Sermons on The Sacraments : Summer 2010
5: Marriage
A sermon preached by Revd Ivo Morshead on 4th July
Jesus said to them fill the jars with water... the steward at the wedding said you have kept the good wine until now [John 2 v 7 and v 10]
We come this morning to the fifth in the series of sermons on the sacraments, namely marriage. Some of us may not have been present at all or any of the previous addresses on Baptism, Holy Communion, Healing and Ordination so I want for a moment to set marriage within the context of our Anglican faith. Those who are ordained and instituted to a church as vicar have to swear allegiance to the queen and affirm to the 39 Articles of faith which for four centuries have been printed at the back of every Book of Common Prayer. They were the successors to three or four other attempts at articles written to define the difference between the old pre-Henry 8th Church based on Rome, and the new Church of England. These early attempts came to a halt when Mary, Henry's daughter came to the throne and the old faith of Rome was restored during her reign from 1553 to 1558. Her successor Elizabeth 1st returned the country to the faith of Henry and warded off the attempts of Catholic Spain to force the permanent authority of Rome when the Armada was defeated in 1588. By that time the new English church had created the doctrine of her faith in the Act of 1563 confirming the 39 Articles of Faith.
Now the 35th of the 39 articles says; There are two sacraments ordained of Christ our Lord in the Gospel, that is to say Baptism and the Supper of the Lord. The Article goes on to state that the other five sacraments, Confirmation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony and Supreme Unction are not to be counted Sacraments of the Gospel having grown partly out of states of life allowed in the Scriptures and concludes; but yet have not like nature of Sacraments with Baptism and Holy Communion for that they have not any visible sign or ceremony ordained by God.
An advantage of seeing the sacrament of marriage set in its context with the articles of faith is clear. Only those who are committed Christians, partake of the Baptism ceremony, and only those baptised receive the sacrament of the bread and wine. Thus the sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion are restricted to affirmed followers of Jesus. On the other hand marriage is part of nature and requires no connection whatever with the Church or with Jesus except to those who so wish.
Marriage is a very sensitive subject today for a great variety of reasons Today the Church accepts that the Marriage of baptised members of the church is very much a sacrament. A sacrament in which all the members of the church whatever their marital status are involved.
Our first lesson this morning ended with the verse So God created humankind in his own image..male and female he created them. The bible ends in Revelation 19 v 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory for the marriage of the Lamb has come.
Genesis affirms the natural order of man and woman made in the image of God. The Book of Revelations points to the imagery of the end time when all will be united in perfect harmony and joy with the risen Jesus.
Immediately before receiving the bread and wine of Holy Communion, the Agnus Dei, is sung O Lamb of God that takest away the sins of the world have mercy upon us. We sing this twice, the third time ending with grant us peace. The wedding feast of the Lamb in Revelation is that to which all are invited and which all who are baptised participate, for it is the symbol of the union of Christ and his church, the end time when all will be united in Christ in perfect harmony and peace. It is only at the Communion rail as we kneel together to receive the blessed sacraments of bread and wine that at that moment we are wholly one with each other and with Christ. The sacrament Marriage is a symbol of that unity and commitment acted and made real in the husband and wife in matrimony. It is not to be undertaken lightly.
As Saint Paul, when considering human relationships and in particular marriage warned in 1 Corinthians 7 v 27 yet those who marry will experience distress in this life. We pray always that couples should be spared this. Of course, as the bible has acknowledged, not all are called to marriage. The happiest couple we had in our family were two maiden aunts, sisters of my step father, who never stopped laughing and lived together to a ripe old age in Brighton swimming every day winter and summer.
As has been said already, Christian Marriage is a serious undertaking. Those who are baptised and who are married have an obligation not just to their children and each other but also to the church as a whole. This is because by entering the Sacrament of Marriage by the exchange of vows and the giving and receiving of a ring, they stand as a potential model of the Feast of the Lamb. They emulate the complete union of two persons and are symbols of the complete union of Christ and his church. We are all made in the image of God and by our baptism become part of his family the church. We become partakers of his love for us which he has promised. God has given as proof this new covenant or promise or testament, His only Son Jesus to be our Saviour. The old covenant or promise was that which was given to Moses in the old Testament in which God said 'I will be your God if you will be my people'. When Moses returned from the mountain where he had received the ten commandments, what did he find?, the people had made their own image , the golden calf and that is what they preferred to worship and no longer obeyed the word of God given to them through his servant Moses. Like them married couples sadly often fail to keep true to the promises they made, like them we all fall short of what was promised for us at our baptism by our God-parents and affirmed by ourselves at our confirmation. Thus we need to acknowledge our sins and failures every time we come to the Eucharistic Feast so that, in the words from Ephesians, we might be holy and without blemish.
Just as every married couple need to forgive each other for intended or unintended hurts, for failing to listen to what the other is saying , for lack of showing true affection and care at all times, for selfish actions, for sheer neglect to love. So too the rest of us, wed or unwed, who are members of the church have failed in our individual and corporate loyalty and love for Jesus. We are all in the in-between times and await the Messianic banquet of the book of Revelation. We too need to reflect on how we are fulfilling our part of the covenant betwixt us made, made between Christ and his church of which we are very much part as baptised members of God's family here on earth and joined together into the Communion of Saints.
Marriage feasts can be occasions of family tensions, great fun, much laughter and consumption of large amounts of alcohol, as evidenced at the Wedding at Cana. They have a serious side as they centre on a fundamental part of God's creation as evidenced from our Old Testament lesson. The wedding at Cana brings Christ himself into that marriage feast, a feast that is pre-figured as the Messianic feast of the Book of Revelation in which we shall participate as we come to receive communion. The life of the kingdom is meant to be joyous and filled with laughter. Lives in fact changed from as it were water in a half filled jar to wine that fills the jar of life to the full and overflowing with love and joy. It is that continuing love and joy that we wish every couple at the sacrament of marriage and throughout their lives.