"Christian Marriage"
Amos 8: 1-12; Ps. 52; Col. 1: 15-28; Luke 10: 38-42
Dr. George R. Sinclair, Jr.
Pastor
July 15, 2007
“Dearly Beloved we are assembled here in the presence of God to join this man and this woman in holy marriage . . . .”
In a few moments we will hear these words again, though in slightly different form, when we celebrate the marriage of Robert Durant and Marie Ponder.
When Robert and Marie told me they wanted to get married on a Sunday I suggested that they get married during worship and they graciously agreed. I know it’s a little unusual but the order of worship we’re following today is suggested by our Book of Common Worship.
In recognition of this happy occasion, I want to take a few moments to reflect on Christian Marriage. And to do so I want to borrow language from the 1946 liturgy I first cited. Many of you will recognize these familiar words found in that beautiful and classic statement on Christian Marriage:
[Our Saviour] has instructed those who enter into this relation to cherish a mutual esteem and love; to bear with each other’s infirmities and weaknesses; to comfort each other in sickness, trouble, and sorrow; in honesty and industry to provide for each other, and for their household, in temporal things; to pray for and encourage each other in the things which pertain to God; and to live together as the heirs of the grace of life.
With this wonderful statement as a backdrop, I want to talk with you about marriage. And the first thing I invite you to consider is mutual esteem.
Last Sunday I asked Helen Reese who controls the “TV clicker” in the Reese household. She pointed to Al but the twinkle in her eye said otherwise. What really told the story, though, was seeing Al and Helen walking hand-in-hand back to their car.
“Cherish mutual esteem and love for one another.” I don’t know two people who exemplify that better than Helen and Al.
I know the apostle Paul and the Bible in general have been used to justify male denomination and female subordination, that business about wives being “subject” to their husbands and husbands being “the head” of their wives and wives “respecting” their husbands. Personally I think we’re better served when we accent the preface to Paul’s household rules: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” And I especially think that those who would use Paul to justify chauvinism need to hear what Paul said about husbands loving their wives as “Christ loved the church.” And Christ, Paul says, loved the church by “giving himself up for her.”
While Paul can not be made into a modernist or postmodernist, the mutuality we rightfully expect in marriage is a logical trajectory of his theology and in many ways is inspired by it. As Paul writes elsewhere, “let each of you look not to your own interest, but to the interest of others.”
Look to each other interests. When husbands and wives do that, when they look to each other’s interests, controlling the clicker no longer matters. Marriage is not about “who’s the boss?” Marriage is not about first and second, higher and lower. Marriage is about partnership. Marriage is about helpfulness. Marriage completes us. None of us is complete in ourselves. We are completed in others. And to be completed by another there truly has to be “another.” It takes two strong people to make a healthy marriage. “Cherish mutual esteem and love.”
A few years back I used to test brides and grooms before I married them. Well, actually it wasn’t a test but an inventory of their expectations. One battery asked about annoying habits. Another asked about physical appearance. Most men know, even those with little or no experience, that there’s only one “right” answer to the question, “Honey, how do I look?”
“Love,” they say, “is blind.” And it’s true enough. When you’re in love “annoying habits” are charming. But when married what once was charming can be plain “annoying,” which is why the wedding liturgy cautions us to “bear with each other’s infirmities and weaknesses” and to “comfort each other in sickness, trouble, and sorrow.”
Marriage is “Christian” not when mates love each other as they would like them to be but when they love each other as they are. Earthlings have “weaknesses.” Earthlings have faults. We don’t get to pick and choose. People come as whole packages—faults and all. And when we love as Christ loves us, we love faults and all.
That said, marriage does not leave us unchanged. Like God’s love, marriage, when it is right, helps shape us into God’s image. Marriage changes us.
There is a great line in the Jack Nicholson movie As Good As It Gets. Jack’s character is a miserable person. Jack plays a very talented but unhappy romance novelist who also happens to be obsessive-compulsive and is generally obnoxious and offensive to everybody he meets. One day he meets a struggling waitress played by Helen Hunt whose troubles are compounded by her young son who has severe allergies and is always being rushed to the emergency room with breathing problems. In time Jack and Helen fall in love. Jack helps the young boy receive the medical help he needs—they are becoming a family, but Jack and Helen are afraid not only to acknowledge their love but also to commit to one another. After a series of ill-fated missteps and just when it appears that all is lost, Jack finally declares his unspoken love for Helen telling her: “You make me want to be a better man.” That’s a great line. I love that line.
Christians bear with each other. We love our partners not as we would like them to be but as they are. Conversely Christians help their mates become the people God calls them to be. And sometimes that means loving our partner more than they love themselves. Love not only “bears” all things, it believes and hopes all things. Love calls for our best and we give our best when we “bear with” each other and when we help each other become the man or woman God calls us to be.
When my parents built their first house the contractor left their yard with more red dirt than grass. We moved in our new house around Christmas time. That spring, my dad bought a tiller and little by little began turning the red-clay into a lush green lawn. My mother was right by his side every step of the way. My parents did a lot of things that way. They were always working on some project. They were a team in “honesty and industry.” They worked together. They saved together. They provided for their household in “temporal things.”
My parents grew up in the Depression so they knew the value of a dollar. My mother would buy corn by the bushel and freeze it for winter. She made jams and jellies and bought bread by the box load from the thrift store for 10 cents a loaf. She made most of my sisters’ clothes and many of her own. My parents lived within their means. And it served them well.
“Honesty and industry” are essential to successful marriage. Without industry we have little to pass on and without honesty we have little worth passing on. Marriage succeeds when husbands and wives work together and when they keep each other honest. Live together in “honesty and industry.”
Some years ago billboards sprang up promoting family prayer: “The family that prays together stays together.” You remember that. I don’t believe prayer is magic but prayer does make a profound difference. Praying for your partner is a way of putting their interests first. Prayer is a way of walking in your partner’s shoes, feeling their worries, knowing their pain, their sorrow, as well as their joy.
Prayer changes things because prayer changes us. Prayer makes us thankful. Prayer creates kindness. Prayer makes us forgiving. Prayer changes things because prayer changes us. We’re invited to pray for one another and “to encourage each other in the things that pertain to God.”
It never ceases to amaze me how young adults find their way to church when they marry and have children. I don’t think that’s accidental. You can hardly smell the hair of a sleeping child or spend an anxious night worried about one and not ask about or think about the Big Picture. Christian partners not only pray for one another, they also help each other see the Big Picture. That happens most routinely when husbands and wives worship together, but it also happens when the day’s events or the evening news are framed by faith. Seeing the Big Picture happens when husbands and wives take time to ponder the imponderables, when Bible study is a vital part of conversation. Don’t cut yourselves off from God-talk or from talking to God. Pray and encourage each other in the things that pertain to God.
Next month Paula and I will celebrate 34 years of marriage. We have two wonderful children; we’ve gone to some great places and plan to go to many more; we have good friends and a wonderful home with you. Like any couple, we’ve also seen our share of trouble—two back surgeries, two knee surgeries, the deaths of our parents. There have been times when we’ve hurt each other, when we’ve disappointed each other. We’ve fought over stupid stuff and sometimes over important things, but through it all we’ve managed to find forgiveness. The wedding liturgy puts it beautifully when it invites husbands and wives to “live together as the heirs of the grace of life.”
Heirs don’t really do anything to become heirs. Heirs don’t deserve their inheritance. Inheritance is not about worth or merit. Inheritance is about a gift which is another word for grace.
Marriage allows us to discover grace at its deepest levels. Marriage helps us to see that like life itself forgiveness is a gift, that companionship is a gift, love is a gift. “Love never ends,” Paul concludes. “Faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” Live together as the heirs of the grace of life and your marriage will know, even in sorrow, even in disappointment and failure, love that never ends. Amen.