Third Sunday of Epiphany 2019

Isaiah 62:1-5 and I Corinthians 12:1-11 and John 2:1-11

‘You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is In Her, and your land Married; for the Lord delights in you, and your land shall be married.’

‘To each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.’

‘When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”’

At the end of the service last Sunday a couple approached me with a request. After thirty-three years of marriage, a ring had been lost, and replaced, and they came asking that the new ring be blessed before it was put on. And, of course, I was glad to do so, there and then, standing in front of the altar in the presence of God. There is, of course, nothing magical about either a ring or a blessing: the original ring was not lost because the blessing invoked upon the couple on their wedding day had worn off, or been broken. But rings are given and received as a sign of the marriage; and God’s blessing is invoked that they “may be a symbol of unending love and faithfulness, to remind them [the couple] of the vow and covenant which they have made this [or, on that] day through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Wedding rings, then, are first a sign of God’s unending love and faithfulness, we are invited into, to experience for ourselves.

And wedding rings are a symbol of unending love and faithfulness not only to the finger on which it is placed, or the body of which that finger is a part, or the hand of the other body that placed the ring on the finger—two bodies now joined-together as one—but a symbol of unending love and faithfulness to the whole body of Christ, the church; and to the wider community. Not everyone marries; but every life is touched by marriages, and is meant to be blessed by the encounter.

The average cost of a wedding in the UK in 2018 was £30,355 (when my wife and I married, twenty-two years ago, we bought our first home for £30,500). That’s just on the day itself, with two-thirds of couples going over their budget or not having one. Here in the north east, the average is closer to £17.5K, but then, we are one of the poorest regions in the country, with the lowest wages.

In addition to the wedding, increasingly, couples are having stag and hen years, a series of weekend events, local, national, and somewhere on the continent, in which their friends are expected to take part, at their own expense; and then those friends are asked to contribute to the cost of a honeymoon. Moreover, this is a reciprocal social indebtedness—those invited to your stag/hen do must invite you to theirs.

And while it has long been tradition that the parents of the bride make a significant contribution to the cost of the wedding, that is now likely to involve re-mortgaging their own home, at a point where they might have expected to be mortgage-free and looking to focus their savings on their own retirement needs.

This has a massive financial impact, and debt significantly compromises our capacity to cope with other challenges, including those challenges that are common to life. But alongside this, contemporary weddings have an enormous emotional impact. The wedding becomes the focus of energy, of planning, the thing that gives purpose, for at least two years (often more) in pursuit of the perfect fairy tale. This places huge strain on relationships: I often note that the first casualty of a wedding is the friendship between the bride and the chief bridesmaid. And when the Big Day passes, it has a long tail, a period of emotional exhaustion that mirrors the anticipation (that is, if the wedding was two years in the planning, the emotional aftermath of reality biting lasts two years). I’ve known marriages not make it through that aftermath.

Marriage, according to the Church, ‘enriches society and strengthens community’ (from the Preface to the Marriage Service). But current wedding custom does the exact opposite, dragging couples, their friends and families into debt, and diminishing their resilience. I am committed to marriage. Weddings make me cry.

All this needs to be set against the backdrop of the rise in people in work needing to access food banks; and the economic impact of exiting the EU, which even the most ardent Brexiteers—who believe the cost worthwhile in the long run—recognise will have a negative economic impact in the short-to-medium term.

And yet, people still believe in marriage; and I still believe that marriage ‘is a gift of God in creation through which husband and wife may know the grace of God’ (the Preface, again). I’m not judging people for how they choose to go about getting married; but I grieve that they have been aggressively, consistently marketed lies, things they don’t need, that won’t make them happy. And I believe there is a better way.

If ever there were Isaiah days, a people termed Forsaken and a land termed Desolate, that God longs to transform so that those people are called My Delight Is In Her, and their land Married, we are living in them. If ever there were Cana days, sisters and brothers, we are living in them.

Weddings are still moments where God’s glory might be revealed, as God’s children step up to bless their neighbours. Up and down the country, there are congregations exploring how they might join in. Some have discovered among themselves the necessary gifts to offer couples a wedding package that is cut-price without being poor quality. Then again, other congregations have discovered among themselves the experience and gift to be able to offer debt advice in their community. Both could be seen as examples of identifying jars of water to hand, and changing them to the very best wine. I’m not suggesting that we do this, or that, here—they might not be quite what God has gifted us for and is calling us to do. I am suggesting that we prayerfully consider what our response might be to the word of God spoken through Isaiah and Paul and John, not only in their day but to us in ours.

But the starting-point, and sustaining principle, is not what we do at all. For sooner or later, our resources run out, again and again. Unless we are regularly encountering the living God, the person of Jesus who, by his Spirit, is in our midst as we come together to worship, then the time comes for us to make our excuses and drift away home. Jesus is here. But, like the steward, are we oblivious? Or, like the servants, are we attentive? And, like the first disciples, is our belief enlivened by his glory?