Love Makes Adjustments

Love one another as I have loved you.

 Many years ago, I had the opportunity to see Cirque du Soleil.
I am not sure if you have ever seen a Cirque du Soleil.
It is a circus, yes, but it is a circus at a whole other level.
It is more like a theater production than it is a circus.
It certainly has all the elements of it
and there are different varieties within their repertoire.

This show was the one with trapeze artists,
and it was a magnificent celebration.
I remember it because there were six couples
flying through the air at one time.
You do not know where to look, right?
They are just these bodies flying,
and they are all wearing these sorts of gowns.

Those gowns can get in the way
when they are flowing through the air.
What amazed me was how they threw each other
with such grace,
they seemed to swoop in and pick them up each time,
at the right place and the right time.
It was just magnificent.

Now, if you know anything about human dynamics,
the strength required to throw somebody and catch somebody,
your own weight or anybody’s weight,
requires quite a significant amount of strength.
But to throw somebody even heavier than yourself
requires enormous strength.

That is why this Cirque du Soleil was so extraordinary.
The women threw the men.
You see the men getting thrown through the air
and the women catching them.
It was just spectacular.
It meant a herculean strength to be able to carry somebody.

The reason why it was so spectacular
was not so much what you perceived.
You looked at any one couple as they went through the air.
It was not so much you marveled at their perfection,
but you marveled at their adjustments
because every one of them had to catch the other person
where they were, not where they were supposed to be.

Often they would land slightly differently
and they made it all look like it was part of the act.
I remember seeing one couple
and clearly they were coming off wrong.
I remember watching and he just swooped in
and grabbed her higher up on the arm,
and made it look all like part of the act.

The reason I think of that image
for tonight’s celebration of the sacrament of marriage
is because I think it is a perfect image for marriage.
But I do not know if you all just sit back
and marvel at the beauty of your loved one
and the perfection of your loved one!
Maybe you do, at times I am sure you do.
But I think what happens is not so much
marveling at the perfection
as much as it is making adjustments with great precision
to make sure that you are there when they need you.

Not where they are supposed to land,
but where they actually land.
That is what the sacrament of marriage
and married love is all about.
It is about the precise adjustments
to each other’s needs at the right time, at the right place.
And knowing that it may be their turn the next time
to make adjustments for you
as you land slightly differently in the wrong place.
I think that is the wonderful gift of married love.

Tonight, we have marriages all the way
from three years up to sixty-seven years of marriage.
Those are not just a statistic, my friends.
That is a powerful witness
of a lifelong commitment to making adjustments
to each other’s love.
That is what we are celebrating tonight,
the lifelong commitment to making adjustments
to each other’s needs.

Because that truly is what love is about.
It is the compromise, the sacrifice for oneself
for the sake of the other.
And what does that look like?
I am sure like in your early days when you were married,
it is wonderful and you come in,
you swoop up and there are lots of good things
that you make adjustments for.

But later on, when illness arrives
or when children arrive and lots of chaos happens,
there is a need for a lot of adjustments.
And there is a need for meeting somebody,
maybe pulling them up, way up, to the top of the arm
rather than catching them at their fingertips.
Why? Because that is what they need at that moment.

You see, that is the love we hear about
in the readings today.
This first reading, this beautiful reading from Tobit,
is saying that they make this prayer
before their first night set.
They are not presuming that they are going to get it right.
They are asking for God’s grace to get it right.
Before the very first night sets,
they ask for God’s grace
to help us to be faithful to one another
for the entirety of our lives.
Help us to be faithful, both to you, God,
but to one another in this love.

And then we have this magnificent reading
from Saint Paul to the Corinthians,
which many of you had on your wedding day.
It is one of the most popular readings.
This working definition, if you would,
is the dynamic reality of love,
that love is patient, love is kind, love is ever enduring.

Now, when we notice what it does not say,
it never says love never struggles.
It says love never fails.
There is a big difference
between struggling and failing
because you know better than I do
how sometimes we struggle with this,
knowing how to make the adjustments.

What does that look like?
Because it is not always obvious what the adjustment is,
but that when you struggle, you find a way,
and then you get it right.
Because in the end, it says it is faith, hope, and love,
and the greatest of these is love.
And of course, this follows up with the gospel itself,
which tells us that this commandment of love
and the witness that you give in our community
is the very commandment that God gives to us.

We are called to love one another,
but not in some abstract way,
rather in the way that he did for us.
He gave himself completely.
He poured himself out for us,
and that is what you do for each other.
And that is why your witness in the community is so powerful.

Now, this is not a romantic love,
although I am sure it started out that way. I hope so.
But it is a love that is constant giving
of oneself away, for the sake of the other,
so the other may blossom, that the other may have.
A healthy self-sacrifice.
A way to give oneself so that the other
can be their best selves.

You see, there is this,
you have heard me use this before,
but love is what motivates us.
It is love that sustains us.
In the end, it is love that completes us
when we enter into this very virtuous circle of love.
Because it is God who invites us into that circle of love.
He is the one who first loves us.

The challenge is, and it is so powerful
to have so many of you here tonight,
over one hundred of you, as couples, be here tonight.
Why is that so powerful?
In our society today, we love to upgrade things.
We upgrade our iPhone, we upgrade our software,
we even upgrade our cars.
But you see, that is not the way love works.
That is not the way God’s love works.
We do not upgrade.

God gives us everything right from the beginning,
and he continues to love us through our struggles.
And that is what you have done.
You have loved through all the struggles.
You did not look for an upgrade.
You came all the way through those hard, difficult times,
and you made it work.
You struggled, and you loved, and you loved, and you loved,
and you continued to make the adjustments.

One of my favorite sayings is from Saint John of the Cross,
and he has this beautiful phrase,
“Where you do not see love, put love,
and you will draw out love.”
And that is true of every married life.
It is true of every life.

So tonight, for you married couples
who will renew your vows tonight,
think of that,
wherever you do not see love, you put love,
and you will draw out love.
That is what you have done
for whatever number of years it is.

And for those of us who are not married,
who are single, or maybe we are divorced,
and we are alone, maybe we never have been married,
but that we celebrate that same gift of love
in our own life.
That is how we are friends to others,
that we love in that same way.
We give ourselves away.
That is the commitment of discipleship love.
You do it with a great privilege in marriage,
and many of us do it in other ways.

So tonight, we celebrate this great gift of love
that God gives us and witnesses,
and then commands us to do the same.
So as you face one another tonight,
and recommit that love,
knowing that you are making the adjustments,
whatever those are, to each other,
out of love for one another,
so that it will not only motivate you, sustain you,
but it will complete you tonight
and every night of your life.

 Love one another as I have loved you.