April 28, 2019

Helen Jacobi

Easter 2     Ruth 1:16-19a     John 20:11-18

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“Where you go, I will go;

where you lodge I will lodge;

your people shall be my people,

and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16)

Today we have the privilege of being witnesses to the commitment of two people, Elle and Heather, as they prepare for their marriage this week.

Today we pray with them, affirm God’s blessing of them, and send them on their way to get married. They asked for this ceremony to be in the context of our normal Sunday worship so we can celebrate as a parish community with them.

At the heart of this ceremony today is the simple love between two people. Words and prayers repeated pretty much every week in this building as couples come to be married; words repeated down through the centuries and across every culture – words of love and commitment.

And yet today we are doing something new, new for our church and newish for our country. Marriage equality is only 6 years old in NZ; and our church has been slow in catching up, and as yet has only agreed to allow for the blessing of a marriage in our churches, not for the marriage itself. Quite what the difference is and how that helps anyone is unclear to me but that’s where we are at. Let’s not dwell on that today but celebrate what we are able to do which is affirm God’s blessing on Elle and Heather.

The words we will use today are from the liturgy written for us by our Diocese. Using this liturgy connects us with our wider church and affirms that this service now finds its place amongst our authorized services.

For Anglicans that is an important piece, for what we pray together is what we believe. Lex orandi, lex credendi is an ancient Anglican principle.

The words we will use today are about love, commitment and faith.

In any marriage service we say that the love of two people shows us something of what God is like. As Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” This is the nature of God’s love and this is what we hope and pray for in marriage.

In our readings today we see two examples of the nature of love. In the Book of Ruth we read the story of Naomi and Ruth. Naomi has a husband and two sons, and both sons take wives from outside the land of Israel, from Moab where they travel to live to find work and food. But Naomi’s husband and two sons all die, leaving the women unprotected. Naomi says to her two daughters-in-law – our situation is hopeless; go back to your own people. One daughter-in-law heads home, but the other, Ruth, clings to Naomi and says, “Don’t press me to leave you. Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

Ruth demonstrates loyalty and love. And her love is rewarded as when Naomi and Ruth arrive back in Bethlehem, Ruth is able to secure herself a husband and Ruth has a child who will be the grandfather of King David.

This story is set in the time of the Judges (1100BC) but is likely to have been written in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah who wanted to purge Israel of foreigners (400BC). Against the tide of racism and exclusion Ruth’s story is told to show God’s preferential love for the outsider, the widow and the poor.

God is seen to bring a foreigner to establish the line of the kings of Israel.

It is a story which belongs in today’s worldwide debates about immigration and refugees. It is a story which belongs in conversations about who can be loved by whom; and who can be examples of devotion and loyalty to us all.

The in our gospel reading we have Mary Magdalene. Mary, the leader of the women of Jesus’ time, and the apostle to the apostles. In the poignant and beautiful scene at the tomb we see Mary’s love for Jesus. She is weeping at the loss of his body. She wants to care for the body, anoint it, see it properly buried. She searches for him like the woman from the Song of Solomon searching for her lover. “I will seek him whom my soul loves.” (3:2)

She then turns around and sees Jesus, but in her grief she does not recognize him until he says her name. Mary. (Makes us think of the good shepherd (John 10) who calls the sheep by name and they recognize his voice.)

Mary responds to Jesus with the word “Rabbouni” (like Rabbi) which means teacher. She reaches out to touch Jesus, to take his hands, to be reassured. But unlike Thomas who is instructed to touch Jesus, Jesus says do not try to hold onto me, I am no longer your teacher as I was.

You have a task, a vocation; it is to go to the others and tell them what has happened.

You will be the apostle to the apostles, you are the one whom I choose to send.

Mary is a disciple, a companion, and someone who loved Jesus deeply.

Despite the storytelling of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and many others, I do not think Mary was married to Jesus. Some people have argued that she was, it is certainly possible, but I think that diminishes her stature as much as falsely making her a prostitute did. She did not need to be married to Jesus to have a place in his life. She was a disciple and a leader of the disciples who was devoted to Jesus. Her love is like Ruth’s, one of loyalty and devotion.

Today Elle and Heather you are promising to love and care for each other for a lifetime. You are seeking to know each other more deeply and so to know God. You can call on the courage and steadfastness of Ruth and the devotion of Mary. This is a moment where you get to reach out and touch each other and find like Mary that Jesus is unexpectedly in our midst.

Vows of marriage are thin places where we get to see God. God embodied in love, and hope and joy. God who will walk with us through the good times and bad. God who is a God of Easter – of death and resurrection.

We find God in lots of other places too – we don’t have to be married to find God; but when we take the risk of choosing to commit, of choosing to love, we allow God’s love to be visible in our lives.

So thank you Heather and Elle for sharing your day with us. Thank you for claiming your place in our church and being our first couple to use this blessing of a marriage service. We look forward to hearing about your celebrations on Thursday – and seeing photos of course!

Carry these words with you;

“Where you go, I will go;

where you lodge I will lodge;

your people shall be my people,

and your God my God.“

Words to live by.