The Marriage of Melissa and Anthony

The Marriage of Melissa and Anthony
Proverbs 3:3-6
Philippians 2:2-4

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

I’ve done many a wedding over the years.  And I’ve seen some interesting things in those years.  But this is the first time a couple has chosen to use a passage from The Princess Bride as one of the readings.  It is . . . unusual.  But it is not surprising.  Because both Melissa and Anthony have always thought outside the box.  And that’s how they found each other.  By not staying inside the box!

But enough about them.  Now I want to talk about wuv.  Truuue wuv.
I’ve never read the original book, The Princess Bride, but I am very familiar with the movie version.  And I can tell you that the portion we heard a few minutes ago captures the big profession of love toward the end.  In a nutshell, we hear Westley telling the Princess Buttercup that when he says, “As you wish,” what he is really saying is, “I love you.”

From a Christian perspective, this is profound!  From a non-Christian perspective, it is also profound.  Because true love (or true wuv) comes down to surrendering our will to another.  Love does not insist on its own way, as the apostle Paul tells us in First Corinthians.  Setting aside our own way for the sake of another IS love!  It is giving rather than taking.  It is surrendering rather than defying.

Now I can hear all the clergy and social workers’ alarm bells going off when I talk like that.  We’ve seen enough unhealthy co-dependent relationships to know that surrendering in an abusive relationship is not love.  But manipulative relationships are not about love.  Quite the opposite in fact!

So fear not;  that is not what I’m saying at all here.  In a healthy relationship, both partners set aside selfishness.  They are both willing to say “as you wish” every day.  And it only truly works when you both do it.  In any relationship.

And for Christians, the ultimate model of this kind of love is Jesus Christ.  The one who literally gave up his life in order to bring us life.  Now I know that transition sounds like I should have switched to my youth worker whisper voice and grown a goatee.  But what is the death of Jesus if not the very pinnacle of “as you wish?”

But back to mahwidge.  Melissa and Tony have already shown themselves to know how to balance self-worth with “as you wish.”  The readings they chose from Proverbs and Philippians get to this same thing.  Both those biblical texts get at putting others first, and living together in love.  But, in some ways, that Princess Bride reading was the best text these two could have chosen.  Because they get it.  Like, they both get it.  And when two people approach each other as equals in love, they are ready to spend the rest of their lives saying to each other, “As you wish” every single day.

So now I invite the bridal party forward so we can get on with a maywidge!