I have just come off a spate of weddings. In my line of work, weddings are both beautiful and tragic. Beautiful in that they become - at their best - a resounding call to “remember your baptism,” to “avow yourself” to another no matter what creeping separateness may come, to make promises, enter a covenant, and say no to the thousands of other possibilities to how you may have lived your life had you not landed at the end of the nave, next to the font, right in front of me. But you did, and so did he, and we’re going to do this thing right for God’s sake.

I have always promised myself a couple of things...ok, more than a couple of things...many, many things instead. What follows is not, of course, an exhaustive overview of the many expectations I hold for myself, but it’s a start. There are several items of personal business that shouldn’t be, couldn’t be, won’t be aired out for all the world to see. They are the less-than socially-acceptable “issues” that make me uniquely and unmistakably “me” - poor, emptied, broken me - child of God, child of dust, and to both shall I return. They are things like:

1. (1)an inability to claim my God-given gifts due to survivor’s guilt and a fear of success;
   

2. (2)a self-sabotaging proclivity to foray into ineffective leadership due to a poor, numb grasp on the all-too-palpable presence of God in my midst;
   

3. (3)an overriding “need” to protect an image of the “perfect pastor” so that my people won’t worry about me, because God knows there is enough they have to worry about already;
   

4. (4) a deep and abiding desire to get out of the way, above the fray, below the dusty stream of light that projects the image of God on to the people;
   

5. (5)an unwillingness to go up on to the mountain as a representative of both God and people without first holding both said parties accountable to their avoidance and lack of self- and others-awareness;
   

6. (6)a refusal to bear the standards of orthodoxy (“right thinking”) in a land where “right” and “wrong” are an old-world refrain of an old-world script, all of which needs to be returned for a re-write, and;
   

7. (7)an increasing spinelessness that seemingly forbids me from doing what I am called to do: proclaim good news to the poor, release to the captives, and peace to those who haven’t known peace in years, if then. Yes, I am the custodian of the mysteries, the witness, the storyteller, and the interpreter of the symbols, all of which is tough work when lying flat on one’s invertebrate back.
   

So, you see, there are other promises, other expectations, other images that I’ve worked myself in a frenzy trying to accommodate and be accountable to. But since these are less-than-perfect and might make the average parishioner a bit nervous, I’ll not speak of them here. Instead, I’ll skim over one and delve more deeply into another of the promises I’ve made to myself, promises whose shadow-side would be the definitive, public demise of myself as a pastor.

First, I promised myself that I wouldn’t leave a trail of building campaigns and physical expansions behind me in the practice of pastoral ministry. This from a man whose congregation is now considering seriously two major projects that meet that description even as we speak. One could argue that healing has occurred in our church, that a sense of belonging, purpose, meaning, and mission is being developed, and that a catalytic event must occur to provide us enough bouyancy for us to make it the next leg of this whitewater. One could also argue that I am full of excuses, all of which cater to my growing angst that spinelessness will, in fact, be the death of me. But that’s another matter.

Second, I promised never, ever, ever, become a “Marrying Sam.” I may be losing on the first front as the sounds of backhoes and budgetary woes fill my restless dreams. But I will go to the death on the second one.

On the one hand, I serve a mid-sized congregation with a huge heart and a lot of loving families who have been baptized, have grown up, and have gotten married in this place. They want - and their children (who have also been baptized and have grown up here) want - nothing more than to see the second and third generations tying the knot on the same hallowed ground that held their trembling feet and felt the weight of their own promises made. And there is something about that part that is holy and right and true. I will attend to that all of my days.

On the other hand, most people don’t care one-one-millionth of an iota what is involved when a pastor says, “Yes, I will walk with you through the dangerous albeit dazzling country of your marriage-to-be. I will listen to your story. I will invite you to listen to it, too. I will want to hold up in the light all the evidence that, though hard to see, finally and clearly illustrates that God has not given up on you but has held you close to the warmth of the Presence and has brought you home to each other. I will teach you something of what it means to create “community” where before only “you” and “me” lived side-by-side in your glaring indifference. I will lead you by the hand into the mystery of love enfleshed for all the world to see. I will show you where there is living water, and I will plead with you to go there - often and together - and drink.”

“...So,”, she asks, “How much does it cost to rent the room?”

<sigh too deep for...>

And there it is: the mushroom cloud that is my holy and overwhelming discontentment with the way things are in wedding-land. How are things there? Dry. Bone dry. And deeply unimaginative. What’s worse is that most seem to find it an interesting place to visit, though no more than 20 minutes at a time with a few weeks of getting things in order by way of preparation. For those of us who refuse with all their life’s purpose to settle into marrying for marrying’s sake, the cave is getting colder and darker all the time.

Recently, I have tried to respect the wishes of bright-eyed young couples with a drastically a-symmetrical and overly idealistic expectation of what marriage is. In so doing, I have said “yes” more times than I have said “no” when, after my “have you considered being married within the context and life of your own worshiping community?” has fallen flat, the couple chooses me as their vendor-of-choice, much like they have chosen the florist, the photographer, the caterer, and the chauffeur. I am trying to live into and out of a generous and hospitable posture, so “yes” is flowing more easily than “no” these days, which is why five of seven successive summer Saturdays have found me persuading and marshaling so many blended families into a common worshiping space in a way winsome enough not to completely madden the mother, disenfranchise the father, or upset the over-shadowed sisters and brothers. I have been busy. And I am tired in the “what in the world am I doing?” sense of things.

This is not always so, of course. And this must be said straightaway. As the pastor of this historical and lovely congregation, I have been afforded a kind of access into certain families and family-events that is reserved oftentimes for the closest of kin. And I know how deeply undeserving I am of that honor. And believe me, it is an honor. For instance, of the many weddings I will do this year, a couple of them will happen in families whom I love as if they were my own; I am thinking specifically of the H family, most recently the S family, and soon the C family. These are not people external to me or to my experience; they are my beloved ones, and I care for them with a compassion beyond telling. That, I tell you, is the God’s honest truth.  Deep friends. Kindred souls. Beloved ones. People I’d lay this bag-of-bones in front of a train to protect; men I’ll hug every time I see them, even if only moments ago, women whose wisdom makes me shudder with awe and wonder. I love them. I do. This story is for them but it is not about them. This story is for them in how they - how you - have redeemed the covenant of marriages-in-the-making for me, have re-written the wedding story for me, and have given me the gift that says “keep giving.” This, then, is for you. You know who you are. And I love you. But it is not about you. You are not the culprits. Know that. It is about how we church-type-folk get hired, render services, and then receive payment of one kind or another because we stood up to our end of the deal, made good on the contract, and didn’t screw it up enough to enrage the overspent parents of the bride who pranced into our beautiful sanctuary one day and said, “This is it; this is where I want to do the deed.”

So, this is for those who see and experience what I do as irrelevant, unimportant, unnecessary, and ultimately unhelpful and confusing ... except for next May and “are we allowed to give the photographer free reign while you’re doing your thing, ‘cause we really want good pictures.” O, and just for kicks, listen to this: Last year, in Pittsburgh, the average wedding cost $25,000. Photography accounted for roughly 10-15% of that (yep, $2,500 to $4,000), though some say pictures are worth a thousand words, and should equal about 50-75% of the total wedding cost, which, when you add it all up, amounts to a lot more than the hill of beans that piles up at my feet after having fallen out of my mouth for the 15 minutes I’m asked to perform.

But more than all of this - more than my own cheap feelings of being relegated to the wedding guild; more than my sense of being hijacked by an ostentatious culture whose weddings sink middle-income families into the kind of debt that prevents would-be grandparents from assisting their progeny in their hopes to go to college; more than my misgivings that we have lost any sense of the mystery of God’s presence and the responsibility that I have to hold people in that light - more than all of that, I hate working for the state on Saturdays in the summer.

Odd bedfellows we make, I think: the Commonwealth of Kentucky and me. Don’t get me wrong (again); I love this place. It isn’t the place I’m referring to. It’s the state of things, the fact that when living in Virginia, I had to raise my right hand while placing my left one on a Bible and swear myself to work for the Commonwealth with my duly recognized and validated ordination as a servant of the state when performing marriages. They call them “Celebrants’ Rites.” But “rights” is more right; they were “allowing” me to practice this kind of ministry within their legal borders, and since then I have felt like a cheap and promiscuous subversive. After all that work of trying to protect two Constitutions - that of our land and that of our liturgy - all that time spent arguing that it’s good for us all to keep the boundaries well-weeded and clean, all that energy upholding our end of the bargain, wondering if we’ll get to keep our 40 acres, only to watch us be slowly merged in that ritualistic, awkward intimacy that inevitably produces a love-child with a list of birth defects a mile long. The name of that child? Me.

With all of my ranting about the growing disrespect of pastoral integrity and sensitivities and with all of my raving about the glowing disparities between the church and the state, what do I have to contribute besides untidy lament?

An idea.

Go get married. Go form the legal contract that says you are allowed to share each other’s pensions, benefits, and surnames. Go be in pursuit of the civil decree that makes what I do and who I am appear radically unnecessary. Allow the state its due. Give to Caesar what is his, and sign your name on the dotted line. Then, if the honeymoon and happily-ever-after is what you’re after, go and be well.   Valla con Dios! And I mean that. Peace to you and to you. Godspeed.

And if you happen to wonder what God is dreaming for you, what God longs to see happen between you, what God has to say...come to me. Let me lend to you words that are far larger and fuller and richer than any of us and all of us. Let me sit beside you in your celebration. Let me join your hands and wrap myself around you in prayer. Let me stand with those you love in strong commitment and conviction to be for you who you most need for us to be. Let us laugh with you. Let us hold you when you fall. Let us all recognize that what is about to happen is too much for any of us to handle alone. Let us acknowledge the extravagance of your love, of this moment, and of our life together with God and with each other. Let us wonder what might have been had we missed out on this part, the part where we say “I do. I will. Until I am ripped away from you by the claws of hungry death. But only death will separate us.”

If this is a bit much to stomach, tell that to the Justice of the Peace who has a nice list of Marrying Sam’s who do not require that you be honest, faithful, and full of hope in their presence. They are easy and available and can be bought at any price, but if I were you, I’d aim low.

If this kind of thing sounds enticing or intriguing or promising or life-giving, then tell that to the Justice of the Peace and he’ll have you call me, no matter what time of day or night. And I will come to you, I will listen to you, and I will cover you with the shelter of my hope for your life together.

Either way, give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,  namely, the duty to enlist you as a contractual pair with all the rights and privileges thereto pertaining. And then come to us so that together we may give God what is God’s: namely, you. And then, we’ll throw a party!