Summer is wedding season at Old South. We are one of the few churches in the area who give welcome to couples who are not members … that is to say, couples who have no relationship to us, but who find themselves urgently in need of a pretty church, preferably with a central aisle.

We view these weddings as opportunities. First, we view this as a ministry to unchurched couples … some of whom subsequently make this their church home. Second, ours is a ministry to couples who most ministers, rabbis and priests cannot or will not marry: interfaith couples, ecumenical couples and same gender couples. Last but not least, non-member weddings are a source of income for us.

Our Wedding Coordinator, Janet Butler, and our Wedding Outreach Minister, Cal Genzel, offer to visiting brides and grooms hospitality and services, kindness and companionship that would make you proud.

There is a certain pattern to our non-member weddings. Quite often couples will schedule their reception first and then work backward to find a venue for the wedding itself. For instance, if they book their reception at the Fairmont Copley Plaza or the Weston Hotel, they then go knocking on the nearest church doors to ask who will let them in. Trinity Church, across Copley Square, does not host weddings of non-members. That leaves Old South as the nearest church.

Because these are people who have booked a reception at the Fairmont Copley or the Weston, they are often rather nice weddings. They sometimes involve enormous floral arrangements, instrumentalists and soloists, lots of bridesmaids and groomsmen, beautiful gowns and handsome tuxedos, photographers and videographers, and even professional wedding consultants. Best of all are the little children – ring bearers and flower children – all dressed up and utterly bewildered as to what is transpiring, but no less excited.

The story from the Book of the prophet Hosea is the story of a summer wedding. We can easily imagine it. The organ is playing and the guests are arriving. Everyone is dressed to the hilt. At the right moment, the groom, groomsmen and minister enter discretely down the side aisle. Then, with a change in music, the bridesmaids begin their long, stately, procession up the center aisle. Finally, once they are all in place, the music changes again. Sensing the moment, the congregation rises en masse and all turn to look back toward the door. On cue, the bride appears.

But wait, something is a miss. Just look at the bride! It is in the height of summer and the bride is wearing a very, short black leather skirt, black fishnet stockings and high-healed boots that go up to her thighs. She is wearing a tiny, sheer blouse that leaves nothing to the imagination. She has long glued-on eye-lashes, long glued-on fingernails. She comes down the aisle strutting – her hips are flying from side to side – and she is winking at the men to her right and left.

Here we are. It is high summer in Boston and we are thick into the season of tourists, visitors and church shoppers. Here we are: in the mood for a nice summer wedding. And what do we get?  The Bible serves up one of its strangest and most uncomfortable stories. We find God match-making between one of his prophets, Hosea, and “a woman of the night”. God orders them to get married. This is not the wedding anyone’s mother had dreamed of.

It turns out that Hosea’s whole life is a kind of parable. His family is made to serve as an illustration of the relationship between God and God’s people. In this parable Hosea stands in for God: a faithful, patient long-suffering mate. Hosea’s bride represents the people: faithless, fickle, in it for themselves and promiscuous in their allegiances.

Hosea’s children are each named to symbolize the ever disintegrating relationship between God and the people. The name of the first child warns of a future without God’s appointed king to lead the people.  The name of the second child warns of a future bereft of God’s mercy.  The name of the third child warns of a future without God.

Hosea’s children are like mobile kiosks or walking sandwich-boards. By their very presence they are constantly flashing the message that something is wrong and that an ever-widening gulf has opened between God and God’s people.

One scholar says we are to think of Hosea as an ancient shock-jock … only with a loftier purpose. Hosea intends to shock us into feeling God’s pain. The story is about how God feels betrayed by humans. God loves us. God has committed God’s self to us wholly and without reservation … yet, we have not responded in kind. God aches for our attention, but we are fickle and disloyal. We have wandering eyes and are easily distracted.

A marriage – a wedding – is a very special thing, indeed, and all the more special these days. A recent story in the Boston Globe reminds us that more and more couples are choosing to forgo marriage. They are living together. They are having children. But they are not getting married.

Marriage represents an unusually brave and fateful commitment. Couples make public vows, in the sight of God, in the presence of witnesses, and to each other. They vow to love and to cherish each other, for better or worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health until parted by death. There is almost nothing else like it.

A good marriage requires a lot of communication, give and take, sharing and sacrificing. Couples keep each others’ concerns and best interests in mind. They share their wealth, their homes and their lives. They consult each other frequently, together plan for the future and spend time together. Married life is a life of negotiation. One loves football. The other loves gardening. Loving couples finds time to support and honor each other’s interests.

In the Bible marriage is often used as a metaphor for the relationship between God and God’s people.

The whole point of this colorful – or off-color – story is to shock us into feeling how God feels. God married us and now God feels betrayed, ignored, unloved, used and jilted. God longs to be loved and loved back. God longs for our attention and our fidelity.

Yet, no matter how many times we stray, this is the relationship God is offering us. It is to this relationship that God asks us to commit. We are asked to love God and to cherish God. We are asked to care about what God cares about.

The hymn that follows, (Be Still My Soul) sung to the great tune, Finlandia, is a love song, a serenade. As we sing it, listen and you will hear God wooing you, serenading you, speaking vows and promises of love, guidance and companionship.

Down on one knee God has put the question: will you have me? How will you respond? How will Old South respond?