When you leave this service today, on this beautiful cool August day that God has given us, you will know a couple of things. First, you will know that you have just been to church. Make no mistake: this is a worship service set within a faith community. We have a procession, readings, prayers, a choir, Eucharist, hymns, and blessings. We gather to do something new in the context of what is most familiar.

Secondly, as the service bulletin captures it and says so well: We have gathered here today not to witness a beginning of what will be, but rather what already is.
One of the challenges of growing in faith as adults is that too many of us hold onto an understanding of God and Christ that we may have learned at a very young age – perhaps in Sunday School or in parochial school – and never quite moved beyond that understanding. We never put away, as St. Paul would say, childish ways. Children are rightly told that to get or do the things they want, they must ask their parents for permission. For example: can I please have an ice cream cone? Can I please sleep over a friend’s house? Some adults still hold onto an image of God that is as if God is waiting for us to ask God’s permission to live our lives in all of its fullness. “God,” they might ask, “may I be happy? “May I love this person?” “God, should I follow my heart when, by doing so, some close to me may pull away, question, or even grow cold.?”

Fortunately, you and I do not ask God or any one else for permission to fall in love. We just do. Love is the great mystery at the center of all creation and it is the visible and invisible force that holds our lives together. Love is much stronger than we are. It can not be managed, restricted, legislated or forced. In the New Testament, we read that God is love. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. So, love one another, because love is from God. (1 John 4)

Let us be clear: Rich and Jeffrey do not come to this altar to ask God or the church for permission to love, to be happy, to continue to share a life together, to be companions along the way, to care for one another in good times and bad. They are already doing this. In the bulletin we say that “We are here to celebrate with Richard and Jeffrey the loving and joyous relationship they’ve shared for the past 16 years.”
None of us need God’s permission, and certainly not the church’s, to love. But as God’s children, we long for God’s blessing. We want to connect what we feel and know in our hearts with what we believe is God’s will for us.

A blessing is a statement of the church’s care for people at discreet moments in their lives, a sign of God’s strengthening of those who attempt to live in faithful witness to the law of love given by Christ Jesus. It is prayer that celebrates goodness. What we say as we bless is that this is good. Very good!

Jeffrey and Rich, thank you for allowing us to be a part of your life in this blessing. Thank you for willing to be first, for doing something new and different that is not fully understood -- less accepted by all -- for now. Thank you for your grace when months ago, in the process that led to this service we had a congregation-wide conversation that held up your relationship, and those of others who we know will follow, to much more intensity than many of own committed relationships.

Jesus said in the gospel we heard today: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Within these sacred walls, God’s people have shared the happiest and most difficult times in their lives. The people who pass through this place help shape who we are -- even when they are gone. I can not help to note in passing, as I have said for the last three years, that I believe the work begun by Canon Clinton Jones in the 1960’s -- very quietly, without much fanfare -- set a lasting tone, broke down barriers ever so gently, broadened people’s understanding and made this day possible. May I suggest with faithful certainty that the Canon is looking down upon us and is more than pleased.
In Genesis (12:2) God said to Abram, before he became Abraham, “I will bless you so that you will be a blessing.” Rich and Jeffrey: Continue to be a blessing to each other. Continue to share your gifts and enrich this community – you are so loved here. Continue to make a difference in the lives of so many through your daily work. And please continue to share with us this amazing life we each have been given -- where God continues to surprise and lead us into new ways and fuller understandings of what is most important in this life: to love and be loved.