Pearson-Horany wedding sermon

Sermon at the wedding of Elizabeth Michelle Horany and Christopher Lynn Pearson.

I used an outline and notes, rather than a manuscript; this is what I can remember of what I said.

Posted by request of the bride.

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When we were little kids, Sweetmama taught us to dance.

(Elizabeth and Meg and I call our mother's mother "Sweetmama." For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting her yet, the name tells you most of what you need to know.) I remember it was in the kitchen of their house in LaMarque, on Westward. That kitchen, when I remember it, always smells like spaghetti and meatballs. And in my memory, it's always crowded with family.

I remember being a little boy, putting my feet on top of Sweetmama's feet, and she held my hands, and we swayed and moved together. A few years later, Elizabeth was born. And I also remember Papa and Sweetmama doing the same thing with her that they did with me. And then I wanted to play, so I put her cute little toddler feet on top of my big old clodhopper teenager feet, and we danced around the kitchen.


Everybody dances. There's something universal about moving to music. It's funny, most people don't think of themselves as good dancers, but everybody does it, in some way or another. Maybe all you do is tap your feet to the rhythm, or drum your fingers on the steering wheel while you're listening to the radio while you drive. But that's still a way to dance, to move yourself with the music.

But while dancing by yourself, just moving to the music, is easy, I'm here to tell you that dancing with a partner is hard.

Dancing with a toddler is its own unique brand of difficult. Toddlers are not the most graceful creatures God ever created, and for the adult, it's hard to move with thirty or forty pounds on your toes. When I grew up, and started taking dance lessons, I learned that dancing with an adult partner isn't really any easier than dancing with a toddler. It's just a different kind of hard.

First of all, you've got to learn to deal with another person inside your personal space. You know that we all have that polite zone of personal space that we like to maintain. Well, your partner is inside it. Pretty much constantly. Ribcage to ribcage. And while that, in itself, is its own brand of fun, it's also something unusual that you have to learn to deal with.

Then you have to learn to step together. You have to learn to move your body in such a way that you don't step on your partner, but instead step with your partner. Dance teachers call those steps "patterns," which become second nature after a while, but at first require a great deal of concentration.

Then you have to learn a whole new way of communicating. Yes, you can talk on the dance floor. But there's usually not time for verbal cues, especially in the fast dances, so you have to learn a whole new language of communication, using hands and eyes and balance and gestures.

You have to learn what steps your partner likes to do, and what steps your partner doesn't enjoy as much.

And, most of all, you have to learn grace. Not as in gracefulness, as in dance floor coordination, but as in graciousness, in forgiving one another's mis-steps and bumps and missed signals and forgetfulness.


Some of you have known our family for quite a while; a few of you were even present at my wedding to Kristina, some ten years ago. Last night someone was kind enough to remember that we had done a choreographed first dance, and to say that they remembered how nice it was. What you probably don't remember was what happened not fifteen minutes later--in the middle of another dance, with lots of people on the dance floor, I kicked my newly minted bride so hard that I broke one of her toenails, and she limped her way through the honeymoon.

Like I said, grace and forgiveness.



Now why am I telling you this?

Because, being intelligent and perceptive people, you know that I'm not just talking about dancing.

Also because tonight, if you know where to look, you can catch a glimpse of the glory of God.

The first place will be right here, in just a few minutes, in front of the altar. Two people, in the middle of a selfish world, will invoke the name of God and will vow to be together, whatever might come, for the rest of their lives. The church calls Holy Matrimony a "sacrament," which is a fancy church word for something that is a visible sign of God's grace. When we see these two pledge faithfulness to each other, we remember God's faithfulness to us, God's faithfulness to a broken and sinful world, and we remember that God is always ready to forgive and welcome us back into the relationship that God desires for us.

And, if you look just right, out of the corner of your eye, as these two people make promises of faithfulness, you will see a flash of the glory of God.

The second place will be just after the vows. We could, in the tradition of the church, end right there, and everyone go home. But Chris and Elizabeth wanted that the first thing they did as a married couple would be to share the covenant meal with all of you. The communion meal that we celebrate is rooted in ancient covenant-making tradition. When two parties made a covenant together, they would eat together as a part of sealing that covenant. When Jesus first shared the covenant meal with his disciples, and commanded us to continue it, it was at a celebration of remembrance of how God saved us from slavery and bondage and claimed us as God's own. Jesus bound the disciples together into a family, and tonight we bind these two families together.

As you come to the table, as you receive the elements from the parents of the bride and the groom, if you look just right, out of the corner of your eye, you will see a flash of the glory of God.

The third place will be over at the reception, following the service. The Horany family is Lebanese and Italian by ethnicity, and every year the Lebanese side of the clan gathers for a huge family reunion. And at that reunion we always do a traditional dance, called the dubke. It's a simple step: right, left, right, stamp, kick, repeat. One of those long lines where you catch hands and follow along.

The Eastern Orthodox church, whose thought greatly influenced our ancestral homeland, describes the nature of God as a dance. One being, three persons, in an endless circle dance of joy and love and mutual respect and honor. And into that dance, God invites humanity. God reaches out a hand and invites one of us, and another, and another, to join in the dance of joy, until all creation echoes with the pounding of feet and the laughter of children.

Tonight, as we celebrate, as Dad leads us in the dance, I encourage you to get up and join in, even if you think you can't dance, even if you only walk. And as you reach for a hand, as someone else reaches for yours, remember that God invites you to join in the dance of all creation. And if you look just right, out of the corner of your eye, as we dance, you will see a flash of the glory of God.

In the readings from the Bible that Chris and Elizabeth chose for today, Jesus says to his disciples, "I came that my joy may be in you, and joy your your may be complete." And this is God's desire for you: that your joy may be complete.