COMMENTARY: Paul and Those Kodak Moments

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.) NAPLES, Italy _ September must be wedding month in Naples. All along the Gulf of Naples, brides in white and grooms in black pose for photographers with the Mediterranean as […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

NAPLES, Italy _ September must be wedding month in Naples. All along the Gulf of Naples, brides in white and grooms in black pose for photographers with the Mediterranean as their backdrop.


While family members look on fondly, couples assume loving postures on rocks, on piers, astride walls, inside fountains, beside trees _ anywhere that communicates “natural” and “elegant.” They smile, they laugh, they look deeply into each other’s eyes, while video and still photographers make good use of the Neapolitan sunshine.

Sometimes they sit two couples to a bench, so popular are these scrapbook vistas, and the photographers look for angles that show two people blissfully alone.

Then the bride looks at Mama to make sure she is doing it right, and the groom has the frantic look of a stallion that has blundered into a fenced pasture and cannot see the way out.

From their posed smiles, I can’t tell whether they have exchanged vows yet.

But I can tell that they are recording today’s peculiar form of memory: If we had been who we dreamed of being, this is how we would have looked.

In my pastoring days, September was a busy month. Sometimes every Saturday, sometimes twice on a Saturday, I would wait at the chancel steps while couples, transformed by finery and excitement, made the long walk down the aisle. A friend or relative would read the 13th chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.

“Love is patient, love is kind,” the reader would say. If the bride and groom were listening, they might exchange a glance at this point. The final words _ “And the greatest of these is love” _ left a pleasing echo. All would sit, not because they wanted a homily but because the schedule said they would receive one.

I would let 1 Corinthians 13 sink in and then congratulate them on their wisdom in choosing this reading. The couple would smile and sit back for a few pleasant words on what they thought had been a love song, Paul’s epic blessing on romantic love.


As gently as possible, I would urge them to read the preceding chapter, the 12th, in which Paul laments the me-first, I-am-the-greatest attitudes of the Christians in Corinth.

Those same compulsions _ to be first, to win, to be in control, to get one’s needs met at all costs _ are what destroy marriage, I told them. No marriage can prosper if the couple are overly worried about “who wears the pants in this family,” or whose needs come first, or who controls the other.

Love is what builds a marriage, not control, not a correct allocation of power, not being satisfied. If love is absent, who cares who wins the daily battles? If love is absent, “wearing the pants” is just a fleeting sandbox victory.

If love is absent, having the perfect wedding pictures or the perfect wedding or the perfect lifestyle or financial security or sexual prowess is nothing. Worse than nothing, it is like a phony photograph that captures a moment that never happened.

“Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all,” said Jesus. In other words, the point is not to be in control, but to be in love. The point is not to win, but to serve. The point is not to rule one’s partner, but to love this person who has bound his or her life to yours.

At this point, I think I sometimes got people’s attention. Scarred veterans of marital warfare would look down at their laps. Couples who had made it through the me-first shoals would reach for their partner’s hand. And the stars of the show would have a serious look on their faces, as if they had glimpsed the mountain they had decided to climb together.


I would stay silent for a moment, as I contemplated my own marriage and wondered if I was living it as Paul and his Lord had counseled. Then we would get back to creating “Kodak moments.”

DEA END EHRICH

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