Psalm 100 (King James Version): Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness; come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God; it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.
Whitney and Sam, we are all so thrilled to be here with you as you covenant with one another today. You come to us with joy, in a sound relationship with a rich history. In this history of your relationship, there have been easy times and difficult times. There have been fun times and there have been boring times. There have been times where you were on the same page and times when you were in totally different books! But in all the times, there was your relationship, growing stronger, closer, more intimate day by day. Today is a different kind of day; today you are taking a new kind of step, embarking on a journey of a new way of being with one another.
Whitney and Sam met each other for the first time at a Chrysalis retreat in the fall of 2000. At the time they met, they were both dating other people! But such is the beauty of the connectional nature of the United Methodist Church. As both of their life circumstances changed and they both grew, mutual friends and church activities continued to connect them. They remember fondly a dinner they shared with some mutual friends, where they wound up sitting together and experiencing some of those initial giddy sparks flying. Slowly and tenderly over the following months, the relationship took its first steps in the form of a trip to the zoo, a Supertones concert, and holding hands while watching the movie Super Troopers.
This relationship has taken them many more steps forward, through a variety of experiences that brought you closer, till today, where we are all gathered here about ready to witness, in just a few moments, the two of you walking fully into a new way of being with one another. The vows you are about to make are both an outward sign of an inward state of the relationship, and they will also speak something new into being. Just as when we say “I love you” for the first time… we love the person already, but saying it speaks a new way of being into the relationship. So it is as well today. You two have already gone through the kinds of ups and downs that might strain or even break an unstable marriage. The vows you are about to speak are not new in the sense that they don’t speak to a new way of being you have never experienced. You already are committed to one another, in sickness and in health… and yet even though the vows speak about the way you already feel and the commitment you’ve already made, the very act of speaking them, here in this place surrounded by your friends and family, will speak into being a new way of relating to one another.
I’m a pastoral counseling student at Seattle University, and one of my classmates, John, recently pointed out that a marriage doesn’t really become real until the couple faces its first real challenge to the marriage. This may take the form of finding out something about the other person you didn’t realize or don’t like, or it could take the form of an external force causing pressure and tension in the marriage that the couple must now navigate as a team. It is at this point, John says, that the marriage is solidified. I agree with my friend John, and I think that it is especially true for couples who don’t have long relationships or engagements before marriage. Because in this case, rather than cautioning you to be ready for the “downs” as well as the “ups” together, I would say you, Whitney and Sam, already know this truth of married life. You haven’t just had good times, it hasn’t all been the “giddy honeymoon phase.” You have faced some serious challenges over the years, and you’ve done so with grace and integrity and in the face of those challenges your relationship has become stronger. I could stand here before you today and caution you that it’s not “always going to be easy” and that “it’s going to take work.” But I don’t need to, because you already know.
I love that in the midst of a very tough year for the two of you, the scripture you picked for your wedding was one of praise to God. Psalm 100 is a call to worship, encouraging people to come from whatever circumstances they find themselves in, to join together and worship God. This scripture lifts up praise, and your choosing of the scripture is so telling. It tells me that in the midst of pain, strife, and weariness can come praise to God. And what better example of the unbreakable human spirit to hope and to live and to love than a celebration of a wedding in the midst of economic turmoil? The external circumstances of the world may bring us security or insecurity, pleasure or pain, comfort or affliction. But in the midst of that we are called to praise God. By choosing this scripture, and choosing this time, to make these vows to one another, you are affirming the hope and joy that comes from God alone and is not dependent on external circumstances.
In a few minutes, as you make the wedding vows to one another, remember that just as the scripture you chose is a call to worship, so too can your marriage be a call to you both and to others to live fully into life, to live with hope and courage, and to love fully in the midst of whatever trials may come. Let your vows be a joyful noise unto the land, declaring that God is an everlasting God of love, goodness, and truth.
Amen.