Loyalty and Faithfulness
Delivered at the wedding of Adair (Muth) and Rick Pringle, Lakeside, MT.
Text: Prov 3.3-6
Rick and Adair, it is so good to be here with you today. We who are gathered have watched with gladness as you two met one another and began building your relationship. It is a great honor and a great joy to be able to come to this beautiful place today with you to celebrate your marriage.
The two of you have been together for a number of years now. In that time, you have been through quite a bit together, and I’m sure you’ve experienced your share of both hardships and joys. Many people our age see marriage as something superficial, a needless hardship or an outdated social custom. When two people have been together as long as you have and shared as much as you have, there is scarcely a need to formalize a relationship through marriage. This is what is truly remarkable about your relationship: in spite of all that it already is, you have still chosen to come before family and friends and publicly commit yourselves to one another.
Since you have chosen to be here today to make these promises to one another, I wanted to share with you this bit of wisdom from the book of Proverbs: “Do not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will find favor and good repute in the sight of God and of people. Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” This is the true goal and function of marriage: faithfulness. Marriage is not about love. Love is a necessity for marriage, of course; without love a marriage is doomed to fail. However, marriage is really about faithfulness. Your love for one another is already evident. In a few moments, you will add to that love your promises of loyalty and faithfulness. This is a frightening prospect. Even to people who have been together as long as you have, the permanence of marriage can be intimidating.
This is why you have come before these people today. Not only will they be witnesses to your vows and hold you accountable to them, but they have also promised to do what they can to support you and help you be able to keep those vows to one another. With the help of this community, you will bind your loyalty and faithfulness around your neck today.
And this is the truly amazing part: by swearing these vows to one another today, your relationship will change. Even as strong as it already is, you will find that with the safety of these vows to protect it, over time your love will continue to grow and evolve. By writing your loyalty on the tablets of your hearts, you will give your love the refuge it needs to grow and flourish, and you will find favor with one another as well as with the people around you.
Perhaps most important to remember though, is that as of today, your relationship is not just about the two of you anymore. As your love for one another grows and changes, it takes on new life of its own. That is what it means to trust in the Lord and not to rely on your own insight. There is a force beyond us that you love now taps into, the force from which all life and all love flows.
There will come days when you cannot trust yourself to make the right choices for one another. Even in these darkest times of your marriage, you can trust in your love for one another and in the source of that love to guide you through the darkness and across to the other side. Marriage is no picnic, and it all too often fails, but if you remember and honor these vows, you will not let loyalty and faithfulness forsake you. Trust in one another and in your love for each other rather than your own insight, and I have faith you will be able to survive whatever life may throw your way.
So, today we rejoice, because your love has proven its strength already by bringing you here to make these vows to one another, and we are happy to promise you our support in your marriage. We trust in your love, that it will continue to grow in strength between you and keep you firmly in its grip as you continue your lives together.
As I prepared for my own wedding, I finally understood in my gut why some people fear commitment. Marriage is a huge promise to make, and one that has the ability to harm not only oneself but one’s beloved partner as well. By the time we reach adulthood, we know ourselves well enough to know that what we want now is not always what we will want later. So, when people prepare for marriage and they begin to realize this, they can get scared.
I deeply admire Rick and Adair and their relationship. Friends of mine since college, they had been in a committed relationship for several years by this time. Yet, when more and more of my peers are scoffing at the institution of marriage, wondering what else it has to offer besides what they already have, these two people were not satisfied to keep their relationship as it was, but instead decided to enter into matrimony.
Neither of them are particularly religious, and they had chosen no scripture verse, so I chose this verse from Proverbs to focus my sermon. I chose it because to me it spoke to the depth of their conviction to one another to take this step (when others might deem it unnecessary) and to the purpose of marriage, but also because it has great wisdom to offer the newly married couple. Marriage is about faith, about loyalty. These things keep love alive in spite of the poor choices we all inevitably make. Because of this, marriage is never just a technicality or a legal agreement, but a solemn and wonderful promise.