Ceremony — Sarah + Maria

Wedding Ceremony

Thanks again to all who came out to celebrate with us in coming together.
Below is a transcript of our wedding ceremony and vows exchange.
And a special thanks to the wonderful Rev. Michael W. Caine of Old First United Church of Christ.

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**Processional: This Will Be Our Year by The Zombies**

Opening

What greater thing is there for two human souls
Than to feel that they are joined together
To strengthen each other in all labor, to minister to each other in all sorrow,
To share with each other in all gladness,
To be one with each other in the silent spoken memories?

—from George Elliot’s “To Be with Each Other”

Sarah and Maria, before we go further, I want to ask you both to take a deep breath. And then to look carefully at one another. You made it. That’s why we are all here! After all the preparations and work, no matter how it comes out, it will be alright, because what we’re doing here is about you two together, and the life you have, and are and will be making together for one another and your family. And in just a few minutes, you will be married!

Now I want to ask you to look around this sacred space – take a moment and see the faces of those who are able to be here to support you... (Pause)

And there are even more than who are here. Those who are unable to be here today but are keeping you all in their thoughts and prayers. And there are also those who have gone before you, but without whom you would not be here today ... In church, we call that the cloud of witnesses.

Precious people all, present and past, who love and support you in the commitments you are making today.

Greeting & Introduction

For Maria and Sarah, and their families, I get to welcome you here—to share in this ceremony wherein these two women will be wed according to the laws of this state and in the eyes of God.

They invited you all here because they need you here as they begin their married life – because you have shared in their journeys and showed them your love and support. And they count on the same for years to come.

As witnesses today, you also represent the whole world, as they stand before God, to declare a love that no one can take from or deny them. Remember, it’s not been that long that two women could have such a ceremony that was recognized, public, legal and blessed by the church.

The words and actions that will be shared today are time-honored and sacred. Sarah and Maria understand their love and married life is in many respects like so many who have entered into this sacred bond before them.

Marriage is an ancient institution, even as it will continue to be for them as new as each morning, for it speaks of the past and of the future, of the freedom of the individual and the blessings of coming together beyond ourselves.

In Christian tradition, we understand the union of marriage as instituted and ordained by God. We pray that this marriage will be recognized as we see this service today -- as sacred, holy and central to the strength of the larger community.

Today is, of course, not Sarah and Maria’s beginning. We are here because of their bond that already exists, has for years... love that was not of their making, but a gift of God. But love that they have recognized and affirmed. And worked on. And fought for. That it might grow. And be shared.

But now Sarah and Maria make their promises and commitment to one another public. Marriage lends permanence and public shape to love. That the world might recognize their love and the union it occasions. Marriage gives the most inward of feelings an outward form that is acknowledged by all and commands everyone’s respect (paraphrased from Jonathan Schell’s The Fate of the Earth).

Maria and Sarah are promising to find their way forward together. They are looking for a fulfillment greater than either could achieve alone, risking what they are for who they might be and become.

Maria and Sarah, are you ready now to declare your love and solemnize your commitment?

In swearing your love in public, you will let it be known that your union should be recognized as a family. And the world, by recognizing your marriage, and by attending in the role of witness, announces its stake in its own continuity.

Thus, while in one sense, marriage is the most personal of actions people ever undertake, in another sense, marriage belongs to everybody. That’s a particularly poignant affirmation for when a same-gendered couple is marrying.

In a double sense, both public and private, marriage lays the foundation for the stability of a human world that is built to house all generations. Love creates and recreates the world (again paraphrased from Schell’s “The Fate of the Earth).

Readings

Our first reading is from the fourth chapter of Ecclesiastes:

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.

* * * * * * *

Our Second Reading is from the second chapter of The Letter of James:

For if a person with gold and rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person with dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say “Have a seat here please, while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there” or “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my beloved sisters and brothers, has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the Kingdom God has prepared for those who love God?

You do well if you really fulfill the Divine law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

...So speak and act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty.

What good is it, sisters and brothers, if you say you have faith, but do not have works?

If a sister or brother is naked or lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace now, and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?

The Charge

In a sense, the readings on your wedding day, are one of the ways God is speaking a blessing to you this day.

I get the honor of being the last person to speak to you two before you turn toward one another and marry yourselves by sharing your promises. But this last word, or a word before all the words that you will speak, that honor comes to me in my role as a minister and a pastor. So, what I say today, is also meant to be words though which you might hear God’s voice and blessing.

And as your charge, I want to read back to you something you shared with me:

In her 1981 essay, “Outlaw Culture, Resisting Representations,” bell hooks wrote:

“The moment we choose to love,
we begin to move against domination, against oppression.
The moment we choose to love,
we begin to move towards freedom,
to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others.
That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom....
We do this by choosing to work with individuals we admire and respect;
by committing to give our all to relationships:
by embracing a global vision
wherein we see our lives and our fates
as intimately connected to those of everyone else on the planet.
In our society, we make much of love and say little of fear.
Yet we are all terribly afraid most of the time.
Fear is the primary force upholding structures of domination--
it promotes the desire for separation,
the desire not to be known.
When we are taught that safety lies in sameness,
then difference of any kind will appear as a threat.
When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear,
against alienation and separation.
The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other.”

Beloved Sarah and Maria, that’s the world you are loving and living and committing and working in. Thank you. Are you ready now?

Declaration of Intention

Before God and this congregation, I ask you to affirm your willingness to enter into this covenant and to share all the joys and sorrows of your life together whatever the future may hold.

Maria, will you have Sarah as your wife, and love her faithfully as long as you both shall live? (If so, answer, “I will.”)

Sarah, will you have Maria as your wife, and love her faithfully as long as you both shall live? (If so, answer, “I will.)

Declaration of Support

Despite the intimacy of the promises that you are making to create your marriage, your lives together need the support of a whole, often invisible web of friends and family who support, uphold, advise and guide you.

Representing a community even larger than those present today, may I ask those here today, who are able, to stand in support of this couple.

Do you offer your blessing and loving support to Sarah and Maria as they make their promises today? If so, please say enthusiastically, “We Do!”

Vows

You two wanted to say something before you exchanged your vows:

Sarah:

"Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free."

—from Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins

Maria:

I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.

I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;

I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,

And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find,

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good.
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.

—Love, by Roy Croft

Repeat after me:

"I, ____, take you, ____,
to be my wife,
loving who you are now
and who you are yet to become.
You are my family
and I promise to always be here for you,
to encourage you,
to trust you,
and to respect you.
I promise to hold you and to keep you,
to comfort and protect you,
and to love you the very most, forever and always."

Blessing and Exchange of Rings

Pastor takes the rings and asks that they might always be a sign of the promises made here today.

(Repeat after me) I give you this ring as a sign of my promises. Of my love. And faithfulness.

Pronouncement & Kiss

Because Maria and Sarah have made these promises to one another... and before us and before God, because they have exchanged rings as a sign of their promises to make this covenant visible for all to see, now therefore in the eyes of God, according to the law of our land, and before all people, they are married with God’s blessing.

You may kiss for the first time... as a married couple!

Final Words/Benediction

For you two, it’s a literary benediction, the Denise Levertov poem, “Prayer for Revolutionary Love:”

That one not ask the other to leave meaningful work to follow her.
That the other not ask the partner to leave meaningful work to follow her.
That no one try to put Eros in bondage.
But that no one put a cudge in the hands of Eros.
That your loyalty to one another and your loyalty to your work not be set in false conflict.
That your love for each other give you love for each other’s work.
That your love for each other’s work give you love for one another.
That your love for each other, if need be, give way to absence. And the unknown.
That you endure absence, if need be without losing your love for each other. Without closing your doors to the unknown.