Editions-Anhang
WEDDING SERMONbyPaul Tillich.November 8th 1944.
Let us listen to words God says to Abraham according to the 12th chapter of the first book of Moses:
“I will bless you – and you shall be a blessing.”
Dear Joe, dear Trude! This wedding service – like most religious services – will close with words of divine blessing. Does blessing still mean something to us, similar to what it meant to former generations? Do we still believe, as they did, that our destiny is dependent on divine and parental blessings? Or are we so certain of our own power of determining our lives that blessing has become for us a pious wish without significance?
Both of you are forceful personalities. In an early age you have shown that you are able to master your destiny, that you are strong in will and straight in decision. Both of you have overcome many obstacles, rooted in birth and social surroundings, in race and country. You have reached much, privately and publicly. And now you have decided to unite your lives, to combine your strength and to establish a place which is a home and a fortress at the same time: A home to live for your love and to develop the riches of your souls and minds; a fortress to build up your common convictions and to fight for them in the storms of our period, against the enmity of men.
Indeed, much is achieved by you, but something also is frustrated; much is formed, but something also is broken. Both of you have experienced the limits of human will, the fragmentary nature of human creation. You, Trude, remember the ruins of your past, with suffering about what is destroyed, though grateful for what is saved and is present today in your children. You, Joe, are here, as on an island of time, comparable to the islands from which you come and to which you may return, an island of peace and communion within an ocean of war and separation. In all this you have felt and are still feeling the narrow limits of human power over life and destiny. A strong will and a straight decision can do much, they cannot do all; and – they cannot do the best. The best, in our time as in the days of our fathers, as in the times to come is the blessing, given to us by God and men.
Much blessing has been given to you. You, Joe, are accompanied today by your mother, reminding you of the blessing of your childhood, your playing with brothers and sisters, your growing up to seriousness, thoughtfulness and social responsibility. Whatever you will do and become, her blessing and the communion in your family will always be alive in you. And the blessing, you, Trude, have received in mind and body from your parents, the love of sisters and brothers, now as far away as your home country, will remain with you all your life. And blessing, beyond this, has been given to you: Both of you have received and are receiving the blessing of your great friend, the First Lady of this country, with whom we share today her joy as she shares your joy; whose presence expresses for you the warming, protecting and blessing power of friendship, in herself and in many others. Friendship is given; it cannot be demanded. It is blessing, it cannot be forced. And what is true of friendship is even more true of love, your love, which is given to you as an overwhelming blessing inspite of struggles within you and challenges from outside. No good will could ever have produced your love, no good will can ever keep it alive. You can and must protect it, enrich it, deepen it with all your heart and with all your strength. But you cannot create it. It is and it always will be blessing.
I will bless you, says God, who has blessed you in all this and above all this. He will bless you by giving the immovable foundation of your personal lives and of your communion. Whether we express this deepest experience in religious or in secular words, whether we speak of the divine blessing or of the eternal destiny which has made us what we are: It is the real ground of our being, preceding everything we are willing and doing. It is the mysterious soil in every person out of which his character and his fate grow. It lasts when all other blessings vanish, when childhood is gone and friendship vanishes and work is frustrated and love disappears and marriage ends. It lasts beyond death; it is eternal blessing.
Whenever this blessing falls upon us and we feel it and are grasped by it, life gets an inexhaustible meaning for us, its doubts and its despairs are conquered, its anxiety and fear are overcome by an invincible courage, we are able to love and we are a blessing to others.
You shall be a blessing – says God. You would not want a blessing that you cannot transform into a blessing for others, not even your marriage. You would not want to keep it behind the walls of your fortress. You never did so as individuals. You always tried to bring to others what was given to you, to many groups of the disherited, to every friend who needed your help, to everyone who asked you, even beyond the limits of your power. You want to be a blessing for the nation as a whole and for other nations, and now, after you have united your strength, even more. And you are called to become such a blessing; this is your vocation.
But how can this happen? There is only one answer: You are a blessing by what you are yourselves. Not what you do is decisive; this follows; decisive is what you are. You will notice this very soon in your married life with its high and its low points, its happiness and its sorrow, its harmonies and its tensions, its fertile and its barren stretches, its certainties and its doubts, its ecstasies and its despairs. You will notice that in all these different moments not what we do or what we omit to do is decisive, but what we are. Our being makes us a blessing or a curse for the others. Therefore look at what you are, each for himself and both in communion. Don’t forget the quiet hours in which you open to eachother the depth of your souls, in which you meditate with eachother about the profound and the sublime in human existence, in which you prove the power of your unity by being together in silence. And take care for hours of a complete solitude in which each of you finds himself and sees whether he has wasted or kept his blessing.
If you do this you will be a blessing for many. This is the only way in which you can become it and remain it. Let me say a closing word to you as your friend and as he who will say over you the divine blessing: Don’t spoil your best power by acting for others without feeling the sources of your acting. We all are in the danger to do this in our period in the sight of innumerable needs and demands. But believe me: The ultimate value of our action is dependent on the being out of which it comes. If we are blessed our actions will be a blessing to those for whom they are done. If we are not blessed the fruits of all our activities, and were it complete selfsacrifice will finally prove to be empty and perhaps a curse. You are and you will be responsible to many people. So open your hearts to receive the power of the divine blessing which will grasp you and will enter into you and your communion. And may you be guided on all days of your marriage, now and always by the words: I will bless you and you shall be a blessing.
Amen.
© 2012 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
