Dear Friends, Neighbors and Members of St. Cyprian's, 

 

Last Saturday, I presided at my brother's wedding in West Virginia and preached a homily. On the way back home to San Francisco, I thought about how our work together at Turk & Lyon - reviving a church, founding a center, sharing a kitchen - most importantly connecting with our surrounding neighborhood, is a kind of marriage. We are intentionally choosing as a church to enter into a committed relationship with our neighborhood, to strive together toward shared goals respecting the differences that are between us as a distinctive Episcopal congregation and as a diverse neighborhood. The church is not the neighborhood and the neighborhood is not the church and yet we are coming together regularly to give birth to new things, which may one day have a life all their own (hopefully raised so as not to forget or neglect their parents.) In my homily at the wedding I closed with the following, which I think speaks to us and our life together as well:

Folks, we don't just marry the best parts of someone --- we marry every part of someone --- and the sooner you are able to accept the other person in their fullness of life the good, the bad and the ugly --- the better and healthier your marriage is going to be. In this way you will help one another come to know the deeper meanings of big words that get thrown around a lot but whose essence is only known through patience and hard work, words like truth, grace, forgiveness and love.      

  

Now, the truth is neither of you is done growing up, changing, evolving as individuals yourselves...thank God! One of the reasons I think folks get married when they do in our contemporary age is that they have discovered something in their partner that is helping them grow more fully into themselves --- perhaps we could call this evolutionary marriage. I'd also extend that to your families of origin perhaps --- just maybe --- each family from which you have come has something unique and important to share.  I know coming all the way from wild and wonderful San Francisco to wild & wonderful West Virginia for this wedding is opening up my eyes, heart and mind in important ways.

 

....we are all looking forward to welcoming you on the adventure of 21st century marriage and seeing how this journey changes you and your families as you each become more fully yourselves, evolving and transforming marriage so that more and more you may become a sign of Christ's forgiving and healing love to the world.        

 

Hopefully, St. Cyprian's and our surrounding neighbors can be real with one another, and we won't hide the hard stuff about making a life together. By being vulnerable we open ourselves up to the possibility of knowing deeper unconditional love --- the kind of love Julian of Norwich describes in "Revelations of Divine Love"  

 

See you soon at Turk & Lyon!