Sermon - Jesus' Wedding Sermon to Us

Louis Kahan, The Wedding Feast at Cana, 1949 

A sermon given at the Sung Eucharist at St George’s Bloomsbury on Sunday 21st January 2024 – The Third Sunday of Epiphany (Year B) based on readings from John 2.1-11. You can listen to an audio recording of this sermon in the video clip below:

Very few wedding sermons have survived the ages. In fact, the historic record contains more homilies from burial services than marriages.

Some of the earliest Anglican examples are from three society weddings, preached by John Donne in the early sixteen hundreds. An era when the dynamics of relationships, power and identity at a national scale were especially interesting. James, the first King of England and Scotland was on the throne, movements that would lead to the Act of Union and the age of empire were afoot. Parliament was growing in its influence. Within a few decades feudalism would be abolished. 

 

Amidst all this change, John Donne’s sermons emphasise marriage as the divinely ordained bedrock of society. The foundation upon which order in all our earthly relationships are built. A social unit originating in the union of Adam and Eve - and expected to mirror God’s creative act through the production of children. Marriage is thus imbued with a sense of the new but also a responsibility for continuity - for future stability. 

 

The majority of each of Donne’s five thousand word texts are devoted to the themes of power and identity as they stretch across the relationship between private and public, the particular and the universal, novelty and continuity, the present and the future - held together in the singular act of marriage. The happy couple themselves - who at that time would have been used to enduring sermons of up to an hour - barely get a mention, until the very end. And rather than an expression of Donne’s pastoral ministry, his passing reference to the newlyweds seems more of a device to ensure they woke up at the end of his speech!

 

Donne’s take on the power and purpose of marriage is not novel, but an elaboration of Thomas Cranmer’s Preface to what was described as “the office of man and wife” in the Anglican Prayer Book. Cranmer’s text was itself an adaptation of an earlier rite and is still used today in various forms. In fact, the marriage service is a liturgy that has barely changed through the ages.

 

While Donne drew on Cranmer’s characterization of the power and purpose of marriage, he had ample time to expound his own thoughts. In several of the sermons we find a semi-veiled criticism of priestly celibacy. Here, Donne - who was born a Catholic but ordained as an Anglican priest - brings his own personal and priestly identity into the mix. As if the poor couple didn’t have enough emotional baggage to contend with! 

 

 

Three hundred years later, the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer composed a sermon for the marriage of his niece. It was delivered in his absence, while he was a prisoner in a Gestapo jail.

 

In contrast to Donne, Bonhoeffer’s wedding sermon speaks more directly about love - and acknowledges the newlyweds from the start. It is their desire - their human love for each other - that has brought them together, he explains. But it is the divine love - the blessing of their union, that makes this a marriage. A manifestation of God’s glory - an “occasion for joy” to use one of his favourite sayings. Like Donne, Bonhoeffer’s wedding sermon also reveals something of himself. 

 

Beyond the greater emphasis on the married couple, the tenor of Bonhoeffer’s marriage sermon is almost identical to Donne’s. The couple enter the church as individuals - albeit two who desire togetherness - but they leave as more than the sum of their parts. Transformed in relationship with each other and Christ. The private is now made public - “an office” - like that of a monarch - and with that office comes responsibility.For Bonhoeffer marriage is where desire meets discipline. 

 

“Earthly society [he states] is only the beginning of the heavenly society, the earthly home an image of the heavenly home, the earthly family a symbol of the fatherhood of God over all men…..God gives you Christ as the foundation of your marriage. [he explains].”

 

 

Fast forward even closer to the present. 2018. Michael Curry’s sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The mere mention of which may for some conjure up a reaction which itself perhaps demonstrates the power of marriage!

 

Rooted in the language of our therapeutic age, Bishop Curry’s sermon is titled “The Power of Love”. A quote from Martin Luther King - an inspiration to so many, including Curry’s parents - both civil rights activists. A bit of himself seeps into his sermon too.

 

Unlike Donne and Bonhoeffer, Curry does not engage with the issue of gender roles in marriage. His language throughout is thoroughly inclusive.

 

“Two young people fell in love [he says], and we all showed up.” 

All 1.9 billion of us.

 

Perhaps in the spirit of inclusivity, Curry doesn’t differentiate between human and divine love. And while, like our other preachers, he spends most of his sermon describing the implications of loving relationships in every area and at all scales of life, he describes the route there as a series of choices rather than obligations – open to us all, not only the bride and groom. 

 

But underneath these linguistic concessions to our era of individual freedom and agency, the explanation of what’s going on broadly follows that of Donne and Bonhoeffer. Marriage is an event in which our conception of power and identity is transformed - a singular event which bridges the relationship between private and public, the particular and universal, novelty and continuity, the present and the future. An event in which the meaning and purpose of our lives is changed.

 

This accumulation - of centuries of commentary and cultural expectation about marriage - is carried in our subconscious. Like muscle memory. So it’s not surprising that weddings can be tense - for all involved - nor that discussions about what marriage means can be just as stressful. 

Neither is it, I think, surprising that the first revelation of Jesus’s glory was in the context of a wedding.

I put it to you that the Miracle at Cana is Jesus’s wedding sermon - to you and me - as we unite to form his church? And perhaps he’s relying on that marriage-muscle-memory to help us understand how our lives are transformed as a result?

 

From the first four words we sense that what is happening has something to do with the present and the future, the particular and the universal, the human and the divine because “on the third day” Christ rose again and ascended into heaven, where he sits at the right hand of the Father. And he invites us to join him there, as the disciples and Mary were also invited to the wedding. Our invitation is to the ultimate marriage, the celebration of all celebrations - the fulfilment of all our possible desires.

 

We find this heavenward-looking focus in all three wedding sermons but perhaps most explicitly in Bonhoeffer’s.  

 

Like the preachers who followed him, Jesus makes this sermon personal. Although the word-made-flesh puts the whole of himself into his. The emotions are released as the tectonic plates of his earthly relationships begin to shift. As his identity as the Son of God - which was once known only privately - begins to be revealed publicly. Jesus serves his Father first; then those in need. Human family ties come a distant third. 

 

Mary knew that this revelation of authentic relationship would come with responsibilities. Goodness knows - she of all people understood the cost of discipleship. She tells the servants at the wedding “Do whatever he tells you”. No ifs, no buts. Surely an obligation upon all of us who genuinely believe in Him?

 

Whether they involve two people standing with Christ - or the whole church entering into union with him on earth or in heaven - marriages are events in which God’s trust in us is restated - reaffirmed. And a moment in which we are commissioned to explore what that means - to respond to what God is telling us to do - in a new and more public way. 

 

That this new relationship transforms not only the meaning but also the purpose of our lives, is clear in all three wedding sermons - but perhaps especially in Donne’s. 

 

In making wine from water held in jars standing ready for a Jewish purification rite, Jesus demonstrates both novelty and continuity in our new relationship with him. He has brought to us a newness of life that takes what was old and transforms it into something recognisable but different. The sheer quantity of wine produced a sign of the superabundance of Gods creative act and a demonstration of the power of the unseen works of his grace. 

 

There is no sense in Jesus’s sermon that this creative endeavour, which we are called to mirror, is limited to the procreation of children - but, as Michael Curry reminds us, it may be made manifest in our dissemination of Gods love in diverse ways. Even in keeping a party flowing. Such is the power of Gods love that one small act of kindness in a fleeting moment in life, can set off a chain reaction through our union with Christ. 

 

An eternal union of divine love which we are remembering now. An occasion for joy where our earthly family gathers together - an image of the heavenly family - to use Bonhoeffer’s phrase. 

 

At the altar we remember the ultimate singular event on which we believe everything hangs. Perhaps marriage - in every form - is the closest most of us can get to truly understanding that. 

 

 

The Miracle at Cana is Jesus’ wedding sermon to us, his disciples.

 

A reminder that we have been united with each other through him to form this community of faith, the Church. 

 

A union in which our conception of power and identity has been transformed - a singular event which bridges the relationship between private and public, the particular and universal, novelty and continuity, the present and the future. A union in which the meaning and purpose of our lives is changed. 

 

A union with Christ as its foundation - through whom alone our authentic relationships with each other can be revealed - through whom alone the promise of the future fulfilment of every possible desire can be realised. A union which, for better, for worse, comes with costly and joyful obligations and the challenge to explore what that means publicly. A union through which our belief in him is strengthened and God’s glory is revealed. 

 

It is a point of fact that very few wedding sermons have survived the ages. But let us be thankful the most important one - the one revealed in the gospel today - has.

 

Now, I think we’ve earned the chance to party, don’t you? 

 

It’s nearly time to bring on the food and wine!

Image:  Louis Kahan, The WeddingFeast at Cana, 1949