Thursday, August 30, 2012

A Homily in Honor of Sandy and Renee


God bless the broken road. It seems that the broken things are things that God. Vance Hanver puts it this way, “God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter the Apostle, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.”

            God bless the broken road. If you’ve ever been along the Blue Ridge Parkway, you see that the rock formations, rocks we consider to be some of the toughest, strongest elements on earth are full of brokenness and cracked edges. Sandy and Renee took a leap of faith; they gave love a chance after love had in fact in their separate lives, broken. But the brokenness of love isn’t like the rocks of the earth that crack and chip off. Sure, love may be hurt, but it is as resilient, like a flame that just won’t go out. It catches fire and recreates, it restores the lives that have broken into something beautiful.

            God bless the broken road. Renee left everything she knew, every dream, every reality she had ever known for a chance at a new beginning. Sandy for all intents and purposes had lost much of what he had built in an established career and life in Virginia. But what changes with us when we love is that love gives us the opportunity for the things of this earth, the trials and tribulations to become strangely dim in the light of love. In the light of love, leaving home and a career and what we had known for a chance at love is a risk. But for Renee and Sandy, that risk paid off.

            God bless the broken road. How many times have we spent our lives just passing through? How many times have we given up because the going got tough? When Jesus gave himself fully and completely, the night before he died took bread and broke pieces off and gave them to his disciples. When the supper was over he took a cup of wine, wine that had been grapes that were crushed. But the wheat that made that bread, the grapes that made the wine were destroyed by themselves, when they were put together they became the body and blood of our blessed Savior.

            God bless the broken road. That sacrament we still celebrate even to this day of brokenness and new beginnings is an example for Sandy and Renee of true, unconditional, abiding love. “How can we name a love that weakens heart and mind, in dwelling all we do or see or know or wish to find? Within our daily world, in every human face, Love echoes round and God is found within the common place.”

            God bless the broken road. Sandy and Renee are experiencing a love that God has ordained for us to experience. They are experiencing something beyond measure, priceless in value, and beautiful in existence. Within the context of marriage God has shown that there is potential for love, harmony and joy. That doesn’t mean that love doesn’t come without trials and tribulations. However Sandy and Renee can look back on that broken road, and realize that it led them to each other. God bless the broken road that led me straight to you.