Wedding sermon

All best wishes to Nithin and Pika on your marriage. May God almighty bless you and fill you with love and patience to start your wedded life with happiness. May the glorious trinity offer you numerous ways of opportunity and togetherness that you will always be protected and guided under the wings of God’s assuring care.

There will be some tension for both of you and it will stem out of the fact that you have to impress others on this important day. Your dress, how you look, what you are doing, will all according to you come under the scrutiny of those here. Although this may be true to some extend this will be forgotten in no time. What you both need to be concerned about is your married life. Marriage is a relationship and not a wedding. A wedding can be called off at any time. A relationship lasts for a life time.

1. Marriage is a Relationship in the form of the trinity
Mathew 19 has Jesus saying that a man will leave his parents and become one with his partner. It suggests the letting go that parents have to practice. Khalil Gibran says "Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you." One must be, so that being is understood. God communicates with God’s self so that humans are created.

If you love somebody it is said, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were. Jesus says " Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’ (Matthew 19:4-5)

Always be good to one another because you never know when you need each other. All outward beauty will fade away and what remains will only be the real you. Your relationship gets a church approval today. But the church won’t play out your relationship for you. Marriage more than marital living is marital relationship were you learn to relate and be with each other. This takes a lot of adjustment and understanding. Nithin has to learn more about Pika that even Pika is sometimes unaware of. Pika on the other hand has to learn how Nithin clicks. Priscilla and Aquilla and Joseph and Mary offer viable and credible models for us to follow.

2. Marriage is ministering to one another and as one another.                       
Marriage is ministering to each other and then ministering together to several people. This is not easy as there will be ego clash, difference of opinion and temper flare ups. There should be a letting go so that love is initiated and not forced. The crown which is blessed is a burden and martyrdom to those who feel it that way but it is a blessing and an elevation to those who can accept it so. We are in the business of criticizing the church, all the while forgetting, that we form the church. As a couple you represent Christ and the church. Everyone who comes to you is your sheep and you will have to shepherd to them. That is why it is important to be grounded in your love but to not let that drown you.

Your house is not going to be a house of brick and cement but a house of love where others can come and just be themselves. On the one hand you have nothing to prove as an inter racial couple and on the other hand you have everything to prove as a Christian couple. As Jesus says “This is not meant for everyone.” This also suggests that a marriage is an ordination to greater things. It is an ordination to be the King and Queen, the hosts of your house, making your house a church where people can come and be offered your hospitality.

3. Marriage is the understanding of love
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 says  "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1 Cor 13:4-7)

We cannot know God without knowing love. God is love. It may take a life time to understand what true love is, it may also take place very quickly. Love is the basis of your marriage because love is God and God is love. If you have love there will never be a problem that you can’t solve. Forget everything else and dwell in the love of Christ offered to you. Pika represents the church and loves Nithin who represents Christ. Nithin on the other hand represents Christ and has to sacrifice himself for the sake of Pika. Your marriage Nithin and Pika is your opportunity to learn the mystery of love. This is a God given opportunity. In a world and country were we face challenges of racial profiling, couples like you should be the example of how we are one as a world and we can live the true gospel of Christ. Christ was neither a Malayali nor a Naga and yet we love him immensely. Christ has several faces and we represent one or more of them.

Love is not easy but is a wonderful feeling. Following Christ is not easy but is a wonderful feeling. Today Christ is inviting us to take up our cross and follow him, but to follow him in and through love. Amen.

(Excerpts from the sermon preached during the wedding of Nithin and Pika.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BtPnZ-yQKc

Prayer for children

We seek your guidance God to be who we are meant to be and not what we are made to be. We look at you wherever we go not in planned and strict ways, but in freedom and without fear. We understand you in significant ways although others call it childish. Lord Jesus, you understood us so well to even question others during your time and you advised them to become like us and in so doing taught everyone what the kingdom of God is. We do not claim anything because we don’t even know what it is that we should claim. We can’t offer you anything because we don’t have much to offer in the ways of the world. We will not make tall promises of change because we are only learning what this world is. There is only one thing which we can say for sure and that is that we are happy because you have accepted us, just the way we are. We are small, don’t have jobs, don’t own anything and yet you accepted us dear Lord Jesus. We come to your presence knowing that you can make us feel the best. We are thankful for our parents, grandparents, teachers, family and friends. We ask that we may be guided and walked through by you so that however small and insignificant we may appear, we will always be seen with you and in you. Help us to live well and live in abundance with you God. Amen.

Prayer for parents on Children's Day

We thank you Lord for giving us children to look at, learn from, walk with and praise you. We thank you God for having children in various capacities so that we may remember the paths we have tread and the ones where we must go back to. May we allow children to bloom and become who you want them to be dear God. Help us this day and in days to come to respect children as the creation of God and look at and learn from children who remind us that life is not just about money and deadlines but relaxing and playing. Help us God to stop abusing children mentally and physically thinking that we own them, but to rather value their opinion, common sense and Godliness. Father God, help us to be good fathers and mothers to every child so that we may care for them and treat every child as our own. Jesus Christ, teach us to listen to you and change and become like children so that by welcoming them, we welcome you. Holy Spirit, fill us with the spirit of motherly and fatherly love which only sees the good in children and encourages them to follow their dream. May we stop being possessive and rather responsible, make us realize not to preach to but to practice with our children, guide us to love unconditionally instead of expecting to  be loved by our children. We are all your children gracious God. We have sinned and not loved you many a time and yet you have loved us back. Let this be the model for us to follow. Not to be loved by our children, but to love them always and in so doing, to enter into the love of God. Amen. 

Prayer for those suffering from demonetization of notes

Dear Lord we pray for those who have been inconvenienced due to the demonetization of 500 and 1000 rupee notes. We remember the elderly, women working at home, cart vendors, small and medium families, coolies, auto rickshaw and taxi drivers, daily wage labourers and all those who have saved and not hoarded money, but have rather preferred to keep it with them. We pray for those without bank accounts, those who can’t sign a cheque and those who will feel humiliated by complex bank procedures. We stand with small scale traders and way side businesses who roll their money day to day and use the profits. We feel for those who are conducting weddings and those who expect small but significant help from several people during hospitalization. We suffer with those who are in queue outside banks and ATM’s, those who are panicking due to upcoming travel plans and those who as tourists are already touring the country. We hope and pray that as people we may help each other by waiting for payments if we can afford to and thereby helping someone who can’t pay, loaning money to those who don’t have money with them, helping some to start bank accounts with dignity and see this as a test of our character and patience. We pray God that this be a wakeup call for all to serve God and not money. We hope so much that leaders from all walks of life will stop hoarding money and refuse to make ordinary people suffer. We pray for sensitivity, trust and understanding in the minds of those in the corridors of power. May all glory and honour be to you Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Prayer for good direction

Ever giving God, we come into the sphere of meditative calmness and seek oneness with you. There are so many options before us and yet the best will be the one you show us. We seek strength to overcome the pressures of selecting courses, jobs, partners, houses and investments based on human and earthly advice. The best decision we believe Lord is the one we take through your guidance and grace.

We pray God for the mercy of creation of an idea which we will be capable of fulfilling. We pray Jesus for a life changing moment of sacrificial love which will make us select the path of eternal life over eternal destruction. We pray Holy Spirit for unconditional spiritual sanction and grace for taking bold and binding steps for God. We believe that we will never lose our way when we select your way O God. Lead us we pray in the way that only you can. Amen

Prayer for blessings

Most loving God, we pray for needful and caring blessings in our life. On some days everything we do for good is misunderstood and misconstrued as selfish steps for our own needs. On other days people come to us for help and team work. The weight of misunderstanding is many a time unbearable. We pray God for blessings for ourselves, our family, friends, colleagues and everyone we come across.

The biblical guidance to love others as we love ourselves urges us to seek blessings for all. Lord Jesus the rain and sun fall upon everyone irrespective of who they are. May your blessings also fall upon all of us so that we work together and see each other as family and produce selfless acts involving courage and visionary ideas. Holy Spirit, bring us together to seek and experience blessings so that we understand that by sticking together we will see and feel blessings from God every single day. Even as we stand together in church, may we stand together in our houses and in society so that no single drop of blessing will go waste. Bless us triune God. Amen.