Words for a Wedding

Elizabeth Pearce and Travis Vaughn
May 14, 2011

For just a few minutes, I am going to be so bold as to claim a “God’s-eye view” on this very moment. God is smiling right now, because God knew, even when you didn’t have a clue.

You’ve known each other for years. God knew, but you didn’t have a clue. You were around each other often enough to know, but you were too busy trying to be who you thought you wanted to be and too busy being with who you thought you wanted to be with. God knew, but you didn’t have a clue.

God is like that with us. God doesn’t force God’s self on us. God doesn’t insist on God’s way. God only and always invites us into God’s way. God’s way is to love and to be loved, to accept and to be accepted, to respect and to be respected; that’s God’s way. God is like that with us.

And when we are finally ready to be that way with God—to love and to be loved, to accept and to be accepted, to respect and to be respected—one of the things we may awaken to discover that God knew that we didn’t have a clue is that the person God had in mind for us has been right there nearby all along. And when we awaken to that discovery, it makes God smile.

It’s more than your wedding. God is smiling at your wedding, of course. I’m sure God smiles at weddings (well, at most of them, anyway). But even more than the wedding, God is smiling at a family of three, Travis, Elizabeth, and Luna, that is a living sign and symbol and embodiment of God’s redeeming love in the world. I’m not saying that you are the Trinity or anything, mind you. What I’m saying is that when any of us decide, finally, to be that way with God—to love and be loved, to accept and be accepted, to respect and be respected—God becomes present with us in a powerful and mysterious way.

God knew when you didn’t have a clue, but now you do too. And God is smiling on you and on all of us thanks to you. So the vows that you are about to speak and the promises you are about to make and the life together you are setting out on today, all those things aren’t just about the two of you. They are also about God who is closer to each of you because of the other. And they are also about all of us who are closer to God because of you. And that makes God smile.

Photo by Wayne-Amethyst Photography, used under license of Creative Commons.