Sermon on The Princess Bride

Song of Solomon 8:6-7

To really appreciate the PB, we have to suspend our reality a bit and step into the world of fairy tales. This is a comedy full of chases, escapes, miracles, and true love. It’s a whacky story of boy meets girl, boy and girl separate, then reunite, then separate, then reunite and live happily ever after.
The movie is filled with charming geographical locations: cliffs of insanity, fire swamp, pit of despair, thieves forest.
It is highly quotable from Westley’s “as you wish”, to the Spaniard’s “my name is Inigo Montoya. You murdered my father, prepare to die” to “the impressive clergyman” presiding over a wedding as he says:
“Mawage is what brings us together today.”
It’s a world of pirates and giants, miracles, sword fights, and Rodents of Unusual Size. And it’s in the countryside of this world that we find our heroes: Westley and Buttercup.
In this world, True Love is the ultimate goal, something to be fought for, something to never doubt in, something that is unique and rare, as Westley says: “do you think this happens every day?” Westley is the first to express his love—with his undying devotion and service to Buttercup with the phrase “as you wish” and he never gives up on it.
Buttercup is slower to realize, but when Westley is captured by pirates and believed to be dead, she falls into a deep depression. She gives up on True Love and agrees to marry the Prince Humperdink.
Eventually, a disguised Westley finds and rescues her. He accuses her of being faithless, of denying her true love, and planning to marry another. But “what else could I do?” She asks, “I thought you were dead.”
He tells her, that “even death cannot kill True Love, it can only delay it.” She vows to never doubt again, though, of course, she will.
In order to save Westley from death she exchanges his life for her freedom and agrees again to marry the treacherous Prince Humperdink if he will let Westley go. But her guilt haunts her and in a dream, she sees an old woman publicly scorning her:
“Booo boooo boooo. You had love in your hands and you gave it up! Your true love lives and you marry another. True loved saved her in the fire swamp and she treated in like garbage and that’s what she is the queen of refuse!”
This is just about the worst thing she could do—and she vows to kill herself after the wedding. Luckily her beloved Westley and crew come to save her and after lots of ridiculous sword fighting, Buttercup and Westley are reunited for good.
In the movie, True Love and fate are deeply interwoven. Because of their Love, fate will always bring Buttercup and Westley back together. Westley has unwavering faith in True Love. He is self-assured that no real harm will come to him, that he is protected because it is absolute destiny that he and Buttercup will be together. We know that’s not how it works. The people we die love and it hurts just that much worse.

In our universe, love is also very precious, but also rather ordinary. And though not everyone finds lasting romantic love, it does happen to someone every day. While special and powerful—even miraculous at times, our human love cannot defy death and does not guarantee that everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.

True love is something we long for. It’s a prevalent cultural idea, a fundamental human desire—to find the perfect person who can know us deeply and love us anyway, who can share our lives, give us companionship, family, and love. Some of us are probably searching for it, some of us may have found it , and some of us may have completely given up on it.

And while this love may give us security and comfort, it does not offer us magic protection from the dangers of the world.
True love wins out as Westley’s and Buttercup’s guiding destiny bringing them back together again and again, helping them fight all of their battles, and keeping them alive against all odds (even through the fire swamp).

The words of Song of Solomon are from one lover to another, and I can imagine them coming from Westley’s mouth:

Set me a seal upon your heart,
As a seal upon your arm;
For love is strong as death
Passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire,
A raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
Neither can floods drown it.

Those words have often been thought to be words from God to the people. Afterall, human love fails—it is not perfect, and frequently not fierce and eternal. But God’s love is perfect and defies death.
But even then, the love of God will not spare us from our mortal deaths, will not keep us perfectly safe—but nothing can separate us from the love of God —through all those dangers, the love of God goes with us, stays with us, and works to guide us through.
Our romances fall short of this ideal. We cannot save each other.
So many of our marriages end in divorce because of unrealistic expectations from movies, from our families, from our churches—from all the places that we get ideas of love and marriage. We think that marriage will save us. Save us from ourselves. Save us from our loneliness. Save us from being broken people and make us whole as though a part of us that is missing will be found in another person.
We have these big expensive weddings—and at least half of them—are good money wasted. Once the engagement is on, too many couples focus on the wedding and reception and honeymoon and forget about the hard landing that happens when they get down to the difficult business of making a life together.
Like so many movies, The Princess Bride ends with a kiss. We don’t know what happens, we can only guess their “happily ever-after” but we don’t get to see it. We don’t see the day when they move in together, we don’t see them struggling to raise children, or struggling to pay the bills. We don’t see what happens as they grow older, as they grow into different people. We don’t see what happens after 15 years and they’re both kind of bored with life and each other.
We don’t see how ridiculously hard it can be to share life with another person. It’s beautiful and miraculous, but it’s also really difficult—and if we kid ourselves and think its going to be easy and perfect from the start—then we’re heading toward disappointment.
Take the Jon and Kate plus 8 situation: they are filing for divorce because they are different people now, with different goals, heading in different directions. Quite honestly, when you get married, you give up the right to go in different directions. You still get to grow and change and explore new paths, but you have to find a way to do it together. Especially with all those kids involved it’s just selfish and misguided to think one person can just start on a new path without trying to work out a path together. (The ridiculous tv show—they’ll keep that. They’re marriage—they can let that go). They’re both treating their marriage like garbage—like something they can toss out—not like something they should cling to and try to fix.
At the very least, Westley and Buttercup show us that there are many forces in the world that can try to tear people apart—from other people to wars to natural disasters. The world that the PB has to offer is too simple: believe in True Love and you’ll be okay in the end. Doubt it for a second and disaster sets in.
Our love for each other fails. Our love for God fails. We doubt the goodness of God, the love of God, the existence of God. And God still loves us. When we have doubt, we’re not suddenly in peril, we’re still held close and God patiently pulls us back in until we are able to believe again—even if it takes years and years.
“Life is pain,” says Westley “if anyone tells you otherwise they are selling you something.” True love does not save either from pain. Both hurt. Both end up scared. But it’s okay in the end.
And that’s how it is with God.
God’s love—doesn’t promise that we won’t get hurt—but stays with us til the end. Even the perfect love of God does not grant us perfect lives.

There is a redemptive quality to our human love. There is the power and grace and healing that God bestows—that deserves work and not doubt.
Yet our relationships require both our faith in them and our hard work: whether it’s communication and compromise or climbing the cliffs of insanity.
We hold this work in tension: believing that our relationships are good gifts from God, and having faith in their power, while acknowledging that no human relationship can ever fill that deep longing that we have for God.
Amen.