Deborah Mabry and Todd Colister were married at Lehmberg Chapel, Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Saturday, January 31, A.D. 2015.
The Scripture readings were
• Song of Solomon: 2:10-13
• Colossians 3:12-17
• Matthew 13:31-33
Also see the Order of Service booklet (handed out to all in attendance). You can also check out Boyd's Order of Service Notes, which includes more detail than the booklet.
The following Meditation on the Scripture (that some would also call a “sermon” or “homily”) was delivered by Abbot Boyd W. Morris to Deb and Todd during the ceremony.
Deb and Todd,
In the Gospel reading, the Lord speaks to you both today, individually and as a couple, and says that your marriage is like the kingdom of God in a couple ways.
First, individually and as a couple, there is an internal dynamic of growth at work within you. Your lives may be likened to the smallest seed, which is destined to become a large tree. As the saying goes, “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow.” The power of the Kingdom of God is at work within you, bringing into visible form all the potential hidden in the divine seed of your lives.
Second, your marriage is also like the kingdom of God in that the kingdom brings about the growth and transformation of the world around it, like leaven in a lump of dough.
So you are destined to grow and be transformed by divine power working within you and you are destined to be kingdom agents that bring about the transformation of the world around you through the divine power working through you. For the kingdom of God is not just words, but power, says Paul (1 Cor. 4:20).
Birth, baptism, marriage, even death—these are all rites of passage from one stage of life into another stage. But for what end? Why are we born? Why do we get baptized, which you experienced, Deb, just this last year? And why do we get married?
Three verses from the first chapter of the Bible give us some hints about why we celebrate rites of passage like baptism and marriage:
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
In the prayer before the readings, we alluded to these verses from Genesis 1, acknowledging before God that we’ve not only been created as male and female “thems” individually, but also as a “him” collectively. For, as we prayed, “through the covenant of marriage the two shall also become one.” They don’t stop being two, but also become one. This is also the great mystery that happens in baptism. In Baptism, we who are individuals are also made one with Christ’s body. Likewise, the mystery of marriage is a kind of baptism into a way of life where a man and a woman also become one body.
As Paul says in the Colossians reading, “indeed you were called in one body” (v. 15).
There is a great and wonderful mystery how it is that at the same time we have both an individual and a collective nature just like God. God is three persons––Father, Son and Holy Spirit––and He is One Person. Incredibly, we are made in the image and likeness of God with the nature and the power not only to be male and female, but also one.
This Genesis 1 passage also tells us about the purpose and destiny of why we are made in the likeness of God. We are to have dominion, to rule over all the earth, to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. The word “subdue” here means to “bring out the inherent potential in a thing.” So, how do you subdue an acorn? According to the meaning of subdue here, you wouldn’t crush it under your feet. Rather, you would plant it, cultivate and water it so that all of its potential can be released into becoming a great oak.
So, how do you subdue yourselves individually, subdue each other, and subdue the whole of creation around you? This is the invitation that Adam and Eve were given, but fumbled. Thus, it is God’s good purpose in Christian marriage that we who are fallen in the First Adam shall be restored in the Second Adam to be kings and queens of creation. Therefore, how do you as King Todd and Queen Deborah “subdue” all things? Reread Colossians 3:12-17. This whole passage lays it out in specific pastoral terms.
And notice in that Colossians passage that in the midst of all the things that Paul instructs us to do in order to properly “subdue,” he underscores that we are “called” to do all these things “in one body.” This calling, of course, comes from God. Marriage, like Baptism, is God’s idea, not ours. And that somehow is comforting. He is the one who has initiated your coming together. There is a great mystery at work here––it’s the mystery of God’s own divine power, calling and destiny at work in your lives. The Lord has set your lives in motion to a great end, not just individually, but now also as a couple to be fruitful, to multiply, and to subdue.
The Fallen World System is lost because it does not recognize or acknowledge that God is at work to bring together (i.e., restore) what has been unlawfully separated by evil. And so today there is great confusion about what it means to be “called in one body.” There is confusion politically, socially, sexually––in every way. Political conservatives, for example, champion the cause of individuals while liberals champion the cause of the collective. The Fallen World System is divided in a war between “thems” and “hims” in every area of life.
And so in your marriage, may you both as individual “thems” and as a new collective Colister “him” embody a kingdomcultural alternative to the fractured confusion that reigns over so much of life and creation. May this reign of confusion be replaced by your reign of union. May you individually and also as one, embody the work of God in restoring what fallen man has unlawfully separated.
May you in your marriage become a colony of heaven on earth where there is transformation happening on the inside of your lives and home and also transformation being exported from your lives and home to all around you.
May in your marriage, the dark winter of the war that unlawfully separates what God has destined be joined together be won by how you two are made one. For as Solomon says in the reading, “behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone.”