With June often being the month for weddings, it seems appropriate to focus on that situation today.

            The young bride-to-be was highly nervous at the rehearsal.  She seemed so confused that she was unable even to practice the service.  So the clergyman called her into his study.
 
            The priest said to her:  “Now, I know you’re anxious, and tomorrow is going to be scary and emotional, but I have a favorite formula which will carry you through the ceremony.
 
            “When you enter the church building, and the procession begins, you will be walking down the aisle that you have walked down many times before.  There is nothing strange or different about those few yards.  Just think of all the Sundays you have gone down them to your seat in the pew.  Concentrate on that aisle!”
 
            “Then, when you are about halfway down, you will look up, and you will see the altar – the altar before which you and your family have worshipped and received the sacrament many years.  Concentrate on that altar!”
 
            “Then, when you’re two-thirds of the way down, you will see him – the one whom you will pledge your love, and with whom you will spend the rest of your life.  Concentrate on him.”
 
            The girls seemed a little calmer when she left the study.  The practice went well.  And by next afternoon when the wedding music began, she seemed completely composed.  Except for one thing.  As she was slowly walking down the aisle, the people in each pew she passed began chuckling.  You see, they overheard her muttering: “Aisle. Altar. Him!” “Aisle. Altar. Him!” “I’ll alter him!”
 
            We smile, but isn’t this the dominant, or at least subdominant theme in most of our relationships with others?  The need to shape up all those with whom we come in contact?
 
            Some husbands and wives are always trying to change each other.  They seem bent on altering their mates to fit some idealized picture of the perfect marriage relationship.
 
            Some young people, filled with youthful enthusiasm, keep trying to alter their parents’ ways.  And parents continue to try to reshape their children.
 
            Think of all the businessmen who constantly have a tightness in the back of their necks, or in their stomachs, just thinking about how their employees have performed during the past week and wondering how they can change them.
 
            Indeed, the vast majority of us appear to go through life – with headaches and heartburns caused by the “I’ll alter him” mentality.
 
            But why?  Why do we do this to ourselves and to others?  Does it stem from the fact that we cannot accept imperfection in ourselves or in others? In our culture, we seem to have bought in the myth of perfection.  Novels, movies, television – all deal with larger-than-life people.  Even though we know better, we are constantly trying to fit our friends, our families, our world, into some kind of larger-than-life idealized package.  We bustle with confidence.  We put on a happy face.  We want to give the impression that “I’, O.K. and You’re O.K.” because that is what is expected.
 
            There was something provocatively honest about a cartoon that once appeared in The New Yorker.  It had a camel saying to another:  “I don’t care what people say, I’m thirstyt
 
            Frankly, most of us cannot really accept the facts – that camels are thirsty, children are spoiled, mothers are neglectful, fathers are unsuccessful, and people in general are imperfect.  The need to alter, control, change those around us is too strong.
 
            Now, forget your problems, your motivations, yourselves for a moment – and try to see Jesus.  If anybody had ideals, he did.  If anybody ever had tremendous goals, he did.  If anybody ever had visions of perfection, he did.  Yet, do you recall the incident when they found the unfaithful woman?  Do you remember how all the men were taking up rocks to literally stone her to death?  The rules were pretty clear about marriage in those days:  No imperfection on the wife’s side, or else – zap!  Do you remember what Jesus said?  “He who is without sin, let him cast the first stone.”  This was certainly not a call to perfection rather it was a plea to accept imperfection as the first step towards growth.  These were not the words of a quality control engineer; they were the words of a lover.  And with lovers, the relationship comes before the record.
 
            That’s a hard lesson to learn.  And we have to learn it time and time again.  We think that before we can go to God, we have to have a good record.  Before we dare talk to God in prayer, we first ought to be all cleaned up and become acceptable.
 
            But hopefully most of us are learning – in our own flesh-and-blood lives of conflict, betrayal, hurts and joys – we’re learning that in all of our heartaches, God is right there with us, and he accepts us and loves us – even when we can’t say “Thy will be done.”  Or even when we’re a pretty pale imitation of a disciple and follower.
           
            A funny thing happens – for Christians – when we can hear, really hear, the good news in the story of Jesus.  Somehow our need to change people, as well as ourselves, gradually recedes.  And maybe – just maybe – we discover, as Camus (CA-MOO’) puts it, “that there are more things to admire in people than to despise”; more things to admire in ourselves than to despise.
           
            The words ring out in First Corinthians – from St. Paul, that brilliant and most learned of all the apostles.  In that letter, Paul speaking to the Corinthian church, briefly rehearses his credentials.  They are considerable.
 
            “To the Jews I became a Jew – To those under the law I became as one under the law – To the weak I became weak—“
            First Corinthians 9:20, 22 RSV
 
            In the early church circles, his accomplishments certainly would have rated him an honorary doctorate.  He was the superstar of the missionary circuit.
 
            But that was not important, Paul tells us. The task of a missionary is not to go out and impress people with one’s learning and brilliance.  It’s not even to go out and change people so that they become brilliant and learned.  The first task of a missionary is to identify with their wounds and accept people where they are.  “To the Jews I became as a Jew – To those under the law, I became as one under the law – To the weak I became weak.”
 
            Well, what about us?  Are you – and I – missionaries for Christ in our daily life?  Does  St. Paul’s words speak to us here the way it did to the early church?  In our everyday lives we are all missionaries for our culture.  By our every word, by our every action, we are either identifying, accepting, and loving people with the gospel of Christ, or we are preaching the gospel of our culture that says, “Shape up; you too can get rid of your imperfections.  A friend of mine, now deceased, would say SUEOSSO: meaning ‘shape up or ship out’—certainly contrary to what the Gospel says.
           

            Although now deceased, Dr. Carl Rogers, of La Jolla, California, made a statement that is worth sharing.  He may or may not have been a Christian, but there is more good news in his words than in most sermons.  He wrote:  “I have come to believe that appreciating individuals is rather rate.  I have come to think that one of the most satisfying experiences I know, and also one of the most growth-promotion experiences for the other person, is just fully to appreciate an individual in the same way that I can appreciate a sunset.  People are just as wonderful as sunsets – if I can let that be.  When I look at a sunset, as I did the other evening.”  Dr. Rogers continues, “I don’t find myself saying: ‘Soften the orange a little on the right-hand corner, and put a bit more purpose along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color.’  I don’t do that.  I watch it with awe, as it unfolds.  I like myself best when I can experience my staff members, my son, my daughter, my wife, myself, in this way – appreciating the unfolding of a life.”
 
            Think how wonderful it would be if you and I could appreciate people with all of their imperfections – not trying anxiously to change them, but enjoying even their weaknesses, and thanking God for all their warts and foibles and dark sides, as well as their strengths.
 
            It isn’t always easy to appreciate others, but one first step is being secure in the knowledge that
God appreciates us – you and me.  And yes, that He loves us.
 
            The older we get, the more simple the good news becomes and the harder it seems to attain.  Yet today, if we were to proclaim our understanding of life and the gospel, perhaps we could agree on this:
 
                        All the geese don’t turn into swans.  All the                      
                        caterpillars don’t turn into butterflies.  All the
                        toads are not princes in disguise  But we thank                        
                        God for toads and caterpillars and geese, as
                        well as ourselves.  For God loves us all, even
                        with our imperfections.  And God’s love is                      
                        unending.  AMEN.