Wedding Address. July 1st 2023.

 Address for the wedding of Imy Gregg and Robbie Gawne.

This is a truly beautiful, exciting and wonderful day. It’s lovely to be here and a huge privilege for me to be standing here leading this service.

 Along with my family, we’ve known the Gregg’s since we moved to Cam in 2006, so to be able to marry the amazing Imy to the marvellous Robbie, is a blessing and a joy.

 For us, in our culture today, to be married in church is a deliberate choice, it’s a way to commit to the person you love in the sight of God, the church and all those who love and support you, including many who have supported you here for many years.

 These days marriage is about a loving commitment. Sometimes this means making a sacrifice or a compromise.

 I would only encourage anything like this to be mutual, based on trust and care and compassion.

 I understand that Imy has already made a sacrifice leading up to today, to stop playing Rugby for a season, which shows true commitment, and I’m sure that Robbie will have also made sacrifices as well.

And I suppose commitment to sport is what has brought us all together today.

In fact, the good book, has a lot to answer for in many ways, but we must all be thankful that you were able to meet for the first time while playing Quidditch at university, a sport first mentioned in the good book known as Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone.

 But to be honest, in comparison to Quidditch, which involves running around a field with broomsticks, Rugby sounds much safer.

 Anyway, let’s go back to the other good book. The reading we heard from Matthew is also full of blessings and reminds us that blessings are found not in riches or material wealth, but in the most unlikely places. In the meek, the merciful, and the pure in heart, which speaks to me of humility and kindness.

 Then Jesus also blesses people who mourn, people who are poor in spirit or people who are persecuted.

 Jesus reaches out to everyone with a blessing, people struggling with loss, people whose faith wavers, people who face injustice every day and this is reflected in issues close to many of our hearts.

 In good times and bad we are not forgotten but loved. And this is reflected in the vows which Imy and Robbie will make later.

To be there for each other in every season, united in love and friendship and in hope for a future full of blessings. 

 And to start off, like this, on a day like today, at such a time as this. Surrounded by friends and family and by God, all of whom love you and support you, is a wonderful thing.

 I think Solomon may have felt much like you do today when he wrote his love letter, and I commend the whole passage to you, because when he speaks of love as strong as death and passion as fierce as the grave;

 This is a love which is eternal, which spans the ages, a love which lasts, which cannot be quenched and is worth more than any passing wealth or possession. Love surpasses all of this.

 There are many things which can be said about love and marriage, but perhaps Neil Gaiman, without quite realising, sums up God when he says that all we know about these things is nothing.

 Which sounds very odd, but it is a reminder that all we know about what God looks like, is very little.

 Only what he has chosen to show us, in the wind, in a flame, in a voice, in the whisper of breeze in the trees, in the lapping of water on a riverbank in the Dordogne on a sunny day.

 The only time people saw God was as he came to us as Jesus. Even then, we misrepresent him and forget that Jesus was a brown, middle eastern Jewish man. 

So we know almost nothing of God, even his pronouns, because these come from those who wrote the Bible, who while inspired by God didn’t know his true nature.

 Much like love, because however much we try to find the words to describe love, love is indefinable, and love between two people is always special and truly unique to them, but we can be confident that, when we reach out a hand in the dark, the one we love will be there, if not in person, in our hearts.

 Much like God will always be there if you need him / her / them, God is always there for you, and can be found anywhere and everywhere. In the same way, I am confident you will always be there for each other. A blessing to each other, and to all those who know you.

 May you enjoy this special, exciting and blessed day, which is a blessing to us all.           

Amen.

Readings

All I Know About Love by Neil Gaiman

This is everything I have to tell you about love: nothing.
This is everything I've learned about marriage: nothing.

Only that the world out there is complicated,
and there are beasts in the night, and delight and pain,
and the only thing that makes it okay, sometimes,
is to reach out a hand in the darkness and find another hand to squeeze,
and not to be alone.

It's not the kisses, or never just the kisses: it's what they mean.
Somebody's got your back.
Somebody knows your worst self and somehow doesn't want to rescue you
or send for the army to rescue them.

It's not two broken halves becoming one.
It's the light from a distant lighthouse bringing you both safely home
because home is wherever you are both together.

So this is everything I have to tell you about love and marriage: nothing,
like a book without pages or a forest without trees.

Because there are things you cannot know before you experience them.
Because no study can prepare you for the joys or the trials.
Because nobody else's love, nobody else's marriage, is like yours,
and it's a road you can only learn by walking it,
a dance you cannot be taught,
a song that did not exist before you began, together, to sing.

And because in the darkness you will reach out a hand,
not knowing for certain if someone else is even there.
And your hands will meet,
and then neither of you will ever need to be alone again.

And that's all I know about love.

Song of Solomon 2:10-13; 8:6-7

¹⁰ My beloved speaks and says to me:
‘Arise, my love, my fair one,
   and come away;
¹¹ for now the winter is past,
   the rain is over and gone.
¹² The flowers appear on the earth;
   the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the turtle-dove
   is heard in our land.
¹³ The fig tree puts forth its figs,
   and the vines are in blossom;
   they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one,
   and come away.
⁶ Set me as a seal upon your heart,
   as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death,
   passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
   a raging flame.
⁷ Many waters cannot quench love,
   neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
   all the wealth of one’s house,
   it would be utterly scorned.

 Matthew 5 v1-10

The Beatitudes

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. ²Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

3 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

4 ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

5 ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

6 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

7 ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

8 ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

10 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.