Sermon Recording:

Sermon for November 8, 2026  

Holy One, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Amen.

Don’t you just love a good love story? 

And today we have two of them. 

Martin, our patron, 

followed in his father’s footsteps and became a Roman soldier. 

But then he fell in love with God, 

and began to question his vocation to military service. 

One day near the city of Amiens, 

he was approached by a naked beggar at the city gate. 

Martin immediately took off his cloak, 

cut it in half, and gave half to the beggar. 

That night Jesus came to him in a dream, wearing the cloak, 

and Martin knew that, through compassion for his neighbor, 

he had seen and served Christ himself.

Martin resigned his commission, 

was baptized, 

entered the monastic life, 

and in 372, thanks to a flock of noisy geese who revealed his hiding place, 

he was (reluctantly and humbly) ordained Bishop of Tours, 

serving faithfully until his death in 397. 

So you see, falling in love will change your life. 

And this is why it is so appropriate that we celebrate the marriage of Ben and Brooke 

on our patronal feast—

this Feast of St. Martin of Tours—

a man who fell in love with God 

and whose legacy of compassion, generosity, and courage 

mirrors the love that these two special people feel for one another, 

for God, and for their community.

Brooke and Ben’s love story isn’t the usual love story. 

They met somewhat later in life, 

after wondering if they would ever find someone 

with whom they would be able to share a life and raise a family. 

So imagine the joy and even surprise when they finally connected—

that spark of recognition of 

“You Are Where I Belong.” 

Imagine that feeling of coming home in someone 

and knowing the rightness of it. 

So they fell in love 

and dove into their life together, 

buying a house, adopting a cat, 

going through the downs and ups of IVF treatments, 

getting engaged, 

working the picket line at Butler Hospital during a three-month strike, 

dancing together, 

welcoming and then baptizing sweet, sweet Rowan—

and going through challenging post-partum struggles. 

Trust me, these two are thoroughly acquainted with “in sickness and in health.” 

And they are so grateful to those who have sustained them in the past several months, 

even as they have sustained each other.

And through it all they have never stopped talking about joy and faith, and friends. 

The love that Ben and Brooke have so enthusiastically fallen into 

is a microcosm of the great Love that God has had for Creation

from the very beginning of time. 

It is the romantic love of the Song of Songs— 

“arise my love, my fair one, and come away”—

it has the all-encompassing strength that Paul described in Corinthians—

love” …bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” –

and it is lived out in the love of neighbor of the Beatitudes—

Blessed are the hungry, the poor, the peacemakers, the persecuted. 

These are the values that drew St. Martin to the Christian faith, 

and they are mirrored here in Brooke and Ben, 

in a relationship that is a microcosm of the macrocosmic love of God. 

[to Brooke and Ben] Your love, your joy, is a beacon;

a beacon of love in a world of broken places

that is desperate for love’s light to shine through.

I usually offer advice at this point, 

but honestly your relationship is already a model to everyone 

of love, generosity, listening, honesty, vulnerability, patience, laughter, and 

(there’s that word again,) joy. 

Joy that is deeper than happiness; 

joy that carries you on your journey no matter how bumpy or winding the road gets. 

So I don’t have much in the way of advice. 

But what I do offer is the support of this family—this congregation—

that you have chosen to share this day with—

a family that, 

like Martin’s geese, 

will speak up enthusiastically to declare our love and support for you two in your marriage. We will promise to sustain you 

even as you sustain one another, 

from this day forward.        Amen.