Common Ground Song 11 ‘As two we love’
Words: John Bell © WGRG / Iona Community. Music: traditional
YouTube recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcuVA_rRoDE
Featured image: our wedding photo
When allocating some of the songs in the book to particular days or seasons of the year, I deliberately chose this one for the 12th April, which is our wedding anniversary. Linda and I chose it to be sung by the choir at our wedding. And this morning we returned to the church where we were married. A different priest is now in charge there, but other friends welcomed us warmly.
Written by John Bell, but rather than composing or using a Scottish tune as he often does, for this one he picked the English folk tune known as ‘Sussex Carol’ (best known to the words ‘On Christmas night all Christians sing’).
The hymn is really a prayer of blessing, as the chorus to each verse is ‘Praise, praise the Maker, Spirit, Son, blessing this marriage now begun’. It asks a blessing on the couple and on any children they might raise (as it happens, we have none). It asks the Holy Spirit to ‘sanctify [our] pledges’, which as much as anything is what makes the difference between a Christian wedding and a secular one: we bring God into the relationship from the start. In the last verse it asks God to bless each of us individually, to bless our dreams, hopes and joys, and to make us thankful to God for his love, for as St John reminds us so forcefully ‘God is love, and whoever lives in love, lives in union with God’, and God lives in union with them’ (1 John 4:16, Good News Bible).
The second verse reminds us that we leave our birth families, in order to make our own. That does not mean, of course, that we cease to love our parents and siblings, only that the primary focus of our love and loyalty becomes the spouse. Just as when Jesus said that anyone who wants to follow him must hate their family (Luke 14:26) he was using hyperbole, meaning that where there is a conflict of loyalty between our obligations to Jesus and to our family, he should have the higher priority. Fortunately, such conflicts are rare, but they do happen (such as where parents of one of the couple think that their choice of spouse is unsuitable, or oppose the marriage on religious grounds).
There is just one line in the lyrics that could cause misunderstanding: ‘That is as God meant it to be, that man and woman should be one’. I am sure that John Bell did not intend that as an exclusive statement, and this hymn is not intended in any way to contribute to the debate around equal marriage, which the Church of England still does not officially condone (though several other Christian churches do). I would be interested to know of any same-sex couples who have had this sung at their wedding, with suitably adapted words.
Finally, the YouTube recording (an amateur one by a solo singer, and which I only found with the help of an AI assistant) adds an extra verse at the beginning, which is not in Common Ground: ‘That human life might richer be, That children may be named and known, That love finds its own sanctuary, That those in love stay not alone’. Marriage and family are (or should be) a kind of sanctuary, a safe place to come home to each day, whatever might have happened out in the world. It is tragic when selfishness, neglect or any kind of abuse make anyone feel unsafe in the family home. Let us pray God’s blessing on such families, that they may mend their relationships, or else go their separate ways in peace.