It is a great day!
It is a truly great and wonderful day!
April 14th has finally arrived and here we are gathered together! Some of us have been waiting for this day for two years, but some of us also know that this day has been in the works for over 10 years! 10 years!
We all know Neal and/or Laura, but we may not know each other. Look around you and find somebody you don’t know and introduce yourself. We should know each other because we all know Neal and Laura. ….
Neal and Laura: Welcome to your wedding day. Look around and see all the people who have come to pray together and to honor your commitment to one another.
It is a great day!
Love. It’s what weddings are all about. A wedding is a celebration and a consecration of the love of two people; a model of the love that Jesus Christ has for his church; a model of the love that God has for us. Love is a great and wonderful thing.
But love has also become a business. From an early age we are taught that love is something that we need to strive for; that life is about finding the “one.” We are taught that if we look the right way, or act the right way, one day, we’ll find love. Love has become a trophy, something that we place on a shelf. If we are “good” enough, we’ll get the trophy and we’ll be able to place it on our shelf. And once we get the trophy we are supposed to keep it on the shelf and we show off our love at dinner parties and functions. When we invite people to see our love, we clean the house and make a special meal.
Love, we are told, is clean.
As many of you know, Neal and Laura are nerds. Geeks. They play video games, they read fantasy and science fiction, they go to the Renaissance Festival not to observe, but to participate. And don’t get me wrong. I am not saying anything to you that they wouldn’t say to you as well. This is NOT an insult. They love each other’s nerdiness and the majority of us here love that about them as well! They are my kind of people… they are your kind of people.
I’ve known Neal for about eighteen years. We met at church, but we bonded over our love of geek culture. Back in elementary and middle school, we would have sleep-overs at which we would stay up all night playing the early video game consoles, talking about fantasy and science-fiction, playing Dungeons and Dragons…
Once Laura became a part of Neal’s life, we would still get together to hang out, play games and delight in all things nerdy. Still staying up late at night, but paying for it in the morning.
They’re geeks.
Allow me to introduce you to the newest obsession of these two:
Skylanders is a game created by a developer called Toys for Bob. They have developed several games, but Skylanders is their first major success.
The conceit of the game is that beings of power called Skylanders have been frozen in time by an evil villain. Players can, by putting the Skylanders on the Portal of Power, call upon the Skylanders for help in defeating the evil. There are 32 Skylanders currently each with a unique action figure and unique gameplay elements.
The Portal Master (the player) places the little action figure on the Portal of Power and the character (Skylander) is teleported into the game and becomes playable.
Next time you visit Neal and Laura, ask the see their Skylanders set-up. It’s really quite incredible. They have almost every one of these little guys up on this set of shelves above their TV and they are all arranged in the right order. It’s an amazing thing.
Love is a lot like those Skylanders. Too often we imagine that love is in its proper place when it is frozen and up on a shelf. We show off our love, but the most we may ever interact with it is when we dust it off so that it looks “right.”
And this is what we all do. Those of us who are married or in a relationship, when we are out in public or when we have company over, we act like our love is perfect. That our love is like one of these guys: Perfectly molded and painted. People can look at our relationships and say, “Oh those two… So perfect!” We have been taught over and over that THIS is what love is supposed to be, if it’s not perfect, it’s wrong.
Well Neal and Laura, you two have been together for a long time now. And you know that relationships are hard. But let me burst a bubble; getting married doesn’t make it any easier. Your relationship is still going to be hard. In many ways, marriage makes it even harder because in a few minutes you two are going to make promises that are very hard and very painful to break. I am literally going to take this stole, the physical representation of my priesthood and wrap it around your hands tying you together. This stuff is real.
Love isn’t perfect. But love is wonderful.
And that’s why the gospel reading you two have chosen is such a great one for a wedding. Jesus says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” It’s so beautiful. It’s perfect. Jesus loved us so much that he gave up his life for us, saving us from the power of Sin and Death; it’s all just so wonderful. But do you know what has just happened? Do you know where Jesus is saying these things?
When Jesus gives this new commandment to the disciples, to us, he has literally just done one of the dirtiest and messiest things somebody in his time could have done. Just a minute ago, Jesus removed his outer garment, wrapped a towel around his waist and washed his disciples’ feet. That’s right, we are still in the Upper Room just hours before his crucifixion. After dinner, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, an chore usually reserved for a servant, but done this time by a master, a teacher. Jesus has lowered himself to the level of a slave. And then, probably still dirty from cleaning at least 12 pairs of feet INCLUDING the feet of the one who would betray him, Jesus tells his disciples: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
Do you get it?
Jesus washes his disciples feet and then he says, “Love one another as I have loved you.”
Christian love is the kind of love that Jesus shows us in this act of servanthood.
Christian love is the kind of love that compels us to wash one another’s feet.
Christian love is the kind of love that calls us to place another above ourselves.
And that’s what marriage is the most obvious and visible sign of. Marriage is a sign to all the people of this world that LOVE is about servanthood.
Marriage isn’t clean. Marriage is DIRTY.
Marriage isn’t a perfectly clean house. Marriage isn’t perfectly mixed martinis on the veranda. Marriage isn’t people saying to you, “Oh, you are just such a perfect couple.”
Marriage isn’t clean. Marriage is DIRTY.
Marriage is dishes sitting in the sink. Marriage is an infant waking up in the middle of the night. Marriage is making time for each other when all you want to do is SLEEP.
Marriage isn’t clean, but marriage is beautiful.
When you make these promises to each other today, you promise to become Christ for one another. You are making the commitment to place one another above all others. You are telling each other that you are going to wash one another’s feet.
Maybe not literally. Maybe washing each other’s feet means doing the dishes. Maybe it means making dinner. Maybe it means waking up and exercising so that you can have a long life together.
Washing each other’s feet means doing for each other. Not doing something to have it as ammunition during the next fight. Washing each other’s feet means serving each other because Christ served you first.
Skylanders don’t work unless you take them off the shelf and place them on the portal of power.
Love doesn’t work unless you take it off the shelf and place it in your brain, in your heart and most importantly, in your hands.
Love is about action. Love is about getting dirty in the service of each other.
Marriage isn’t clean, but marriage is beautiful.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
