Here comes the bride

A sermon preached at Sarah and Dénes Wedding, Saturday December 11^th, 2010 at St Augustine’s Church, Unley

Colossians 3:12-17 & Mark 10:6-9

Families are curious.

…but I will save that for later

I have had some difficulty

separating my priestly role

from my fatherly role.

This is the role of the preacher!

We have had a busy couple of weeks

preparing for this important day.

When we gather for a marriage

we are celebrating

one of God’s mysteries

and the mystery is this:

God made us male and female

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,

and the two shall become one flesh.

So they are no longer two but one flesh.

The mystery, as Jesus tells us, is that two human beings

are so closely united together when they marry

that they become one.

The products of wildly different and very curious families

are called to be one.

Not by one of them being diminished

and trying to become like the other.

But both, by giving themselves to each other,

become part of something new.

And far from their person being diminished

they are actually increased.

That’s what we call the theology, or theory, of marriage.

St Paul tells Christians about how to engage with this practically.

He uses the language of surrender and submission,

a husband and wife are called

not to selfishly pursue their own ends

but, rather, to see as their first duty

the love, care and nurture of their spouse.

Paul says, we hear today…you must bear with another

(not bully the other into submission)

You must forgive as God forgives you

totally and without game-playing.

And you must express your thankfulness

for each other and to God.

And you must sing….this is likely to happen Dénes

Ohh this is likely to happen,,,but I am slipping into my fatherly role.

it will be a sign of great joy

it will also be a sign of warning

that attention needs to be paid

and you will have to learn Dénes how to sing

and Sarah how to hear Dénes’s singing

which may be different from yours

less in tune,

it may perhaps look like drawing or writing

This may seem like an impossible task

but let us rather see it as a gift and a challenge

from God

to enable you, Dénes Nagy

and you, Sarah Clark

not particularly by our own efforts

though we are to try our hardest

and be at our best (not always possible)

(this is where …bearing with one another and forgiving comes in)

but by recognising that God is working something new in you

So St Paul gives his key advice

what ever you do

Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus

If you allow the Spirit of Jesus to dwell in you

and in your family

then we can be sure that together we will sing.

May God bless your life together.

Faith is for now!

Will we get to a point when we don't have to rely on faith any more?

Yes, but it is not now!
St Paul tells us that there are three great things(1)-Faith Hope and Love
and the greatest of these is love
And the hymn writer (2) reminds us

Faith will vanish into sight;
hope be emptied in delight;
love in heaven will shine more bight;
therefore give us love.

Readings for Proper 14 -Year C - 8th August 2010...11th Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 1:1, 10-20 and Psalm 50:1-8, 22-23
Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40

When all things are brought to completion, as God intends
there will be no need to have faith
because we will know
We will see what we have always hoped for
and we will no longer have to have faith
because we will know.

But we are not at that point
so the way we operate is as a person of faith
and we get a definition of that today in Hebrews 11

To illustrate that the writer tells us the story of Abraham
and Sarah
who received the promise of God
That they would be the ancestors of a great people…
they had no evidence of this
indeed rather the contrary, they were both old
and it seemed unlikely.
So the challenge of faith for them

was to believe
rather than to know or to prove
Faith, is assurance without fact
Being convinced of what we are promised even though we don’t have the evidence.
In fact it is the way that the life of God operates.
The criticism that faith is ‘unscientific’ is true
--it is not meant to be
we have faith where we cannot prove.
If we can prove, or see
then why do we need to have faith.
This is not to say that because we do not have evidence
then we are talking nonsense
or we are lying
we are saying we are not in the scientific realm at all
we are in the life of faith.
And we assert that the life of God
is about faith
not of proof.

Love
This should not be a surprise to us
there are a lot of things that are about faith
rather than fact
and most of them are pretty important.
Chief amongst these is love
Love is not about evidence, facts and measurements

---we don’t say if there are three out of five characteristics (faithfulness, children, laughter, sharing pain, cooperation) and/or
--if a relationship has lasted longer than 15 months and/or
--if after three break ups the couple are still together
then they are in love

that would be absurd
The substance is actually not measurable
and is at least as much about what we can’t count
as what we can count.
Our life in God falls in this same sort of area.
Character
More than this, we would say
this is what makes this relationship so powerful;
So the example of Abraham tells us about keywords:
Like trust, promise, hope, vision and aspiration.
The journey of faith is about implementing
these realities.
Indeed these realities cannot be manufactured
(we can’t go to the shop and buy them!)
it is only by a journey of faith
that they can be realised in our lives.

Jesus
We see this journey chiefly in Jesus
It is the journey that will confront everything that destroys us
and will give us the power to be born anew and to come through the experience of death
not just at life’s end
but in every aspect of our life.
So faith is a pretty important journey!!

Is it a journey you are prepared to make?
Where is God inviting you to step out beyond the bounds of certainty
and walk in faith?
It is not an easy decision
but it is the decision that is set before us.
Will we walk by faith and live?
Or will we stumble by our own limited sight
and die?
Where is God inviting you to step out beyond the bounds of certainty
and walk in faith?

YOUTUBE LINK

1. 1 Corinthians 13
2. Bishop Christopher Wordsworth 1862 - Gracious Spirit Holy Ghost