Village Shepherd

The wedding season starts around Easter each year, heats up during June, July and August, begins to quiet down during September and is usually finished by October. It can become quite hectic if most Saturday afternoons of the three summer months are taken up with weddings, but they are usually fun to conduct and a real privilege for the priest.

Weddings bring priests into contact with young people whom they might never otherwise meet. The wedding couple are always in love - or appear to be in love - and the actual wedding service is generally a happy occasion. But weddings are fraught with hazard and there are many examples of things that can go wrong at weddings.

There was, for instance, the priest who dropped the wedding rings and watched with horror as first one and then the other rolled slowly towards the grating in the floor and disappeared. Then there was the occasion when the visiting organist was so determined to maximise his own big moment, that he refused to play the Wedding March until he had finished his own very long piece. The wedding party was forced to stand and wait, not knowing quite what to do with themselves, while the congregation started to titter. And there was the time when the bride's father was just a little merry and kept interjecting throughout the vows with what he thought were humorous remarks, such as "Do they get Green Shield Stamps?"

But perhaps the biggest difference between weddings is the degree to which some weddings are almost taken over by other people. This is usually the bride's mother but occasionally the bride's father, who are so determined that this should be the smartest wedding of the decade that they tend to ride roughshod over everyone, including the priest.

At this sort of wedding the priest seems to be regarded as a servant who is there to serve but is otherwise ignored, like the butler or the waitress. There is no feel that the priest might be contributing in any way other than to put on the best possible show, and there are rarely any thanks after the event. Once the service is over the priest is brushed to one side as the guests are chivvied up for the real point of the day, that is, the photographs and the reception.

It's as though otherwise perfectly pleasant people are taken over by a spirit of arrogance on the occasion of their offspring's wedding, and anyone who is not directly connected to the wedding party becomes invisible.

Arrogance is one of those unsavoury characteristics which are easy to observe in other people but which most of us find difficult to notice in ourselves. At weddings, the bride's parents are completely unaware that they are acting in a supercilious way, and would probably be horrified to think that their behaviour was regarded as such.

Arrogance tends to creep upon us unnoticed in those shining occasions when we are the centre of attention. And for anyone who is constantly the centre of attention, it must be very hard indeed to avoid becoming arrogant. Perhaps for many of us the problem is that being the centre of adoring attention is so rare for us and brings such a good feel, that we want to repeat the experience as often as possible.

This was what Jesus was warning against when he used the occasion of a banquet to hammer home the message from today's Old Testament reading from Proverbs, in the form of a story. Jesus pointed out the truth of the proverb that those who try make themselves out to be more important than they really are, are likely to be humiliated.

Another aspect of this kind of arrogance is perhaps inverted pride. These are the people who take delight in pretending to be less than they really are and claim to be incapable of anything. This sort of person takes her pleasure in the gratifying feeling of other people boosting her ego.

Perhaps the central message from Jesus is that we should learn to be ourselves. Jesus never objected to genuine pride in ourselves and our abilities, only to undue and unwarranted pride. Jesus told us to love our neighbours as ourselves, so clearly we are expected to love ourselves and to regard our own gifts and talents realistically. Someone who has sufficient self-awareness to be realistic about himself or herself is much more use to the kingdom than someone who is either unrealistically arrogant or unrealistically humble.

But it's more than that. Until we are able to be realistic about ourselves, we can't fill our own potential in growing towards God. Our own lack of realism forms a block which keeps God out and so we have dark pockets of hidden arrogance or artificial humility.

Somehow or other we need to learn that Jesus loves every part of us, both the good and the bad. We aren't rejected by Jesus just because we aren't perfect; we are loved into perfection. But that can only happen if we are able to come to terms with who we really are and to accept ourselves with all our faults.

And when that happens, we have no need to try to make ourselves appear better than we really are, because we're already comfortable in our skins. And that's when God is really able to reach us.