I have just returned from North Carolina where I officiated at my nephew, Russell’s wedding to a beautiful young woman named Jeni. It was a wonderful occasion for Shirley and me to reconnect with family and a wonderful reason for doing so. It was also an example of generosity in action.
Family and friends had been working for weeks to prepare the site — my brother, Russ and his wife, Lee’s mountain cabin — landscaping, completing an outdoor shower, and pouring a concrete floor on the outdoor pavilion that would serve as the place for the ceremony and the dance floor. Friends of the bride and groom arrived days early from as far away as California, Alaska and Canada (Shirley and I represented the great province of Ontario). Some camped out on the property and helped with the set up and clean up.
One friend of the family, a florist by trade, did all the arranging of the flowers, bouquets and other decorations free of charge as her gift to the bride and groom. The neighbour next door cut the usually tall grass in his field to provide overflow parking as his gift. A friend of the bride meticulously cut out 125 silhouettes of the bride and groom dancing in a heart as a memento of the occasion for the wedding guests. The mother of the bride made heart-shaped chocolate lollipops with the newlywed’s initials on them for each guest. Other friends made little candlelight lanterns from mason jars that they hung in tree branches and nestled in the trunks of trees surrounding the pavilion to encircle the area in sparkling lights. Still other friends made luminaries from large cans to line the driveway.
As I recount all the different parts that made up the festivities, I realize that the entire wedding added up to one great gift of grace for the bride and groom, who in turn gave themselves to each other as they made their marriage vows: “I, Russell give myself to you, Jeni to be your wedded husband…” “I, Jeni give myself to you, Russell to be your wedded wife…”
The whole wedding was truly one great act of generosity — a true celebration of self-giving love, whether it was friends and family offering their love and support to the newlyweds or the bride and groom giving of themselves to each other. Which I suspect is one reason that Jesus used the occasion of a wedding to brew up his first miracle at Cana in Galilee (John 2:1-11). What better backdrop to demonstrate the transforming power of God’s amazing grace than a wedding! I also suspect that is why Jesus used a wedding feast as a metaphor for the Kingdom of God (Matthew 22:1-14) — to demonstrate that God’s love for us is like the self-giving love expressed at my nephew’s wedding and at weddings held every day around the world. The story of the gospel is the story of the God who loves us so much that He willingly gives himself to us “for better or for worse” and who holds nothing back, not even God’s only Son. Yes, when you stop to think about it, the theme of generosity goes to the very heart of the gospel and to the very heart of God. Now, wouldn’t it be wonderful if all our activities as a church also added up to one great gift of grace?
