A sermon for the wedding of Jonathan and Frazer
Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
Saturday 22nd July 2023
Zephaniah
3.14-20
1 John 4.7–19
1 John 4.7–19
This morning I was at the
optician’s having my eyes tested,
because, having not been since a couple of years before lockdown,
I have become aware that the writing in books and on menus
has been getting mysteriously smaller and blurrier.
I don’t have my new glasses yet,
that’s a task for another day,
but it strikes me that they offer us an interesting analogy
for the way we see the world.
If I wear sunglasses, the world seems darker,
if I wear reading glasses, the world seems clearer,
and I’m hoping that my new glasses, when I get them,
will help me see the world a bit more as the world really is.
And all of us see the world through a lens.
For some of us, it’s a refractive lens of glass that sits in a frame on our nose,
but we have other lenses available to us,
lenses of ideology, methodology, or theology.
We all have our own ways of looking at the world,
and none of us truly sees clearly, even if some see more clearly than others.
St Paul comments, in his letter to the Corinthians,
that despite his best efforts, he still only sees through a glass, darkly,
and that now knows only in part, rather than fully. (1 Cor. 13.12)
And today, as we have gathered to witness, to see, the making of a marriage,
I wonder what lenses have been operative for us this afternoon?
There are some who might look at a marriage between two men,
and see something amiss, something to disapprove of,
because their lens, their way of seeing the world,
is distorting the truth of the love that we have witnessed.
Well, in our readings today,
the scriptures offer us two lenses that we might consider using
when we view the world around us.
Firstly, the reading from the prophet Zephaniah,
and the lens he offers us is the lens of hope.
Zephaniah lived in Jerusalem at a time of great social difficulty in ancient Israel,
people were turning away from the worship of God,
and violence, suspicion, and oppression stalked the streets.
Zephaniah names these evils for what they are,
calling the rulers of Israel to account for their moral and political failures.
But then his prophecy changes gear,
and it moves from words of condemnation
to one of the Hebrew Bible’s great articulations of hope.
Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart!
Zephaniah goes on to speak of a time
when God will deal with the oppressors,
and gather the outcast,
changing shame into praise
and bringing those outcast home.
He invites the people of God to put on the lens of hope,
hope that their God has not forgotten them,
hope that they are still valued, loved, and welcomed.
Too many people in our world live with shame, exclusion, and oppression,
for reasons of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and social standing.
And to those who feel abandoned,
Zephaniah offers the lens of hope,
an invitation to discover hope in the midst of difficulty.
And then we come to the other lens that is before us this afternoon,
the lens of love.
In the reading we had from the New Testament, from the first epistle of John,
we get one of the most profound statements of theology
to be found anywhere in the Bible:
‘God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God,
and God abides in them’
Where do you go to see God?
Well, says John, you see God when you see people abiding in love.
Where love is, God is.
The lens of love allows us to discover God in places that we might otherwise have missed.
God is not only found in the holy, or the wealthy, or the powerful,
because, having not been since a couple of years before lockdown,
I have become aware that the writing in books and on menus
has been getting mysteriously smaller and blurrier.
I don’t have my new glasses yet,
that’s a task for another day,
but it strikes me that they offer us an interesting analogy
for the way we see the world.
If I wear sunglasses, the world seems darker,
if I wear reading glasses, the world seems clearer,
and I’m hoping that my new glasses, when I get them,
will help me see the world a bit more as the world really is.
And all of us see the world through a lens.
For some of us, it’s a refractive lens of glass that sits in a frame on our nose,
but we have other lenses available to us,
lenses of ideology, methodology, or theology.
We all have our own ways of looking at the world,
and none of us truly sees clearly, even if some see more clearly than others.
St Paul comments, in his letter to the Corinthians,
that despite his best efforts, he still only sees through a glass, darkly,
and that now knows only in part, rather than fully. (1 Cor. 13.12)
And today, as we have gathered to witness, to see, the making of a marriage,
I wonder what lenses have been operative for us this afternoon?
There are some who might look at a marriage between two men,
and see something amiss, something to disapprove of,
because their lens, their way of seeing the world,
is distorting the truth of the love that we have witnessed.
Well, in our readings today,
the scriptures offer us two lenses that we might consider using
when we view the world around us.
Firstly, the reading from the prophet Zephaniah,
and the lens he offers us is the lens of hope.
Zephaniah lived in Jerusalem at a time of great social difficulty in ancient Israel,
people were turning away from the worship of God,
and violence, suspicion, and oppression stalked the streets.
Zephaniah names these evils for what they are,
calling the rulers of Israel to account for their moral and political failures.
But then his prophecy changes gear,
and it moves from words of condemnation
to one of the Hebrew Bible’s great articulations of hope.
Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart!
Zephaniah goes on to speak of a time
when God will deal with the oppressors,
and gather the outcast,
changing shame into praise
and bringing those outcast home.
He invites the people of God to put on the lens of hope,
hope that their God has not forgotten them,
hope that they are still valued, loved, and welcomed.
Too many people in our world live with shame, exclusion, and oppression,
for reasons of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and social standing.
And to those who feel abandoned,
Zephaniah offers the lens of hope,
an invitation to discover hope in the midst of difficulty.
And then we come to the other lens that is before us this afternoon,
the lens of love.
In the reading we had from the New Testament, from the first epistle of John,
we get one of the most profound statements of theology
to be found anywhere in the Bible:
‘God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God,
and God abides in them’
Where do you go to see God?
Well, says John, you see God when you see people abiding in love.
Where love is, God is.
The lens of love allows us to discover God in places that we might otherwise have missed.
God is not only found in the holy, or the wealthy, or the powerful,
God is not only found in churches or cathedrals,
God is found wherever
people abide in love.
And today, at this wedding, we have seen God,
because we have seen love.
So my prayer is that today, by faith,
we can put on these lenses of hope and love.
As St Paul puts it, again from his letter to the Corinthians:
‘Faith, hope, and love remain, these three,
and the greatest of these is love.’ (1 Cor. 13.13)
And so we sing:
Here is love, vast as the ocean.
And today, at this wedding, we have seen God,
because we have seen love.
So my prayer is that today, by faith,
we can put on these lenses of hope and love.
As St Paul puts it, again from his letter to the Corinthians:
‘Faith, hope, and love remain, these three,
and the greatest of these is love.’ (1 Cor. 13.13)
And so we sing:
Here is love, vast as the ocean.
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