Faithfulness

Hebrews 11:1-3 & 8-16

Pride Sunday/Pentecost 9, August 10, 2025

Holy Trinity Cathedral

“Faithfulness”

It is wedding season.  In the last couple of weeks, I know of at least five unions of two people as one in the holy sacrament we call marriage.  Not all have taken place in church buildings, not all have been explicitly Christian, but in every instance a pair has vowed to be faithful to each other so long as they both shall live.  That is good news in a society where there are fewer and fewer weddings.  I was sent an online questionnaire by a colleague recently asking about ceremonies at Holy Trinity Cathedral.  This parish has had one wedding in the past three years.  And yet, we all know family and friends that are committed to each other whether they have had a formal occasion or not.  There are many intimate partnerships in the world.  I believe the basis of them all is faith. 

Hebrews chapter 11 verse 1 gives us a definition of faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  Faith is a looking forward to what will be even as it is not yet fully known.  This can be faith in God’s love.  It can also be faith in another human being through whom we see love.  When I choose to commit myself to another person to spend the rest of my life with, I do not know everything that will be.  I don’t know the ups and downs, the challenges and the joys of what we will share.  But more than the emotions of desire and excitement and adoration, there needs to be a reciprocal trust.  In this step of binding my path to another person’s, I look for us both to be changed for good.  We are called to be companions on the journey of life.  Without faith in a future, why would I enter into a relationship?  An encounter only for pleasure in the present would be treating that other as a commodity, not a fellow soul.

There are lots of reasons that people choose to stay in relationships other than faithful love.  Economics can bind two people in an unhealthy way.  Couples stay together because one or both do not see any other way of accessing what they need to survive.  Fear of want keeps strangers living in the same home, sharing not because they want to but because they have to.  Often, the power over resources is unequal.  One partner may control finances, community services, and connections.  There may be physical or emotional abuse or the manipulation of a partner’s access and choices.  This is not faithful love, because seeks not the good of the other, or of the relationship, but only self.  There are relationships that have lost sight of what may yet be.  Instead, couples turn angrily on what has been lost from the beginning blossom of their time together.  Blame and criticism of the other keep them from finding faithfulness together.  Substitutes do not satisfy: whether affairs, addictions, or attention-seeking behaviours.  And yet, they are stuck in a cycle  because breaking out means they would have to change.  Then there are relationships where couples lose sight of their uniqueness to each other and to their Creator.  In their anxieties and fears, they do not continue to develop individual resilience for the good of the whole.  Instead, co-dependency weakens both: they feel they cannot cope without the presence of the other. They cannot imagine a future that is different and better, so they drag their partner back to the stasis that is known.    How can people find their way to faithfulness?

Maybe a good beginning is to get over the idea of romantic love.  Happily ever afters don’t just happen; they take work!  I have noticed that a lot of young couples today want to write their own wedding vows.  These are lovely as expressions of their affection and perhaps their hopes for one another.  But what is going to sustain them when the honeymoon is over and the laundry needs to be done?  Vows need to be fleshed out to form the basis of a faithful relationship.  This is why our Anglican Church sees marriage as a sacrament.  Faithfulness is love in action modelled on what God’s power will bring about.  There is a solemnity that everyone present recognizes when these words are repeated:

“I N take you N to be my wife/husband,

to have and to hold from this day forward;

for better, for worse,

for richer, for poorer,

in sickness and in health,

to love and to cherish

for the rest of our lives,

according to God’s holy law.

This is my solemn vow.”

This is a freely made commitment, declared after preparation and consideration, in the presence of witnesses and before God.  And our faithful God helps those who choose this way of life to be faithful to each other in this life. 

A wedding day is important, but it is only one step on the journey of faithfulness.  That begins when two people are drawn together in love, and lived out for the rest of their lives together.  That’s why I tell prospective couples coming to me that I am not as interested in their wedding as I am in their marriage.  Love is not an emotion to be felt on that special day, but an action that demands commitment, effort, and a lot of forgiveness and compassion along the way.  God demonstrates faithfulness in relationship to humanity.  Couples at their best radiate that love and fidelity. 

We will not see the fullness of what is promised in this lifetime.  Not even through a beloved partners, who may die before us.  The Bible tells us that even those who were great examples “died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them” (Hebrews 11:13).  We live imperfectly, struggling to understand the faithfulness of God in our earthly relationships.  Perhaps that is why we get hung up on the “who” rather than the “what” when it comes to blessing relationships. 

Today is the weekend when New Westminster is celebrating Pride with many events in our city.  For many individuals in the queer and allied community, the Church’s definition of marriage has been a barrier to the expression of two individual’s faithfulness.  The controversy over the whether marriage is between a man and a woman exclusively has been deeply charged in our lifetimes.  The church law of the Anglican Church of Canada has a lot more to say about what marriage is about than who is called to enter into it.  Under Canon XXI, the sacrament is a lifelong monogamous commitment.  It is a union of faithful love.  Marriage vows are a commitment to this union, for better or worse, to the exclusion of all others on either side.  Its purpose is to give mutual fellowship, support, and comfort, and the procreation (if it may be) and nurture of children, and the creation of a relationship in which sexuality may serve personal fulfillment in a community of faithful love.  Nowhere in this is there a prohibition against same-sex marriages, or indeed any biological or gender orientation.  What is important is faithfulness.  The treasuring of the other partner as an sign of God’s love in and to a world that does not perceive its fullness.  I believe it is part of our faith journey as a Church to continue with our assurance and conviction that God’s love is expressed through faithful relationships.  We have not yet arrived at that “better country” where all will be revealed.  But we can rejoice in signs of love along the way.

At our recent gathering of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, we affirmed again that although individuals and communities hold differing understandings of marriage across the communion, we remain committed to walking together.  Local faith communities like Holy Trinity Cathedral remain in dialogue with a diversity of cultural, racial, and indigenous understandings while expressing our stance as an affirming and welcoming congregation.  We celebrate all human relationships that reflects the love of Christ Jesus and that of our Creator.  And we believe in a faithful God who will continue to guide us to be faithful to each other and to our hope.  Amen.