A Wedding Homily
I got to officiate the wedding of some dear friends (James Emily) yesterday. James pastors a sweet and inspiring church community well worth checking out if you’re in the Toronto area (Wellspring Toronto). I thought I’d share with you the homily God put on my heart to share at this wedding - my first one as an officiant.
Most of us have likely never heard Philippians 2 being read at a wedding.
Philippians 2 is unique because Philippians 2 proclaims universal and timeliness truths about Jesus. And this is also why the soon-to-be married couple wanted Philippians 2 to be the key text that was read and proclaimed at their wedding.
I want to hone in a bit on what I think is the core part of Philippians 2 - verses 6 & 7 says that “though he, or Jesus, was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself.”
We see two values clashing here - exploitation and self-emptying. Exploitation and self-emptying.
Another word for exploited used in some translations is the word “grasped”. Jesus did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped.
But I think that the word “exploited” is a much better fit than the word “grasped”. Because the original Greek word here for exploited or grasped is the word “Harpagmos” and “Harpagmos” means to violently seize something.
Philippians 2 tells us that Jesus did not consider equality with the remaining two persons of the Trinity as something to be seized or grasped or exploited. Instead, he empties himself.
Some Christian traditions like the Orthodox and Catholic traditions consider marriage to be a sacrament or mystery because sacraments mysteriously transform us to become more like Jesus.
Now, not everyone is called to the mystery or sacrament or covenant of marriage. Some of us, (like Jesus and Paul) are called to love God in our singleness. But for those of us called to experience divine grace through marriage - Marriage is meant to form us to become more like Jesus. One of the reasons we marry those we love is SO that we look more like Jesus by the end of a lifetime together - through a covenant of self-sacrificing love (of even dying to yourself when needed, in mutuality, over the course of loving each other).
In a world full of people grasping, in a society full of people exploiting, in a postcolonial world full of people seizing, marriage is not a means to grasp or a means to exploit or a means to seize our partners. Marriage is not something that allows us to grasp or exploit or seize because grasping, exploiting, and seizing makes us look like the opposite of Jesus.
In a world full of people grasping, exploiting, and seizing, God institutes the covenant of marriage to point to his covenant with us - as displayed to us in the life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus; not a covenant of grasping, exploiting or seizing us; but a covenant of showing us unconditional love and unconditional grace by sacrificially emptying ourselves for the sake of the flourishing of life. A covenant not built on male headship or female headship; a covenant not built on the colonialist values of domination and subjugation; but a covenant built on mutuality. For the mutual emptying of ourselves for the flourishing of each other and for the flourishing of this world.
In the Scripture reading from Revelation 21 that was just read to us, we see Jesus returning to usher a new world in - a world where there is no more mourning, no more death, no more exploitation, no more grasping, no more seizing.
Marriage is a covenant that is designed to help us empty ourselves (this Greek word used here being Kenosis). Because it’s in mutually emptying ourselves for the flourishing of each other that we start to look, smell, taste and feel more like Jesus. And it’s in mutually emptying ourselves for the flourishing of each other that we start to become more like Jesus.
Jesus emptied himself of his rights and privileges so that we may have life. He did this in his death, in his resurrection, but also in his life by making himself nothing - a poor brown middle eastern Jewish Palestinian born into a refugee family fleeing violence, tortured and murdered as an innocent victim of capital punishment.
He emptied himself, made himself nothing so that we may have life and life to its fullest. But Jesus doesn’t just show us this self-emptying character on the cross of Calvary - he also shows this to us at a wedding feast. By putting aside his own timeline, and his own plans, and his own glory - so that a newlywed couple and their loved ones would enjoy the fullness of life at a wedding.
What does it look like for us to empty ourselves of our rights and our privileges so that all of creation may have life? And regardless of whether or not you’re called to marriage, what does it look like for us to empty ourselves of our rights and privileges so that everyone who bears the image of God, both our loved ones AND our enemies may have life and life to the fullest? Just like God always intended for us.
My prayer for both of you as you step into marriage is that you would be faithful stewards of whatever rights and privileges you enjoy - for the flourishing of each other. And for the flourishing of this world.
In a world that is obsessed with fighting for “my rights, my powers, my privileges” - my prayer for you both is that you would together be a countercultural voice in the wilderness crying, “take my rights, take my comforts, take my privileges - for the healing of this world.”
Let us pray.
PS: Jesus, Justice & Joash is a reader-supported publication. Paid subscribers are a huge part of my community and support system. If you’ve been blessed by my writing, consider becoming a paid subscriber today!