This translation is not completely accurate as it was automatically generated by a computer.
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A UMNS Commentary
By David Briggs*
7:00 A.M. EST June 11, 2010
On the 22nd of May, there was a wedding on 61st Avenue in Nashville, Tenn.
The servants of the bride and groom had long ago gone out into the streets and invited everyone to the wedding banquet.
The homeless, those with mental and physical disabilities, and all
of the other people who were members of the mission congregation were
in their seats as family and friends walked up the street of small,
closely packed houses, past young men playing basketball in the road
and older residents keeping a watchful eye from their stoops, and into
the white brick sanctuary.
There, they sat next to men and women in plain dresses and white
shirts and dark pants, some with wedding robes as casual as a T-shirt
or a vest with a cowboy hat. And the wedding hall was filled with
guests.
The bride, dressed in a cream-colored dress crocheted by a woman in
Zimbabwe, walked around the room, greeting each person with a hug. None
was humbled. All were exalted.
The Rev. Nancy Neelley, a deacon at the church, and Robby Hicks had
both been married before. They understood what it means to fall short,
to seek forgiveness, and to find Christ’s love in one another and those
gathered around them.
There were no limousines or tuxedos or wedding gifts or lavish
receptions. A bare cross provided the only backdrop on the empty raised
stage behind the couple.
Yet on that night, the kingdom of the heavens became like a deacon
and a songwriter-construction worker who made a wedding feast out of a
Saturday night service at Sixty-First Avenue United Methodist Church.
Enduring gifts
Even in these fearful times of recession and high unemployment, our
culture celebrates wealth and ostentation and personal excess. Or
perhaps it is because these are fearful times that we place so much
value on outward signs of financial security. The lavishness of a
wedding is seen as an indicator of self-worth and one’s standing in the
community.
So it is important when we can look beyond the expected and see
Christ-like acts of love and forgiveness that transcend the
glorification of self.
As a nation, we saw that in a young pitcher who thought he had
pitched a perfect game when he caught the ball at first base for what
should have been the final out of the game. When the umpire made the
wrong call, the Detroit Tigers’ Armando Galarraga merely smiled, and
went back to the mound to get the next guy out and win the game.
When he realized he made the wrong call after the game, the umpire,
Jim Joyce, admitted his mistake and went directly to Galarraga to
apologize. Galarraga, deprived of one of baseball’s rare milestones,
acknowledged how bad the other man felt, and said everyone makes
mistakes.
How many incidents like that have played out with screaming
ballplayers uttering obscenities at umpires who yell right back in
their own manner of self-righteousness?
So the tears of Joyce the next day when Garralaga – and not the
Tigers’ manager - brought him the pregame lineup card in an act of
forgiveness were mixed with our own at this shining example of
reconciliation.
So, too, on a personal level, were the guests at the Neelley-Hicks
wedding brought back to a place where love exceeded expectations.
This was not the wedding on a private island covered by helicopters
for entertainment news shows. Nor was this the match of power brokers
featured in the Style section of The New York Times.
This was a covenant of love before God, witnessed and celebrated by their brothers and sisters in Christ.
The wedding
A homeless woman led the congregation in the responsive reading.
Karen Andreasen, a formerly homeless woman aided by Neelley, sang the song, “There Is Love” before the vows were exchanged.
The Scripture passage was taken from the third chapter of
Colossians, instructing all to “Forgive as quickly and completely as
the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear
love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.”
Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce put on garments of forgiveness, and
shared an example of peace with the nation. And for a couple of hours,
the wedding guests in Nashville were able to put on love. We were rich
in spirit because the poor were always with us.
There was no alcohol at the wedding. Coffee and homemade cake made up the wedding feast.
Yet for so many people there, who may have gotten drunk on the
inferior wine of devotion to wealth and status and power, there was a
refreshing new wine.
For Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.
(Bible study teachers, or just people who enjoy Scripture,
may find in this story a fun exercise in searching for wedding
references from the Gospels.)
*Briggs is news editor of United Methodist News Service.
News media contact: David Briggs, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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