them. Even though thinking of yourself as one passing through death seems like something you read about in a science-fiction novel, something you may be able to imagine but you never fully believe that someday you will actually experience it, in due course, you will. But regardless of the temporal nature of your lives and marriage, as you live faithfully in this marriage, it will direct you to something eternal.
Because marriage is not about property rights. It is not about human law, because as necessary as human law may be, it does not have the authority to unite two lives into one. Only God has the authority to do this. And neither is marriage an outward sign of something you have already made real within yourselves. This is not a mere formality. If you surrender to and look for God in your marriage it will be what God intended and your marriage will actually strengthen and sustain your love. Not the other way around.
This sounds weird to many today who make no place for God in their interpretation of marriage. And I can understand this. It used to be a strange thought for me too. I used to think that it was the job of the human heart to sustain a marriage. And this is true to a certain extent; hearts are a necessary element of a faithful marriage. But hearts are fickle and unreliable. But God is not.
See, Gary and Cheryl, God has given you freedom and the ability to choose. And you have employed this gift to choose to commit to each other in love.
God has also given you the ability to love and the capacity to experience it.
But you and I do not create love. It does not matter what some poets or philosophers say, love is not manufactured in the human heart. God is the author of love. And this true love is the most beautiful thing we can know and experience. It brings a new dimension to every aspect of life because God himself is love. It is God's defining characteristic (I John 4:7-8).
Since God is love, we can only know true love as we know God. Without God our experience and understanding of love will always be less than it could be. And if we truly love, we are participating in God himself.
This is what is happening today. Gary and Cheryl, today you are asking for and accepting God's gift of love to the fullest extent that two people can know it between themselves. In a bit we will talk about nasty little things like sickness and poverty. In these times human love would throw in the towel. It would find it easier to (attempt to) sever the ties, (attempt to) heal, and (attempt to) go it alone. But divine love would not only persevere, but grow stronger through these times (I Corinthians 13).
Gary and Cheryl, love as you have known it thus far has brought you to this point. And this is good. It is as it should be. But today, you step a great deal further. You take a step that you could not take without divine aid. Today you are asking God to unite (mystically, but quite literally) you in love.
This act, in this place, is the divine intersecting the human. This is why certain sectors of the Church have considered marriage a sacrament. As God unites you, God will give you a bit of himself.
This is what marriage is about. Marriage is not about property rights. It is not about human law. This is something real. This is something permanent. This is something beautiful.
