Hazard All

A Wedding Homily

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Rick, Christine—congratulations! With years of love and patience, months of careful planning, and weeks of the proper mix between excitement and anxiety, you have come to the day of your wedding. And may I say, well done, the both of you. But before we get to vows and rings, I am here given leave to say a few words. And I would like to use them to share with you one of my favorite parables of marriage, from none other than Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.

In the play, Portia finds herself one of the Mediterranean’s most sought after bachelorettes. Men the world over sail to her estate, hoping to win not only her hand but also her family’s considerable fortune. But Portia’s late father, renowned for both his wisdom and kindness, has left strict stipulation in his will that any of his daughter’s suitors must first select from one of three metal chests. It is a marital lottery, with but a single winner.

Before choosing, the various bachelors must take a threefold oath: first, not to reveal which chest they selected; second, to leave immediately if they choose poorly; and third, that if they do not pick the winning chest, they are never again to pursue a woman’s hand in marriage. As you can imagine, these conditions weed out all but the most determined of lovers. The chests themselves are wrought of gold, silver, and lead. “Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire,” reads the inscription upon the golden chest. “Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves,” proclaims the silver. But upon the leaden chest is a warning: “Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.”

The first suitor brave enough to publically swear to the oaths and privately make his selection opens the golden chest, reasoning that “what many men desire” must refer to none other than Portia herself. Alas, the golden chest contains a grinning death’s-head, along with the poem:

All that glitters is not gold; / Often have you heard that told:

Many a man his life hath sold / But my outside to behold: 

Gilded tombs do worms enfold. / Had you been as wise as bold,

Young in limbs, in judgment old, / Your answer had not been inscroll'd:

Fare you well; your suit is cold.

True to his word, the wealthy noble leaves, never to woo again.

The next prince hails from Arragon, and he opens not the golden but the silver chest, thinking that “as much as he deserves” certainly refers to lovely Portia. But what’s this? The silver chest contains the portrait of “a blinking idiot,” and as word of explanation the following scroll:

Some there be that shadows kiss; / Such have but a shadow's bliss: 

There be fools alive, I wis, / Silver’d o’er; and so was this. 

Take what wife you will to bed, / I will ever be your head: 

So be gone: you are sped.

“Alas!” laments the second prince. “Still more fool I shall appear / By the time I linger here. / With one fool’s head I came to woo, / But I go away with two.”

I hope you see by now where this is going. The final suitor is neither wealthy nor a prince, but is in fact Bassanio, Portia’s true love. He actually knows her, knows her as a person and a friend, not simply as a bank account or object of desire. For her part, Portia knows and loves him in return, but will not help him cheat. He must choose fairly, as have those before him. The gold and silver trouble him; he neither trusts what many men want, nor what he himself deserves. But the leaden casket, “which rather threatenest than doth promise aught,” moves him beyond eloquence. Boldly, he throws open the lead lid and finds—an image of his beloved Portia. And with it, her late father’s final letter:

You that choose not by the view, / Chance as fair and choose as true!

Since this fortune falls to you, / Be content and seek no new,

If you be well pleased with this / And hold your fortune for your bliss,

Turn you where your lady is / And claim her with a loving kiss. 

As dated as this tale may be, some 400 years and counting, I find herein a parable which our modern world desperately needs to hear. We no longer live in a time, thankfully, when a woman may be willed away in marriage like an inheritance. But we do live in an age when people seek out wedlock for all the wrong reasons. Many of us, man and woman alike, still walk down the aisle trying to open the golden chest: choosing marriage because it’s what many want, because it’s glitzy and gilded, because it’s just “what people do” after they’ve been together for a while.

Yet that way lies the death’s head, if not of people then of marriages. We cannot wed for lust or passion or mere outward beauty. These things fade with time, unless they are supported by something deeper, something real. People who get married because it’s expected, because it’s “what people do,” or just because their spouse is hot, they don’t stay married for long.

There also remain plenty of people today who choose the silver chest of marriage, pursuing wedlock because—God help us—it’s what they think they deserve. People get married solely because of what they expect to get out of it, what they expect to take away from their spouse. A lifetime of “what you owe me” makes for some pretty jagged rocks, upon which many a ship hath been wrecked. Marriage can’t be all about you. Blinking idiots indeed.

But the lead—the coarse, hard, dull lead, the chest which promises only sacrifice and hazard—within that chest lie both true beauty and true fortune. Within that chest lie love and joy and fruitful union with your true friend. Shakespeare was a deeply Christian author and his understanding of marriage is a deeply Christian understanding. We live in a world that can’t quite seem to grasp what true love actually is. We think that it’s emotion or sentiment or happily ever after, but it’s not. True love, real love, is sacrifice. It is willfully placing the good of another before your own—which paradoxically leads us to a joy far deeper than mere happiness. Giving of yourself, laying down your life, that’s love. That’s marriage.

That’s why the greatest symbol for love that the Church has to offer is the Cross. Indeed, that’s what marriage is; it is the Cross. It is death and resurrection, every day. It’s true what they say: the more you love someone, the more you want to kill them. But that’s what’s so great about it. That’s how you know that it’s real. No man has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friend.

Rick and Christine—for years, you have stood by one another. You have laughed and struggled and wrestled and forgiven and learned from and loved one another. You share an honesty and open communication and real give-and-take beyond what many couples twice your age have found, and utilizing all that you have forged a strong and beautiful relationship. This isn’t a day when you choose from a lottery of chests to discover what sort of marriage fortune shall bestow upon you. You opened up the leaden lid long ago, and discovered that in giving all, in hazarding for the one you love, true beauty and life and growth flow forth. And that is where you will find Christ—in the challenges, in the growth, in your new life together.

It will of course be an adventure. It will of course be a struggle. It will of course be beautiful. You know each other so well. You love each other so deeply. What actually changes when you get married? Nothing.

What actually changes when you get married? Everything.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.