Readings from Richard Bach, A Bride Across Forever and 1 Corinthians 13.
M and F, my research leave meant that I got to know you less well than I would have liked. Please accept my apologies in advance if
I’ve got the wrong impression of you.
F – I think of you as
in charge of the picture-perfect wedding. I relate to that. Not because
I made sure that ours was a picture-perfect wedding. I didn’t. I won’t say more
about that. It’s been over 25 years ago and I have been forgiven. But I am a perfectionist.
I want things to be just right. Being a perfectionist has its good uses but it
can be a real threat to any relationship. Love
is patient, love is kind... it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of
wrongs.
M – I see you as a man of patience
and peace. I suspect that you don’t get easily upset; you’re prepared to
give way. I can relate to that. People often see me as a man of patience and
peace. But in my case the appearance does not always match the reality. And I
sometimes forget that peace is an active thing. It’s not sitting back,
avoiding confrontation. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the
truth. It always protects, always
trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. It is an active force.
True, patient, persevering love is what makes a
marriage perfect. How do you find true love? Now, you may well think
that is an odd question to ask on a wedding day. You have found your true love!
On
the first of December my true love gave to me
seven
bridesmaids, six usherers, five flower girls – two page boys,
two
best men each with a ring to bring
and a still and a rolling
camera.
If that’s not true love...
Seriously. Our first reading
gave us a glimpse of what true love should give us:
keys to fill our locks.
When we feel safe enough to open the locks,
our
truest selves step out
and we can be completely and honestly who we
are;
we can be loved for who we are
and not
for who we’re pretending to be.
This is the enchanting
part of the story that Dick Bach tells. The
Bridge Across Forever: (subtitled:
A Love Story) was published in 1984 and is based on his real-life
relationship with actor Leslie Parrish whom he had married a few years before
that. The couple were also the main characters of his next book, One: A
Novel, published in 88. In the late 90s they divorced.
Fans were devastated to
discover that this match made in heaven didn't manage to stick. But maybe they
should not have been surprised. In 1970 Bach had divorced from his first
wife – with whom he had six children which he abandoned along with his wife – on
the grounds that he did not believe in marriage.
After his break-up with
Leslie Parrish, he explained that lovers don't have to stay married forever
in order to be lifetime soul mates.
I don’t know whether Bach thought
of his third wife as another soul mate or whether it was a case of “Look,
you’re not my soul mate – that’s wife number two – but you’re the one with whom
I want to spend my old age.”
Bach didn’t just have a
wrong idea about marriage. He also had the wrong idea about soul mates. So let
me tell you the truth – as my wedding present to you. In a nutshell: You
don’t find a soul mate. You become a soul mate.
If you fall for that lie that
soul mates is about finding the perfect fit for you, there is a very high risk
that further down the road you end up discovering that you have married the
wrong person and that your real soul mate is this new colleague at work
or this old school friend with whom you have reconnected. And of course that
won’t be true either.
You don’t find a soul mate.
You become a soul mate. It
is a vocation; it is a commitment; it is something you need to work on day
after day and year after year.
Love ... does not envy, it
does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking. Love is becoming a safe space for someone else:
When we feel safe enough to open the locks,
our
truest selves step out
and we can be completely and honestly who
we are;
we can be loved for who we are
and not for who we’re pretending to be.
This is about who we are
at the core of our being. Such love will overspill in hospitality. Friends
outside your marriage will also be able to be more honestly themselves in your
presence if you have love with integrity of the sort that creates that safe
space within your marriage. If you try
to create your own little paradise just for yourselves, you’re walking away
from love. Love ... is not self-seeking.
But the marriage is a
unique, exclusive relationship, the place where a man and a woman are fully
naked with each other. Shedding your clothes is the easy bit, baring your soul
can be a lot harder.
Naked in body and soul we
are vulnerable. This is why God tells us that fullest intimacy belongs inside
marriage. What difference does marriage make? Marriage is meant to help define
that safe space in which you can be truly who you are without getting hurt.
How is marriage meant to
do that? Through the vows you make to each other in public. In effect, you
commit to being a soul mate. This is the critical point. Being soul mates is
not about perfect chemistry between two people, it is not about always being on
the same wavelength, about feeling and thinking the same, pursuing the same
goals.
Being
a soul mate is about commitment.
·
I am there for you – whatever life will throw up.
·
I am for you – whoever you truly are.
I wish someone had told me
more clearly when I got married that in ten years time I would be married to a
different person.
I am now more than twice
the age I was when I got married. The man to whom my wife is married today is
not the same who looked at her adoringly in 1992. And it’s not just the grey hairs...My wife,
too, has changed – a great deal.
The thing is, if you
believe that today you marry the perfect person, any change in that person is
going to be a threat. And if you were to believe that being soul mates is about
being perfect for each other, then you may well no longer think of your spouse
as a soul mate when they change.
Then the critical question
for true love will not be “Is my partner still my soul mate?” but “Am I
still a soul mate, a safe space? Do I live by the promises I have made?
Will I actively pursue
peace, even when things are not perfect?
Love never fails. This is both a challenge and a promise.
We are not called to be
perfectionists, we are called to be perfect. Perfectionists try to make things
perfect. But it is not the wedding day that has to be perfect or the time when
you have children, it is you who have to be perfect.
Be perfect, as your
heavenly Father is perfect,
says Jesus in his famous Sermon of the Mount (Matthew 5:48).
What he means is this:
that our love must not be limited to those with whom we get on, those who are
on our wavelength. Our love, that is our practical action in seeking the
good of others, must embrace those from whom we are estranged and those who
are hostile to us.
And I’m afraid there are
likely occasions in a married life, when this becomes relevant – when your
spouse feels like a stranger or even when you perceive them, rightly or
wrongly, as hostile towards you. Then you must love. Be perfect, as your
heavenly Father is perfect who makes his sun rise on the evil and on the
good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous (Matthew
5:45).
How do you find true love?
Be perfect, as your
heavenly Father is perfect. Or,
as we find it in the Gospel according to Luke (6:36), Be merciful, just as
your Father is merciful.
God alone always
protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres - his Love
never fails. This is why he came to us in Jesus Christ who is ‘The bridge
across forever’.
He is the one who loved
those who are his so much that he laid down his life for them. He loved us when
we were still estranged from him, he loved us after we had messed up He loved
us with a love that made us right again and ready to come into God’s presence,
the presence of love.
As you grow to maturity in
love for another, may you also come to know God’s love for you in ever deeper
ways. Amen.
