‘Four Weddings, a Funeral--and a Christening’
Duncan Macpherson
The writer is a Roman Catholic permanent deacon and honorary research fellow at
the University of Wales (Lampeter)
In the 1994 film ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, most of the action takes place just
before or after one of the services referred to in the title. There is no suggestion that
any of the characters in the film are believers or in any way Christian. These are
social events at which those attending are present out of motives of friendship, family
loyalty or simply out of a desire to be in on a good party! The film does not include
services of infant baptism but baptisms/dedications of children also figure in the
category of occasional services marking ‘rites of passage’ still often celebrated in
Church. Such services present preachers with special challenges and opportunities
Challenges and Opportunities
At Sunday services preachers usually know their congregations well and set their
sights upon regular worshippers. Generally they are not trying to convert them from
unbelief but attempting to assist them as believers, so as to deepen their faith and to
help them to grow spiritually, developing what Saint Benedict describes as
‘conversion of life.’ By contrast, at occasional services, it often happens that the
preacher faces the challenge of addressing those who are not regular churchgoers,
those of different Christian traditions, those of other faiths and those without any
religious belief at all.
Challenges implicit in this situation consist in the fact that no common reference
points or background knowledge can be assumed and the preacher may find it hard to
find any ‘common cause’ beyond the human focus of the service. In preparing Sunday
preaching the preacher should always reflect prayerfully, not only upon the chosen
scripture texts, but also upon the background of those who are expected to be in the
congregation. In the case of preparation for services marking ‘rites of passage’,
pastoral visits and/or preparation of those immediately involved can be helpful but
there remains the difficulty that the preacher often cannot know who to expect at the
service and may find it difficult to arrive at a satisfactory ‘exegesis’ of the
congregation in advance of the event.
Research indicates that whereas only 15% of the population of this country attend a
Sunday services at least once a month, 44% attend a wedding, funeral service or a
christening at least once a year.i Clearly this presents an opportunity to commend the
Christian Faith to those present, which for the unchurched and the semi-churched
might constitute primary evangelisation—the preaching of the Gospel to those who
have never heard it clearly presented before. This clearly carries a heavy
responsibility for the preacher and needs to be carried out with great sensitivity,
demonstrating and proclaiming the grace of God already present in human lives. Any
traces of hectoring, patronising or condescension can easily alienate the hearers.
Instead the preacher should aspire to preach an ‘inclusive Gospel’ that makes all of
the individuals present at the service feel that they are welcomed, loved and
important. Above all the preacher should see his or her task as an opportunity to show
quiet witness to the faith and sincere solidarity with the congregation.
In the preaching of the Word, the preacher can respond to the challenge of adapting
the biblical message to the understanding and needs of hearers with very varying
levels of faith commitment or theological understanding. These remarks can be taken
to apply to all occasional services, but weddings, funerals and infant baptisms each
present distinct challenges and opportunities. Since the relationship between the texts
of liturgy and readings are so often out of tune with prevailing cultural attitudes, the
preacher will find the ‘Lowry Loop’ (moving from ‘conflict’ and ‘complication’ to
‘sudden shift’, ‘good news’ and its ‘development’) particularly useful.ii
Preaching at Weddings
The challenge involved for preachers at a celebration of a marriage consists in trying
to preach in a way that is inclusive of those in the congregation who are not practising
Christians—and sometimes this will include one or both of the two people getting
married. There is then the further channel of communicating a vision of Christian
marriage without appearing to reproach those whose life-style or relationships may
fall short of Christian ideals and who might feel alienated by the message. The
opportunity that presents itself is to preach a sermon that helps the couple to see the
relevance of Christ to their marriage and a the same time to attract members of the
congregation to the Christian faith and to a Christian understanding of marriage-- and
to do so in an inductive and inclusive way.
Plotting a Text: John 2, ‘They have no Wine’
The ‘conflict’ and ‘complication’ for wedding sermons might ask questions as to why,
when other life style choices abound this couple had chosen to marry and why they
had chosen to do so in church. In the light of the failures in the marriages of so many,
often good and sincere people, is it not fool-hardy to make a commitment to a lifelong exclusive relationship? And why, like the couple at Cana in John 2, having
decided to get married, why then invite Jesus to be one of the guests? The ‘sudden
shift’ is that Jesus can turn water into wine and ‘the good news’ is that he loves us so
unreservedly that he provides the example and the means for us to care for each other
with a love beyond the natural order of things. That is why he has been asked to the
wedding. The text ‘development’ is that if the couple ask Jesus to be their brother and
friend he will perform miracles for them.
Preaching at Funerals
The circumstances of funeral services are often even more challenging for the
preacher. The film may have had four weddings and one funeral, but for every church
wedding or christening there are probably four funerals. In a post-Christian culture
many seem to be able to cope with the affirmation of sexual relationships or the
celebration of the birth of a child without recourse to religion but, when it comes to
death, many more can only respond to the pain of loosing a loved one with the dim
memory of language and symbolism of a Christian funeral.
Plotting a Text: John 14 1-7, ‘Troubled Hearts’
The reassurance that Jesus gives to his disciples on the eve of his death speaks
directly to troubled hearts but does not always convince. Our hearts are troubled. The
‘conflict’ and ‘complication’ lies in the conflicting emotions of the bereaved. The
death of a loved one seems to be final and hopeless and at the same time the death
may seem so unreal that it is easy to believe that the loved one ‘has only gone into
another room’. But Jesus is not an outsider to our pain and our doubt—he experienced
it himself and blazed a trail for us all the way to his resurrection and glory. Jesus is
the Way, the Truth and the Life--he is the way to the Father showing us the truth
about God and about ourselves, offering us a love that is greater than death.
Preaching at the Baptism of Infants
The primary challenge of the preacher at a ceremony of infant baptism is that the
majority of those attending such a service regard it as a naming ceremony, and that
others, including some Christians, question the value of baptising a child not old
enough to assent to what is happening.
Plotting a Text: Mark: 10:13-16, ‘Forbid them not’
This element of conflict and complication finds a parallel with the disciples of Jesus
who thought that, since his message was for adults, bringing children to him was
wasting his time. The shift and good news is that Jesus told the disciples to let the
little children come to him and not to stop them, and that he then took the children in
his arms and blessed them and laid his hands on them. The development can
emphasise that adults make lots of decisions for children before they are old enough
to make them themselves: that they need regular food and drink: to be kept clean and,
as they grow, to be sensitive to others. The most important decision anyone will make
for a child is that he or she will be a child of God, a brother or sister of Jesus Christ,
filled with his Holy Spirit. This gift of being a child of God must not be like a
wrapped-up present left under the Christmas tree. It will need help in opening it up
and finding out how to make it work properly. This is why the commitment being
made by parents and godparents makes it so important that they should live out the
reality of their own baptism by their prayer and example.
Revealing the Presence of Christ
Infant baptism, like weddings and funerals are properly seen as social events,
attracting believers and unbelievers of every kind. To witness to the Christian
significance of these rites in an increasingly secular culture presents the preacher not
only with challenges but also with important opportunities to reveal the presence of
Christ at every stage of human life.
Jacinta Ashworth, Research Maters and Ian Farthing, ‘Churchgoing in the UK’, Tearfund,
Teddington, London, pages 6 and 19
www.tearfund.org/webdocs/Website/News/Churchgoing
ii
Lowry, Eugene The Homiletical Plot: The Sermon as Narrative Art Form, Westminster John Knox
Press, Atlanta, 1980.
ii