Predigt zur Hochzeit - Nicht auf der Liebe gründen

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1. Juli 2017 - Kleiner Michel (St. Ansgar), Hamburg

1. Grounded on Your Love

You are about to build the house of your life on the ground of your love. That sounds like the best thing that could happen to you. You found someone who loves you and whom you love. Together you want to build up a home grounded on your love.
What else could be the fundament of your home if not your love. You are coming from different continents with different traditions and cultures. May be you have much in common, both countries belong to the same cultural hemisphere and as Anglicans and Catholics we are confessing the same Christian faith based on the one baptism. But still, there is enough to cause difficulties for a future life together. You and your children will live in a world of diversity and various tensions. What else is there as a fundament - if not your love.
But, to be honest: What a burden! What an incredible heavy burden for your love, to bear all this, to fight all this, to be stronger than all this. You are trusting your love. That is good. But it would be wise to see the limitation of both of you, even of your love. This love is the best that could have happened to you. But it is not all, it is not everything. There is more, even something greater. And this 'more' only can give your love the space to grow and to be strong.

2. Poor in Spirit

You have been very conservative in picking the readings from the bible. Neither the reading from chapter 13 in the First letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians nor the Beatitudes from the beginning of the sermon, Jesus said on the mount, are unheard at occasions like a wedding. But I have a sense that these two might be the path, that could lead you two in your life, a life based on your love.
None of the eight Beatitudes mention love and the gifts of love. To the opposite, it seems like Jesus names blessed those people who lack all experience of a sheltering love. Blessed those, who are "meek" and sheepish, those who "mourn" and grieve for someone, those who have been knocked the stuffing out of them (because that could be the meaning of "poor in spirit"). None of them found the pleasures of being loved.
Why does not Jesus mention love among the Beatitudes? - This is nothing less than the centre of Christian faith. You will never find true love, if you depend on it. You have to let go laughing in order to find joy, you have to overcome the wisdom of this world to become wise, you have to let go all craving for admiration and even your desire for being loved, because actually love can be selfish. In the Sermon on the Mount everything comes to the one point: Trust in God only and God only can give you all you need. You only have to let it happen. Ground your life on the unpredictable God, who is alway greater.

3. Overcoming the mirror

Dear A., dear J:! I need not speak to you like to children. Nor do I have to speak to you like to people who can not brook clear words. "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me." For children it is crucial to learn that God will be always there for them. Because for children it is okay to be centred around themselves. But this is a kind of love that looks childish when you as an adult never learned better. Among adults it would be "only a resounding gong, or a clanging cymbal." This would happen, if love would be never more than falling in love. But as an adult you will experience God as the ever greater who not simply fulfill our wishes an desires. It is the God we address in Church with mysterious words, songs and symbols. In this is more truth than in an image of the convenient God most people prefer.
It is so common to stare at the own image in the mirror only. Everything in the world, every word the other says, every glimpse you catch from the partner is seen only in the mirror of the one question: What does it mean to me? Is it good, useful, bad, harm or pleasure to me? "For then we see only a reflection as in a mirror". Whereas love means to become free of that by being loved. The moment there is someone who sees you not as a mean to own purposes, but "fully known" as you are, and fully respected and accepted "for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health" you can let go the anxiety about yourself, because you are loved.
Yes, indeed, love is the basis of your future life. But as we celebrate your wedding as a Holy Sacrament it is the one love that called you into being, the one love that helps you to let go as described in the Beatitudes.
And then the love you - A. - have for J., and the love you - J. - have for A. will be the Holy Sign and Symbol, the Sacrament for this ever greater love. The love of the one and living God we celebrate here in your wedding. Amen.