Marcie and Liam today is your day.  It is a day of great happiness and joy.  The readings you chose to help others understand your relationship are traditional readings we have heard many times.  But, scripture is like an onion. There is always one more layer to reveal the inner core. Your living and your being will help us peel one more layer.

You have chosen selections from the Song of Songs from the First Testament and the Wedding at Cana from the Second Testament.  Let us begin with the second reading first because it more familiar to most of us. 

It is fascinating that the Wedding at Cana is often chosen as one of the readings for a wedding.  Yet, the words we heard proclaimed were words addressed to community, NOT to a bride and groom.  This text is meant for all of us, all of us who came to witness this wedding today.  Never again will this same group of persons be gathered as church.  So, it is special for each one of us.  We are church, you know.  Each of us is called to be a living stone creating this space of worship just for today.  

What does this text have to say to us as the community gathered for worship?  Why is this text addressed to the community rather than the bridal couple?  The clues are in the text.  There is very little said about the couple and no mention of love.  Curious, isn't it? 

When we understand that a Jewish wedding in the time of Jesus was for the whole village, we can assume that maybe there were 30-50 persons in attendance.  The wedding lasted for the better part of the week and everyone who came was wined and dined.  So, what we can also assume is that village folk came for all sorts of reasons.  Some persons came out of obligation.  Others came because it would be a good feed.  Others poked around the edges out of curiosity.  The inner circle was a group of persons who came out of love. 

At some time during the week, the wine ran out.  Mary was the first to notice and implored Jesus to make it right.  As I thought about this, I wondered why Mary would be so adamant.  Maybe it was because Mary  remembered her own wedding.  While it was not recorded in scripture, using our religious imagination we can piece some of it together.  If the whole village was invited, as was the custom, surely she experienced those who gossiped about her, those who came out of curiosity, those who were there for the party.  Those who loved Mary and Joseph were surely there as well.

It is my opinion that Mary was aware of all that might happen if wine ran out.  There would be gossiping.  There would be grousing.  There would be grumbling and complaining.  Maybe there would even be anger.  She stepped in to make the couple's beginning one without embarrassment or stress.  She wanted all the guests to leave the wedding with good feelings about the couple and the experience.  She wanted their first days as a couple to be free from worry about how the community would accept them.  So, she told Jesus to fix it.

When we hear homilies and sermons about this text the emphasis is always on the miracle.  And there was a miracle.  There certainly was a miracle!  But what was it? 

If it was merely water being changed to wine, it would have had no life these 2000 years.  No, it was much more.  I believe the miracle was one of transformation.  Those who were open to the love and joy of the celebration were able to be transformed. 

SO, I would like each of us to ask ourselves why we came today?   Did Icome out of a sense of obligation?  Did I come out of curiosity?  Did I come for a great party?  Did I come out of love and respect for this man and this woman?  Did I come expecting a miracle? 

It is possible to have a miracle right now.

Too often our worship and our living is a miracle in reverse.  The wine becomes water.  If just for today, let each of us allow the spirit of God to wash over us...if just for today, let us allow the rich beauty of God to seep into our beings...Perhaps we will be able to taste the blessings of that good wine.  Perhaps we, too, will be transformed.  Perhaps we, as community will become a miracle.  Perhaps a little more of that onion's core will be revealed.

The first reading is for you, Marcie and Liam.  It is a song of love.  Scripture scholars today concede that this song probably was NOT sung by Solomon.  As a matter of fact it probably came out of a goddess cult.  In the original, the words are more earthy than we are used to in church.  But, if we could hear and understand those words sung in Hebrew, or more correctly sung in Akkadian, perhaps we might all enjoy the blessed gift of our own sexuality.  Even though love is celebrated in this song...Even though scripture tries to define love in many ways, the definition is never complete.  Do you know why?  It is because each of us defines love. 

Liam, you are part of my definition of love!  You were conceived in love and great joy.  And speaking for Molly, I can say with great assurance that you, Marcie, were conceived in love.  From the moment of birth each of us begins a journey defining love.   Love for each of you will be defined by all kinds of life experiences.

Today the definition takes on new importance.  Listen to those words that have found their way into Sacred Scripture.  They are words of the goddess.  They are intimate and earthy.  They celebrate your sexuality and your sensuality.  They are blessed.  They are even blessed by the church because they have found their way into the canon.  Enjoy your bodies as gifts from the spirit.  Enjoy that gift of womanhood and manhood.  Enjoy the excitement of touch and embrace, for this will also help you define love.  Give yourselves freely and joyfully to each other.  Do not be a slave to puritanical modesty and cultural taboos.  Receive the gift God has given you and be glad in it.

Your definition of love will become refined as you respond to all kinds of experiences.  There will be times you will feel estranged.  There will be times of elation.  There will be times of despair.  There will be times of giddy joy.  If you can face all these times together, if you can face the difficulties and pain as well as the fun times of your lives, those hard times will hollow out places which can be, and will be filled with joy. 

Share your care and sensitivity with the larger world.  Be tender to those less fortunate, to those who are not loved well, to those who are lonely.  May you remember to use words that nurture and gestures which heal.  May your thoughts be ones which illumine, allowing the Spirit to be a partner in defining love.  May you discover through the intensity of your life together what it means to love.   

The Song of Songs anticipates the needs of the other.  There is no room for narcissism, control, only life-giving nurture and support.

Go now to live as one without ever losing your blessed individuality.  Go now to live fully as human beings enjoying the gifts of sexuality and sensuality.  Go now, taste that good wine and become a miracle of transformation to one another and to the world.   Amen.