Marriage as Gift-giving
Sermon
Together Till Death Us Do Part
(Name) and (namel, as you stand here in the front of the church, it may feel like you're onstage, and indeed you are. All eyes are upon you, and all hearts are beating with yours in the excitement of this much-anticipated event. But in truth. we are all on stage. We are participants in the Service of Worship you have created to honor our Lord, as he comes to bless your new life together.
You designed this worship experience to praise God for all he has done for us through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is your response to the good news that God gave his only Son as a free gift to redeem us. It is in this spirit of gift-giving that we listen to Paul's words from Romans: "I appeal to you therefore, by the mercies of God, to present yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." Romans 12:1
Paul says we are to dedicate our lives, offering them as gifts to God. In other words, we are to commit our lives to God for a holy purpose. It is only natural that this commitment spills over into our lives and into our marriages. So giving ourselves sacrificially to God includes submitting ourselves to each other on our wedding day. We are to be gift to each other and we must learn to receive each other as gift.
A gift is a surprise package, infinitely less than we expected, and infinitely more than we ever dared to dream. To receive another as gift, we must first make room in our heart and life for that gift. To make room for the gift is to clean house, ridding ourselves of assumptions, needs, and demands. It is to say to our beloved, "I have room for you as you are, as you want to become - not as I think you should be. Come, you will experience space and safety with me. I will receive and cherish you, just as I wish to be received and cherished."
To receive each other as gift means to daily honor the freedom, and not the ownership, of the gift. A gift is always freely given, always something received that we have not earned. It can never be paid for. You are gift to each other: a gift to be valued, not evaluated; to be cared for, not controlled; to be protected, not possessed; to be discovered, not exploited.
You know, when something is purchased it is new only once. Soon it wears out and needs to be replaced. The gift of self, however, has the potential to be renewed daily, with brand new facets and neat surprises. Sound too good to be true?
I recall attending a sixty-fifth wedding anniversary in my first parish. Trying to be humorous, I said to the groom, "It must get pretty old living with the same person for over sixty-five years."
His eyes blazed, "Listen, if I don't discover something new about my wife every so often, I know I've been thinking about myself too much."
Wow! But you see, the sacrificial giving of one's self brings the wonder of unexpected depths. Over the years, this gift grows richer, and more precious in experience. Ultimately it becomes irreplaceable and priceless: it becomes love incarnate. And then the two become so intertwined that the gift and the receiver are, in fact, one!
Finally, not only do we give ourselves freely, but we receive each other freely. It is like grace which loves for the sake of loving and asks nothing in return. So, in receiving the gift we are to open our hearts and our hands, to allow our fences to come down, and to include another in our dreams and journeys. To become a gift-receiver means to think not only of one's self, but always to include the other: to create communion, to know community, to be a family, to experience home. To receive another as gift enables a marriage to unfold so one must use such inadequate words as affection, trust, tenderness, forgiveness, faith, one flesh, to describe that relationship.
________ and ________, as you give yourselves as gift to each other, and freely receive each other as gift, you will find yourselves revealed, known, appreciated, understood, and rejoiced in!
So it is the prayer of those who love and care for you, who hope you will enjoy the greatest of marriages, that you will be gift and gift-receiver to each other, thus duplicating, in a mysterious and marvelous way, the gift which God gave us in his Son, Jesus. In so doing, you will serve our Lord through each other to the glory of God. Amen
You designed this worship experience to praise God for all he has done for us through our Lord Jesus Christ. It is your response to the good news that God gave his only Son as a free gift to redeem us. It is in this spirit of gift-giving that we listen to Paul's words from Romans: "I appeal to you therefore, by the mercies of God, to present yourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship." Romans 12:1
Paul says we are to dedicate our lives, offering them as gifts to God. In other words, we are to commit our lives to God for a holy purpose. It is only natural that this commitment spills over into our lives and into our marriages. So giving ourselves sacrificially to God includes submitting ourselves to each other on our wedding day. We are to be gift to each other and we must learn to receive each other as gift.
A gift is a surprise package, infinitely less than we expected, and infinitely more than we ever dared to dream. To receive another as gift, we must first make room in our heart and life for that gift. To make room for the gift is to clean house, ridding ourselves of assumptions, needs, and demands. It is to say to our beloved, "I have room for you as you are, as you want to become - not as I think you should be. Come, you will experience space and safety with me. I will receive and cherish you, just as I wish to be received and cherished."
To receive each other as gift means to daily honor the freedom, and not the ownership, of the gift. A gift is always freely given, always something received that we have not earned. It can never be paid for. You are gift to each other: a gift to be valued, not evaluated; to be cared for, not controlled; to be protected, not possessed; to be discovered, not exploited.
You know, when something is purchased it is new only once. Soon it wears out and needs to be replaced. The gift of self, however, has the potential to be renewed daily, with brand new facets and neat surprises. Sound too good to be true?
I recall attending a sixty-fifth wedding anniversary in my first parish. Trying to be humorous, I said to the groom, "It must get pretty old living with the same person for over sixty-five years."
His eyes blazed, "Listen, if I don't discover something new about my wife every so often, I know I've been thinking about myself too much."
Wow! But you see, the sacrificial giving of one's self brings the wonder of unexpected depths. Over the years, this gift grows richer, and more precious in experience. Ultimately it becomes irreplaceable and priceless: it becomes love incarnate. And then the two become so intertwined that the gift and the receiver are, in fact, one!
Finally, not only do we give ourselves freely, but we receive each other freely. It is like grace which loves for the sake of loving and asks nothing in return. So, in receiving the gift we are to open our hearts and our hands, to allow our fences to come down, and to include another in our dreams and journeys. To become a gift-receiver means to think not only of one's self, but always to include the other: to create communion, to know community, to be a family, to experience home. To receive another as gift enables a marriage to unfold so one must use such inadequate words as affection, trust, tenderness, forgiveness, faith, one flesh, to describe that relationship.
________ and ________, as you give yourselves as gift to each other, and freely receive each other as gift, you will find yourselves revealed, known, appreciated, understood, and rejoiced in!
So it is the prayer of those who love and care for you, who hope you will enjoy the greatest of marriages, that you will be gift and gift-receiver to each other, thus duplicating, in a mysterious and marvelous way, the gift which God gave us in his Son, Jesus. In so doing, you will serve our Lord through each other to the glory of God. Amen
