Wedding sermon

I want to talk about death. No, the flowers haven’t

confused me. I’m aware that this is a wedding and not a funeral, but still: I
intend to talk about death. What I want to talk about is real death. I’m not
using the word metaphorically. I want to talk about the end of life on earth, which
each of us will sooner or later suffer. I want to talk about death.

Death
is an enemy, the “last enemy,” Paul says. Death is an intruder in God’s good
creation. We’re created for glory, yet we decay into a putrid mess. We were
created to live, yet we all die. Death slipped into the world through Adam’s
sin, and as soon as it got a foothold, it seized the throne: “Death spread to
all men; death reigned from Adam to Moses.” Great as he was, Moses
couldn’t deliver anyone from Death; instead Death twisted the law into an
instrument of torture, eliciting Paul’s anguished cry, “Wretched man that I am!
Who will set me free from the body of this death?”

Death is no metaphor, and Death’s
reign is no metaphor. It’s not a colorful illustration. It’s a simple fact: The
last thing each of us will do on earth will be to take a last breath. Death
will have us each in its grip, and no amount of medical ingenuity, not even an
infinity of prosthetic implants, will be able to rip us away. Death reigns, and
each of us is subject to its tyranny.

Even before it comes, Death
reigns through fear. Death enslaves us because it keeps us in terror. As
Hebrews says, we are slaves to the fear of death all our lives. Slavery to
death is also slavery to Satan, because fear of death gives birth to the works
of the devil. We’re “flesh,” that is, we’re mortal, and fear for our flesh
produces Satan’s work in us.

It’s easiest to see this when
times are bad, when resources are scarce, when there is little to go around. We
want to live. So we grab and hoard and scrape. When we’ve gathered enough to
survive, we protect it, viciously, violently if necessary. Our fleshliness, our
fragility, our fear of our mortality produces greed, enmity, strife, jealousy,
anger, dissensions.

Death shadows us even when
there’s plenty of food, sufficient shelter, when everyone has a closet full of
clothes and more stuff than we know what to do with. Even then, there are
precious, scarce goods we want to accumulate and protect. We long for
recognition, purpose, significance. Like hunter-gatherers in the bush, we
scrounge for trinkets that will enhance our status. We’re like the ancient
heroes who strive to accomplish something so big that bards will sing about
us around campfires to the end of time. And all of this is just another
expression of our slavery to the fear of Death. We grasp for something, anything,
that escapes Death’s notice, something that slips through Death’s
fingers, something we can take along or leave behind. Our ambitions are
pathetic, desperate bids for immortality.

We have our defenses, of
course. Culture springs up from the ground where we bury our dead. Our culture,
every culture, is a “hero system” (Ernest Becker) that offers us a toolkit of tricks
to outwit Death. For ancient Greeks, you became an immortal hero, maybe even a
god, by war, sexual conquest, skill in debate. We have our own hero systems. We
call it “the American dream” or “fame” or “reaching the big time.” Its
sacraments are shiny cars and absurdly big houses, the influential contacts listed
on our cell phones, titles and credentials, artistic or literary achievement,
momentary brushes with the rich and famous.

Fear of death goes deep, deep
down. Death isn’t only outside or ahead of us. We internalize our culture’s
methods of repression to such a degree that fear of Death makes us who we are
and turns us into little factories producing the works of the flesh. We don’t
fight for food because we don’t have to. But when someone lays a finger on that
tender spot where I get my sense of worth, if someone tries to take from me the
thing that gives me value, I can be as vicious as a tiger protecting prey.

Long before we face the end, Death
busily kills us. If we are going to be delivered from the body of this death,
we’re going to have radical surgery. We’re going to have to find some way to
die to Death, something that tames death and make it an entry to new life. If ever
we find such a thing, it will be good news indeed.

All this is awfully
theoretical, and you both asked for a practical homily. I didn’t ignore you, not
exactly, but I wanted to remind you that you need to dig below the surface if you’re
going to get to the heart of Christian practice, including Christian practice
in marriage. Exhortations to “love” and “submit,” to “speak kindly” and “be
patient” are absolutely necessary, but they’ll glance off you, and do little
more than frustrate you, unless you’ve identified what’s driving your hatred
and rebellion, your impatience and cruelty.

What’s driving it is fear of
death, expressed as fear of being diminished, of losing worth, of not living up,
a horror of failure, a dread of pain. One of you makes a remark that causes
pain. You don’t like pain. Pain is a reminder of death, itself a little death,
and you don’t like to be reminded of death. So you withdraw to a safe place, or
you lash out in self-protection. One of you is insecure about your
relationship, and you feel as if you’re standing at a cliff side watching your
life slip into the darkness. You don’t want your love to die, and you’re
frantic to resuscitate it.

This is self-defeating, because
fear can’t save love. Fear cripples love. If you’re afraid to have your need brought
to light, you’ll recoil from the other who exposes your abject weakness, and so
recoil from love. If you fear failure and rejection, if you’re anxious for approval
and acceptance, you scramble and fight to keep yourself together, and so beat
down love. You hold back because you’re afraid that if you give too much,
you’ll end up empty. But love is self-giving, and you can’t love when
you’re intent on keeping the tank full. As long as you fear exposure, need,
loss, as long as you fear these small deaths, you cannot love.

Perfect love casts out fear,
John says. It’s equally true that love is only possible when fear has been
conquered. If your marriage is going to be luminous with love, you have to find
a way to overcome the fear of Death. Death is still there, and it will come, so
you have to find a way to live in your mortal flesh without fearing for
your mortal flesh. Paul tells us it can be done, but, paradoxically, we have to
die to overcome Death: “I died, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
The life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who died and
gave Himself for me.”

In the flesh, in
the midst of need and weakness and daily dying, we are called practice
resurrection, to live in newness of life now. Above all, you live
resurrection when you are drenched, saturated, infused, inundated, overwhelmed
by good news. In Jesus, God has defeated Death. Death is no longer life’s end,
but life’s beginning: Those who believe have already passed from death
into life. You practice resurrection when you leave it to God to defend your
life and your self, your significance and reputation, when you’re convinced
that your life cannot be touched by Death, by the disapproval of others, or by your
own failures: You died, and your life is now hid with Christ in God. In
baptism, you died to the reign of Death, the death-self that Death produces in
you, and in that baptismal death you died to the works of the flesh, which are
the works of the devil. The gospel breaks all the chains of Death-anxiety, and
opens up to the possibility of love.

You practice resurrection when you
thank God for your very self, when you remember that your life is not an achievement
but a gift. You practice resurrection by a life of prayer, trusting your good
Father to supply all our needs according to His riches in glory. You practice
resurrection when you make music in your hearts, inspired by the Spirit,
because “Singing is the exorcism of fear” (Richard Beck).

You wanted practical, so here’s
practical: Begin each day of your marriage with thanksgiving, acknowledging
that your life is a gift from your heavenly Father and thanking God that He has
given you to one another. Pray without ceasing. Sing. Keep reminding yourself of
the gospel. Remind each other every day that you died to Death through the
death of Jesus, that Death no longer rules you, and that you walk, even now in
the flesh, in the newness of endless life.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Spirit. Amen.

(Much of this was drawn from Richard Beck’s Slavery of Death.)