St Peter & St Paul Warsop

A Reading for your Wedding

Here are some questions which may help you choose your reading.

Which of these readings make most sense to you?

Are there some words or sentences in some of the readings that you especially like?

Do any of the readings express your understanding of marriage, your partnership or the part God plays in our lives?

Please note we must have at least one reading from the bible (examples are provided in the first half of this booklet). The poems are optional.

THE IMAGE OF GOD (Genesis 1:26-28, 31a)

This story of God’s creation stresses that male and female together are made in the Image of God, and that his purpose is for all that he has made to be ‘very good’.

God said, ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness to rule the fish in the sea, the birds in the heaven, the cattle, all wild animals on earth, and all reptiles that crawl upon the earth‘. So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase, fill the earth and subdue it, rule over the fish in the sea, the birds of heaven, and every living thing that moves upon the earth’. So it was, and God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

A HELPING HAND (Genesis 2:18-25)

This early story tells of our human need to share life with other people. Marriage fulfils this need in a special way and is the setting for a deep, open and loving relationship between husband and wife.

Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to live alone. I will make a suitable companion to help him’. So he took some soil from the ground and formed all the animals and all the birds. Then he brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and that is how they all got their names. So the man named all the birds and all the animals; but not one of them was a suitable companion to help him.

Then the Lord God made the man fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the flesh. He formed a woman out of the rib and brought her to him. Then the man said, ‘At last, here is one of my own kind - bone taken from my bone, and flesh from my flesh. ‘Woman’ is her name because she was taken out of man.’ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united with his wife, and they become one.

The man and the woman were both naked, but they were not embarrassed.

LOVE IN PRACTICE (Philippians 4 v 4 – 9)

St Paul writes to a church suggesting how they should love God and each other and how they will have peace

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever ispleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, thinkabout these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

LOVE NEVER FAILS (1 Corinthians 13)

Although not specifically talking about love in marriage, this well known passage from St Paul’s letter to his Christian friends is often read at weddings. Love is the greatest human gift of all; even though our human bodies age and eventually die, love stays. And yet, even though he sets love in this cosmic setting, St Paul insists that love is best known in very ordinary ways, in everyday acts of patience and forgiveness.

I may speak in tongues of men or of angels, but if I am without love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. I may have the gift of prophecy, and know every hidden truth; I may have faith strong enough to move mountains; but if I have not love I am nothing. I may dole out all I possess, or even give my body to be burnt, but if I have no love, I am none the better.

Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one. Love is never boastful, nor conceited, nor rude; never selfish, not quick to take offence. Love keeps no score of wrongs; does not gloat over other men’s sins, but delights in the truth. There is nothing love cannot face; there is no limit to its faith, its hope and its endurance.

Love will never come to an end. Are there prophets? Their work will be over. Are there tongues of ecstasy? They will cease. Is there knowledge? It will vanish away. For our knowledge and our prophecy alike are partial, and the partial vanishes when wholeness comes. When I was a child, my speech, my outlook and my thoughts were all childish. When I grew up I had finished with childish things. Now we see only puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. In a word there are three things that last for ever: faith, hope and love, but the greatest of them all is love.

JESUS GOES TO A WEDDING(John 2:1-11)

This is an account of how Jesus went with his mother and friends to a wedding and gave some welcome and miraculous assistance when all the wine had been drunk before the end of the feast. But Jesus was not just being helpful because it was a special day. The miracle was a sign of how Jesus was able to use God’s creative power to change a situation for the better. Only as people grasped this could they really begin to see who Jesus was.

On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee. The mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus and his disciples were guests also. The wine gave out, so Jesus’ mother said to him, ‘They have no wine left.’ He answered, ‘Your concern, mother, is not mine. My hour has not yet come.’ His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’

There were six stone water jars standing near, of the kind used for Jewish rites of purification; each held from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them to the brim. ‘Now draw some off’, he ordered, ‘and take it to the steward of the feast.’ And they did so. The steward tasted the water now turned into wine, not knowing its source; though the servants who had drawn the water knew. He hailed the bridegroom and said, ‘Everyone serves the best wine first, and waits until the guests have drunk freely before serving the poorer sort; but you have kept the best wine till now.

This deed at Cana in Galilee is the first sign by which Jesus revealed his glory and led his disciples to believe in him.

A FIRM FOUNDATION (Matthew 7:21, 24-27)

Jesus tells us a story about two men who built their homes in different places on different foundations. He uses it to point out that it is possible to hear wise words and do nothing about them. Building our lives on a secure foundation means acting on his words.

Jesus said, ‘Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.

And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand; and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it.’

A LASTING RELATIONSHIP (Mark 10:6-9)

Marriages broke down and men divorced their wives in Jesus’ time. Jesus reminds some people, who questioned him about divorce, of God’s intention that every marriage should become an unbreakable bond. Nobody should try to break apart what God has joined together.

Jesus said, ‘In the beginning, at the creation, God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, and be made one with his wife; and the two shall become one flesh. It follows that they are no longer two individuals: they are one flesh. What God has joined together, man must not separate.’

BIND YOURSELVES IN LOVE (Colossians 3:12-17)

Love is like a garment which shows us at our best.

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved: compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

GOD IS LOVE (1 John 4:7-12)

We learn to love one another by being loved. Husband and wife learn from their own childhood, from each other and by experiencing God’s love.

My dear people,

let us love one another

since love comes from God

and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.

Anyone who fails to love can never have known God,

because God is love.

God’s love for us was revealed

when God sent into the world his only Son

to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away.

My dear people,

since God has loved us so much,

we too should love one another.

No one has ever seen God;

but as long as we love one another

God will live in us

and his love will be complete in us.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER (John 15:9-12)

Jesus offers his own love for his friends as a pattern for their love for each other. Husband and wife can learn from his example of self-giving love.

Jesus said to his disciples,

‘As the Father has loved me,

so I have loved you; abide in my love.

If you keep my commandments,

you will abide in my love,

just as I have kept my Father’s commandments

and abide in his love.

I have said these things to you

so that my joy may be in you,

and that your joy may be complete.

This is my commandment,

that you love one another

as I have loved you.’

ROOTED AND GROUNDED IN LOVE (Ephesians 3:14-end)

A prayer that God’s love may fill our hearts and strengthen our love for each other.

I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.

You may have an additional reading, chosen from the following or from another suitable source.

THE ART OF MARRIAGE (from a card)

A good marriage must be created.

In the marriage, the little things are the big things.....

It is never being too old to hold hands.

It is remembering to say, ‘I love you’ at least once a day.

It is never going to sleep angry.

It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.

It is standing together and facing the world.

It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.

It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.

It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.

It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each

can grow.

It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.

It is not only marrying the right person,

It is being the right partner.

THE GIFT OF LOVE (Marion Stroud: The Gift of Love)

The six most important words -

I am sorry, I was wrong.

The five most important words -

You did that very well.

The four most important words -

What do you think?

The three most important words -

I love you.

The two most important words -

Thank you.

The one most important word -

We.

MARRIAGE IS……..(Marion Stroud: The Gift of Marriage)

Marriage is a dynamic process of discovery.

Marriage is a journey, not an arrival.

In marriage, being the right person is as important as finding the right person.

Marriage is starting to love, over and over again.

Marriage is a life’s work.

Marriage is an art and like any creative process, it requires active thought and effort. We have to learn how to share on many different levels. We need to practise talking from the heart and understanding attitudes as well as words. Giving generously and receiving graciously are talents that are available to anyone. But all these skills need to be developed, if the marriage picture that we paint is to be anything approaching the masterpiece that God intended.

A MARRIAGE MAKES A WHOLE (Mark Twain)

A marriage ....

makes of two fractional lives a whole;

it gives to two purposeless lives a work,

and doubles the strength of each to perform it;

It gives to two questioning natures

a reason for living,

and something to live for;

it will give a new gladness to the sunshine,

a new fragrance to the flowers,

a new beauty to the earth,

and a new mystery to life.

A WIFE TO A HUSBAND (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the end of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praire,

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints - I love thee with the breadth,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

CHANGES (Mary-Ann Tracey)

Would you marry?

Then you must give everything you have.

Would you marry?

Then everything you have will be what you gain.

Would you marry?

Then you must walk unafraid in a strange land.

Would you marry?

Then be sure that you’ll recognise all you see.

Would you marry?

Then you will become as an open book.

Would you marry?

Then you will become a tale yet to be told.

Would you marry?

Then you must sing a different song.

Would you marry?

Then two voices will sing as one.

WEDDING DAY (Adrian Lomas)

This day of days

Your separate ways

Become one.

This ring, this vow,

Tell you that now

A New life’s begun.

Two roads converging

Then, finally, merging

Under the sun.

Good luck holding