John Mazenauer and Sylvia Mazenauer
Today, we are celebrating love. First, the amazing love that brought Sylvia and John together, but also the love that has upheld them and brought them to this moment. So, we celebrate them, but in another way, you are all here because we are celebrating our shared love and support for them. As we all know, love is essential.
Did you know that 1 Corinthians 13, this beautiful biblical love poem, wasn’t actually written about marriage, or even a romantic relationship? This was a message written to a whole Christian Community about how they should love one another. This is the kind of love as Christians we are meant to show to everyone, even strangers, because it is the same love that God has shown us. It is still a fitting reading for weddings, because we must learn this love as the base for every relationship.
The poem reads: Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. A beautiful poem about what our love should strive to become. Did you notice something interesting about how God through Paul describes love? Love is almost never described as a feeling. This is really important, because as amazing as a person is, and how deep our care for that person goes, the feelings are fickle. For a time love might have been like a spark, at another, your love might be a blazing inferno, at others it will be more like embers, and for much of it, love will be like a slowly burning, warm, and comforting fire. Each comes with its joys and struggles, but it is important that our love and relationships not be based on a feeling.
Next, we may think about love as an action. This is an important way to think about it, because when our feelings fall short, when we are angry, when something seems unfair when we aren’t getting our way, it is important that we still act out of love. We still live out the love even when we aren’t feeling it. This is definitely present in 1 Corinthians, but it still doesn’t quite fit. There is still something else.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. More than an act, love is like a practice, a way someone lives their life. Actually, even more than a practice, love is a kind of identity, it is alive. The way Paul describes it, which feels so true to our experience and yearning, speaks of love like it has its own purpose.
This is really important, because we know feelings change, we know we can’t always act in love as we should, if we know what we should do, we know that in practicing love we fall short. What Paul is pointing us to is that love needs to live in us. Love needs to take hold, shape us, change us, and work on us till we become love. Ultimately, we know that God is love, and so we need to invite God’s Holy Spirit into our hearts and every relationship, so that this living and purposeful love, might take root in us. This will go a long way in strengthening, protecting, and growing every marriage or relationship. As Ecclesiastes says, a three-bound cord is not easily broken.
Now to the love that exists particularly in marriage. Our second reading speaks to it: No one has greater love than this: to lay one’s life down for a friend. You might not have realized it, but that is what you are doing Sylvia and John. You are giving your life over to a friend. You are putting your life in the other’s hands for better or for worse. It is a scary commitment because we can never know for sure what the other person will do with it. At different points in your marriage, you will be better at giving yourself over to the other, or worse as you try to protect your own interests.
This commitment might be terrifying, but the possible benefit is astronomical. I don’t just mean children, or a happy life together. The benefit of giving your life over to someone who loves you is that they can lift you higher than you could ever lift yourself. As you humble yourself before the other, you see what God has made them great in and you lift that up and you see their weaknesses and you lift them up.
The greatest example of this for us, the example that should shape every relationship, especially marriage, is Jesus’ love for us. He gave his life for us on the cross. He literally died for us, even though we didn’t know we needed it. He did all of this so that he might lift us up, so that we might become greater than we could have ever been on our own. We see that in the disciples after Jesus, we even see it in the church today, despite all the brokenness we still live in. The church is meant to in response to God’s amazing love for us, humble ourselves to lift him up.
That is what you two are called to and promising today, to outdo one another in love. To make love a part of you, part of your identity. To give your life over so that you might lift one another up. Marriage is not an easy vocation, but the benefit is greater than we realize. Let us learn from Jesus Christ and become a love that is greater. AMEN
