St. Paul was not himself a married man, but he sure knew a lot about what it took to be in right relationship with each other and with God. As we heard just a couple of minutes ago, he wrote: "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."

The Apostle's entire ode to love may be summed up in a dictum I learned from a very wise person, which has informed and enriched my friendships, and even more importantly, my marriage. All of First Corinthians chapter thirteen may be summed up, I believe, in the dictum: "You can be right…or you can be in relationship." (Remember this one the next time you two have a disagreement over whose turn it is to take out the garbage.)

You can be right, or you can be in relationship. In many ways, this dictum goes against conventional wisdom. From the little I know, it seems that military culture puts a high premium on being right. And then there's the high-pressure hotel industry, where events have to be done "just right," or there's hell to pay. In the business world, in the Navy, in religion, in parenting, isn't it better to be right? Guess again. "If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." And all this from a man who was pretty sure most of the time that he was not only "right," but that he was speaking for God!

One of the things Paul also writes in First Corinthians 13 is that "[Love] does not insist on its own way." Eight words. Nine syllables. And yet an immeasurable truth. When the Apostle Paul wrote that love does not insist on its own way, I don't think he meant that love is weak. Rather, I believe he meant that true love means putting the relationship first, ahead of the individual interests of either oneself or one's spouse. Love calls us to discover in the relationship of two people to each other and to God a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

In the final analysis, marriage is not about the joining of two "individuals." I am not here to preside over the union of two individuals, but over the communion of two families, two communities, who will now, I hope, be a little more united with each other in this union than any of you were before it. We aren't just witnessing a rite of passage for Becky and Garrettson, but are participating in a rite of passage that involves all of us. In this rite of passage, as we negotiate its straits and streams, the ebb and flow of relationships, what is most important is that when we find ourselves in times of stress or conflict (neither of which is a bad word on its own), we have a choice: we can be right, or we can be in relationship.

So, Becky and Garrettson, Garrettson and Becky: you can be right, or you can be in relationship. The choice is yours. So far, it looks to me like you're choosing to be in relationship. May that always be true of you, and of all of us, as well. Amen.