When Millenials Get Married

When Millenials Get Married June 25, 2017

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Complaining is one of my most obvious spiritual gifts, my special charism, if you will. And two of the things I like to complain about most are first, the state of evangelicalism in America, and second, weddings.

Now, in principle, I am for weddings. It’s an idea I can get behind. Two people in love, beautiful dress, gorgeous flowers, a lovely party with friends–a wedding is not one of those dark moments of life, like trudging through the grocery aisle trying to decide what to cook because everyone has to eat…again. So, in theory, I am for weddings.

In practice, though, they can be kind of overwhelming. Especially when they pile themselves up in front of you. Every wedding we do at Good Shepherd involves six hours of pre marriage ‘counseling,’ but really more a mixture of biblical instruction and making sure the couple is walking in the right direction. Then there’s the rehearsal, and the service, and the party, and eventually you find me wandering around the nave with my shoes off, watering the plants, and explaining to various people to whom I haven’t been properly introduced, who therefore don’t know why I’m chattering at them, that I really, when it comes down to it, prefer a funeral.

And, if you’ve been reading this blog for even fifteen minutes, you know that I love to despair over what a wretched state the church (not mine, but all the ones out there) is in. Every time I turn around I’m running into another ghastly article about how weirdly Christians are behaving, or how the world has traded over basic Christian doctrine for the mores and memes of the day, or how they don’t even know what basic Christian doctrine might be, or how no one wants to be Christian any more anyway. It may be no worse than usual–Christianity in the west–but my newsfeed is constantly convincing me otherwise. Surely the apocalypse is nigh. It has probably never been this bad before.

That being so, the moment has arrived for me to swallow down some humble pie, to just for today box up my special charism and acknowledge that there are moments to be encouraged about. If you have to go to a wedding, try to go to one where the young couple pick this as the psalm.

May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us,
that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you judge the peoples with equity
and guide the nations upon earth.
Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
The earth has yielded its increase;
God, our God, shall bless us.
God shall bless us;
let all the ends of the earth fear him!
Psalms 67

I’m always curious and interested about what the affianced will pick as the scripture texts for such a personal and crucial moment. Of course, you can’t go wrong with anything in the Bible. But, leaning back comfortably in my pew as I was, I was charmed that this was the choice.

If you’re in the habit of praying morning prayer some of the lines of this psalm should leap out at you. Or If you’re piled high with weddings and exhausted from hearing I Corinthians 13 three times too many, you might just be grateful. Wherever you are, it’s got to be a nice big breath of spiritual air to stop in the middle of all the chaos and say this psalm, preferably aloud with a lot of other people. ‘Let all the people praise you, O God.’ It’s such a simple, easy thing to ask. That the nations would stop what they are doing as you have, that the people wherever they are, whatever they are doing would pause and praise the Lord.

The young couple who chose this psalm had already pledged themselves, before they bound their way together yesterday, to taking the saving news of Jesus into the highways and byways, to shedding the light of the gospel in the particular direction of the call they have heard. I felt rebuked for being so despairing all the time. ‘Things are so bad,’ I like to moan, ‘it’s like God isn’t doing anything.’ Which is just manifestly not true. He is active, blessing, saving, drawing the nations into his fold, and he’s using these two young people to do it.

Indeed, it should occur to me more often that Jesus himself promised that however bad it gets for the church, however tragically she errs and strays like a lost sheep, she will never be so lost and troubled that he won’t come to rescue, to save her. The gates of hell even, he said, won’t have the final word. Moreover, as the rain and snow fall, and the sun rises and sets, God will keep on drawing people to himself to be part of that eventually gorgeous, but for now beset, bride. A wedding is the best place to remember this, to fix the eyes ever more surely on the gracious One who blesses and saves.

The usual complaining will be back maybe tomorrow. For today, rejoice. Let the people be glad!


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