Some of you are old enough to remember that old commercial for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The guy walking down the street eating the chocolate bar. The girl walking down the street eating from a jar of peanut butter (seriously, has anyone ever really done that??). They turn the corner and collide. Peanut butter hits chocolate.
At first they're upset. "You put your chocolate in my peanut butter!" "You got peanut butter in my chocolate!"
But then they take a bite and ... "Delicious!"
Two great tastes that taste great together.
One of the many things I love about our Cathedral congregation is how much we love our Sunday morning liturgy. It is a huge team effort to create this offering for God, and so many people work to make it a truly beautiful gift. More than that, it's a chance for us to come together and lay our lives on the table with Christ. To offer ourselves to God. I know for me, there is nothing more meaningful. Sunday morning is the highlight of every week for me.
Just about all of us also love weddings. And anyone who has had any part of one knows that's also a team effort to create something beautiful. We love the fancy clothes, of course, but more than that we love the hope, we love the love. We love that two people would love each other so much that they are not just willing but completely on fire to pledge devotion to one another until they are parted by death. We love that we can find one person to try to love as deeply as Christ loves us. Weddings are some of the best celebrations of our lives.
So in February, when we first had a wedding on a Sunday morning at Christ Church Cathedral (and it was a wonderful event where Brittney Rickard and Chloe Hollett gave themselves to each other in vows and with rings in front of God and our community), it was really new and for some people kind of jarring. Like the peanut butter hitting the chocolate.
And while a lot of people said, "MMMMM ... Delicious!" there were also those who said: "Hey, what's up? You got your wedding in my Eucharist." ... and that's OK. Some things take a while to get used to.
This Sunday, we're doing it again. Melanie Jianakoplos and Chris Slane will exchange vows and be married at our regular 10 am service. Bishop Smith will be the presider and Canon to the Ordinary Dan Smith (an old family friend of the Slane's) will preach.
The reason Melanie and Chris are doing this at the Cathedral is that both are postulants for holy orders (specifically, the priesthood. Melanie from Missouri and Chris from Nebraska). When you enter the process for holy orders you stop being a parishioner of a congregation. That means the diocese is their congregation and the Cathedral is their church.
But why Sunday morning?
Because marriage is not just a sacramental rite between two people. It is an act of the entire community. The Rev. Dr. Dan Handschy, rector of Church of the Advent in Crestwood and new dean of the Episcopal School for Ministry, gives the best description I know when he says, "At a wedding your relationship becomes community property."
Think about it. When you get married, you're not promising one another anything you haven't said many times in many ways before. The difference is you are doing it with your community gathered around. And it is the community's job both to witness and bless. Witness means to be able to say that we have seen it and know it to be true. Bless is to say that we believe this is good ... and we do that not just by our words that day but by our pledge to support and remind the couple of that for the rest of their lives.
That means when things are going great, the community is there to celebrate. And when things aren't going so great, and they are tempted to drift apart, the community is there to remind them of that goodness, and to push them back together. To remind them that together their greatest joy is to have each other's backs, to love one another as Christ loves us all.
If our church community is to support us in these holy vows and in this holy living, then there really isn't a more appropriate place to do the wedding than at the main community gathering. and in that case, it means our principal service on Sunday morning. So that's why we're taking these two great tastes and putting them together. And I think as we do it more and more, you'll find it's delicious.
Part of my confidence in that is that we've been down this road before with baptism. Baptism used to be a private sacrament done only with family and a few close friends. And then we realized it was a sacrament that didn't make any sense without the baptized person's Christian community ... the people whom they were going to live with in Christ ... around to witness, bless and support. Now we do baptisms all the time on Sunday morning and nobody bats an eye ... in fact we love it and they are some of the high points of the year.
But most of my confidence in that is that love and joy are contagious. So come on Sunday with your taste buds tingling. Come and be part of a community offering ourselves to Christ in love. Come and witness and bless Melanie and Chris as they pledge to offer themselves to one another in Christ's name.
Come put our chocolate in some peanut butter. And taste and see that the Lord is good!
At first they're upset. "You put your chocolate in my peanut butter!" "You got peanut butter in my chocolate!"
But then they take a bite and ... "Delicious!"
Two great tastes that taste great together.
One of the many things I love about our Cathedral congregation is how much we love our Sunday morning liturgy. It is a huge team effort to create this offering for God, and so many people work to make it a truly beautiful gift. More than that, it's a chance for us to come together and lay our lives on the table with Christ. To offer ourselves to God. I know for me, there is nothing more meaningful. Sunday morning is the highlight of every week for me.
Just about all of us also love weddings. And anyone who has had any part of one knows that's also a team effort to create something beautiful. We love the fancy clothes, of course, but more than that we love the hope, we love the love. We love that two people would love each other so much that they are not just willing but completely on fire to pledge devotion to one another until they are parted by death. We love that we can find one person to try to love as deeply as Christ loves us. Weddings are some of the best celebrations of our lives.
So in February, when we first had a wedding on a Sunday morning at Christ Church Cathedral (and it was a wonderful event where Brittney Rickard and Chloe Hollett gave themselves to each other in vows and with rings in front of God and our community), it was really new and for some people kind of jarring. Like the peanut butter hitting the chocolate.
And while a lot of people said, "MMMMM ... Delicious!" there were also those who said: "Hey, what's up? You got your wedding in my Eucharist." ... and that's OK. Some things take a while to get used to.
The reason Melanie and Chris are doing this at the Cathedral is that both are postulants for holy orders (specifically, the priesthood. Melanie from Missouri and Chris from Nebraska). When you enter the process for holy orders you stop being a parishioner of a congregation. That means the diocese is their congregation and the Cathedral is their church.
But why Sunday morning?
Because marriage is not just a sacramental rite between two people. It is an act of the entire community. The Rev. Dr. Dan Handschy, rector of Church of the Advent in Crestwood and new dean of the Episcopal School for Ministry, gives the best description I know when he says, "At a wedding your relationship becomes community property."
Think about it. When you get married, you're not promising one another anything you haven't said many times in many ways before. The difference is you are doing it with your community gathered around. And it is the community's job both to witness and bless. Witness means to be able to say that we have seen it and know it to be true. Bless is to say that we believe this is good ... and we do that not just by our words that day but by our pledge to support and remind the couple of that for the rest of their lives.
That means when things are going great, the community is there to celebrate. And when things aren't going so great, and they are tempted to drift apart, the community is there to remind them of that goodness, and to push them back together. To remind them that together their greatest joy is to have each other's backs, to love one another as Christ loves us all.
If our church community is to support us in these holy vows and in this holy living, then there really isn't a more appropriate place to do the wedding than at the main community gathering. and in that case, it means our principal service on Sunday morning. So that's why we're taking these two great tastes and putting them together. And I think as we do it more and more, you'll find it's delicious.
Part of my confidence in that is that we've been down this road before with baptism. Baptism used to be a private sacrament done only with family and a few close friends. And then we realized it was a sacrament that didn't make any sense without the baptized person's Christian community ... the people whom they were going to live with in Christ ... around to witness, bless and support. Now we do baptisms all the time on Sunday morning and nobody bats an eye ... in fact we love it and they are some of the high points of the year.
But most of my confidence in that is that love and joy are contagious. So come on Sunday with your taste buds tingling. Come and be part of a community offering ourselves to Christ in love. Come and witness and bless Melanie and Chris as they pledge to offer themselves to one another in Christ's name.
Come put our chocolate in some peanut butter. And taste and see that the Lord is good!
2 comments:
As a priest (on staff @ the Cathedral @ the time of my wedding, who married a priest, also canonically resident in the Diocese of Missouri), & was married at CCC, on a Saturday afternoon at 5 PM, I have a different "take" on a wedding as part of the principal Sunday morning liturgy. It never crossed our minds to celebrate our marriage at the principal Sunday morning liturgy. Sunday morning was (and is) for the CCC gathered community. Our wedding would involve people from our *two* congregations, family, friends from across the country, the Bishop and numerous other folks. The same thing will be true on 2 September. However, while both my husband & I were canonically resident in Missouri (& I was on staff @ the Cathedral), that does not seem to be true with this couple. In addition, the blog talked about being 'supported' by the gathered community but a) it is unclear if the couple is part of the Cathedral community; b) the groom (being from Nebraska) is not part of CCC or the Diocese of Missouri; & c) one presumes that both will be off to seminary after their honeymoon. My husband and I were supported by both the Cathedral community & Church of the Transfiguration for 14 months before our move to Calif. but I am not sure how this couple will be supported by the folks of CCC when they return to seminary.
Thanks for your comments, Carolyn.
When you and Bennett got married, it sounds like this wasn't a good choice for you for the reasons you said. You were both already ordained and had two different congregations and this would mean choosing between them.
Chris and Melanie are both in seminary (they actually had the betrothal part of the service at VTS so that community could pledge their support) and even though they had to choose which diocese in which to have this, because of their canonical status, they really don't have home parishes anymore.
This is one of those instances where we are functioning as a Cathedral of the Diocese, and this Sunday is a time for the diocese to gather on the Lord's Day and share in this. And, in fact, we are expecting a couple hundred people from around the diocese to come!
I have always offered Sunday morning weddings to couples (and until February, I was never taken up on it) because of all the reasons I stated above. It's much easier to explain why it's appropriate when they are members of the congregation. Melanie and Chris is obviously a different situation, but part of what we get to be as a Cathedral congregation is stewards of the church for the wider diocese ... so it's a real joy to be able to host this on Sunday.
Thanks for your comments -- it gave me a chance to fill in some gaps. And, of course, different choices work for different people.
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