24th January 2021
Parish Church of St James, Louth
Genesis 14.17-20; Revelation 19.6-10; John 2.1-11
It’s that time of year when, were things in any sense normal, we would be hosting wedding drinks at the Rectory, ushering in nervous couple after nervous couple, answering an awful lot of questions about confetti in the churchyard, and fielding the odd surprising request for a canine ring bearer— or even, on a couple of occasions, for an owl…for which, by the way, the answer is definitely NO and I can give you a LOT of reasons why if you care to hear them after the service…
We have so many couples at the moment who are waiting their marriages. I think of them often, and of how that must feel—this ‘very long engagement’ when they are already so certain of their commitment, living so much in that love, but have to await its celebration and fulfillment.
Our readings today foreshadow two sacraments of the Church, matrimony and the Eucharist. Traditionally, one would actually happen in the context of the other. Nuptial masses aren’t so common now for anglicans, but many faithful Christians still place their wedding-together in the context of the wedding together of heaven and earth, the great supper of our faith, when we rejoice again and again to participate in God’s scheme for us, in which matter is made marvellous, our bodies blessed by the most holy, our thanks and praise lifted with those of the saints and angels in our great act of union with God.
But whether there’s a Eucharist or not, of course, at every wedding, at least in non-COVID times, there must be a party. The guests must be wined and dined, all must feast and make merry.
The ultimate party of the New Jerusalem is described as just that kind of joyful celebration in our reading from Revelation— ‘the marriage feast of the Lamb’—where God in Christ is eternally united to his people in the Church forever, and not even ‘till death do us part’, but beyond all parting, sorrow & tears.
We may believe in faith that this full happiness beyond envisaging is our future. But how does that future, that ‘eschaton’ as we say in theological speak, give shape and colour to our present?
It’s always a balance—knowing that so much awaits God’s time and remaking, but believing that so much has been revealed and can be changed in the light of the Christian faith in which we live.
The dream of the possibility of a New Jerusalem on earth, present glory and holiness, is especially strong as a theme for the American nation. It was founded on just such hopes held by the Puritan settlers.
On Wednesday, at the inauguration of Joseph R. Biden, Jr, we couldn’t help but be conscious of that american utopianism as he spoke in front of the dazzling wedding cake of the Capitol building. But Biden’s speech was far from triumphalist. He was apocalyptic in the best sense—unveiling the reality of crisis with honesty. And above all he called for fresh unity that would transcend current divides by finding deeper truths that are shared, and gathering around those.
He began with St Augustine’s definition of a people as those who are ‘defined by the common objects of their love’. Augustine used this definition to contrast the true city, the City of those oriented to God and to their future in him, and the false city, in thrall to negative realities like power and money. The true city is the Church as God sees it (partly overlapping with our visible Church on earth) and the false city everything that would seek to be anything less.
Augustine also said this: ‘we do not come to God by navigation but by love’. These are very important words to hear. It is not an ethical or political way, a route of clear rights and wrongs, we are following as Christians. There surely are, in any given sweep of time or history, more evident ways to live the ‘life of love’ to which we are called through one political position or ethics than other.
But fundamentally, it is the life of love we are seeking. And with that in mind our Christian faith has huge capacity to reconcile, transcend and so make new viewpoints and dogmas. To bring unity.
It’s interesting to think, looking at our Gospel reading, how Jesus himself shows how love should be the ultimate compass of our action. We see how he resists the miracle he will perform at first. He seems to think, the time has not yet come. But when his loving mother asks him, when the delight and joy of all seems to demand it, he puts love before rule and enables this wedding feast to be celebrated fully. In exceeding what is expected of him he shows the heart of bounty and generosity that is love.
It’s that excessive, generous feast to which we now come to find the fuel and joy for our own lives of love. At every Eucharist there is something of the joy of a wedding—a wedding where no-one can ever say they are ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’ because we are all brides, all grooms, each at the centre of God’s love for us. It is a Love-Feast at which we are all bound together. It is where we relearn to centre our compasses on love: for God, for one another, for all those whom we pray for and offer on behalf of. So let us prepare to do that now.