March 22, 2009 - Marriage - Part 1

Audio version HERE.

Ephesians 5:21-33

Marriage is the stuff of comedy.

From Rodney Dangerfield’s “That’s no lady, that my wife” to a New Yorker cartoon – the wife opens a package and exclaims with delight to her husband: “You perfect angel. You got me exactly what I needed to exchange for what I wanted.”

A little girl and a little boy were at day care one day. The girl approaches the boy and says, "Hey Stevie, wanna play house?"
He says, "Sure! What do you want me to do?"
The girl replies, "I want you to communicate."
He says to her, "That word is too big. I have no idea what it means."
The little girl smiles and says, "Perfect. You can be the husband."

A dietitian was addressing a large audience in Chicago. "The material we put into our stomachs is enough to have killed most of us sitting here, years ago. Red meat is awful. Vegetables can be disastrous, and none of us realizes the germs in our drinking water. But there is one thing that is the most dangerous of all and we all of us eat it. Can anyone here tell me what lethal product I'm referring to?”
A young lady in the front row raised her hand, and said with conviction in her voice: "Wedding cake."

This week, and next, some things about marriage.

A single friend of mine, when she heard that I was going to do several messages on marriage, said, “You’re not going to make marriage the end-all and the be-all of everything, are you?”

I appreciate her comment.

Not everyone is married …
Some are married, but only for a time … a marriage might end with separation and divorce … or end with sickness and death … or end with a tragic accident.
Some chose to remain single …
Other chose to live with one another without the formal rites of marriage.

This morning, I’d like to reflect a bit on what it means to love someone … how to guard the love we have … and what does it take to keep on keepin’ on with love.

For centuries, marriage had little to do with love, and some might say, “That’s still the case.”
In centuries past, marriage belonged to the wealthy and to the powerful as a contractual means of guarding wealth and preserving power and passing it on to progeny … and who needs love for that?
Marriages were arranged between powerful families.
Hence, many a film and many a novel … about midnight rendezvous with a secret love.

In many parts of the world today, marriages are still arranged by the parents.
Though it may strike us as strange, partners in an arranged marriage often affirm it - “love is too unpredictable to rely upon when you’re young.”

In western culture, and surely here in America, it’s ALL about love … we are very much in love with love … the stuff of novels and movies and songs.

Where would country music be without love?
Tammy Wynettte’s “Stand By Your Man” …
Dolly Parton’s, “Jolene, Jolene … don’t take my man.”
And Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Were Made for Walkin’”
Love found, love lost, and love found again.

Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition, “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” – which is probably a good song for tough economic times …

“Honey, let’s go out to eat.”
“Sorry, I can’t give you anything but love.”

Early in my ministry, I began to ask elderly couples about their marriage … how did they do it?

Over the years, responses were all very much the same … they look at each other, smile a bit, lift the eyebrows, and then say, “Well, we had our hard times, but we made it.”

Love isn’t easy, is it?
No matter how we slice it, dice it and serve it.

This morning, I want to encourage you in your life journey … wherever you happen to find yourself, whatever state of matrimony you may be in, whatever state of singleness or relatedness, or somewhere in between.

Keep on keepin’ on.

Our text this morning lays the groundwork for some very important things crucial to love.
Unfortunately, this passage has been quoted in piecemeal fashion by men, by the church, to subjugate women to the rule of men … nothing is further from the truth in this Scripture.

To the contrary, Paul builds a case for equality in marriage … with both partners on their knees before Christ.

Verse 21 says it well … Paul’s theme for all of life: Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
As someone once wisely observed: it’s a level playing field at the foot of the cross.

Paul begins where every Christian thought begins … with Christ!
And with Christ, and through Christ, a mutual regard for one another … out of a reverence for Christ!

Then, and only then, does Paul say:
Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord.

Women are rightly very alert right now!
But it’s a graciously worded piece that undergirds a woman’s freedom … because it’s her relationship to Christ that sets the pace, the standard, for the way she relates to her husband.
So, we might ask, “What is it like being subject to the LORD?”

Think now of the LORD Paul knew … the LORD who met Paul in the light on the road to Damascus … the LORD who drained away Paul’s anger and violence, the LORD who bathed Paul in grace and gave him a life and gave to Paul a mission worthy of his strength and passion.

This LORD, who bore the cross of Calvary …
This Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world …
The Good Shepherd who leaves the 90 and 9 to seek the one lost sheep …
The LORD who meets the woman at the well …
Who calls Zacchaeus down from his tree …
Who heals blind Bartimaeus by the side of the road …
And raises a little girl back to life.

This LORD doesn’t take life away.
This LORD gives us life …
Abundant life … life filled with meaning and overflowing with purpose.
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want …
The Lord fills my cup to overflowing …
Goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life!

To even suggest that a woman relate to her husband as she relates to the LORD is a declaration of freedom and life …
The woman rightly expects to receive FROM her husband what she receives from the LORD …
Grace and love,
Affirmation and kindness,
Help and healing,
Encouragement and peace,
Forgiveness and mercy,
Companionship and friendship … all of that and then some!

Paul says to women:
What you receive from Christ, expect to receive from your husband.

Relate to your husband as you do the LORD.
Give yourself to your husband as you would to the LORD – creatively and thoughtfully – not slavishly or blindly as some have suggested, because no one gives their life to Christ that way, and never does Christ ever ask for anything so mindless.
And if I may go on a bit, often times the biblical mind works subtly on these points – sometimes what ISN’T said is just as important as WHAT is said.
The point?
If a woman fails to receive from her husband what she justly and rightly expects from the LORD, she is free to challenge her husband, counsel him, and if necessary, break the bond of marriage if the husband consistently fails to honor her!
If the husband will not give her fullness of life, she is under no obligation to sustain the marriage.
It takes two, not just one!
Paul is very clear: the way a woman relates to the LORD sets the pace for the kind of marriage a woman can justly expect!

A few verses later, Paul speaks to the husband: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her … to make the church complete and beautiful – to be everything God intended the church to be … so it is, husbands – Christ sets the standard for our goals in life and the way we live.

This isn’t about dominance and control; this is all about self-giving, radical giving – to love your wife as Christ loved the church, and gave himself for the church.
It doesn’t get any more radical than that!

Paul drifts here between love for one another, and the love of God for the church – a great mystery, says Paul – how Christ loves the church … and when we think of Christ’s love for the church, we can only think back to what Jesus Christ said, No greater love than this, but to lay down our lives for one another.

So Paul says to the man: that’s why a man leaves his mother and his father, to be joined to his wife, the two becoming one flesh.
Who cares how your mama made apple pie and tucked you into bed at night … you’re married now, Bub, and you owe your life to wife!

Can you see how Paul is working with all of this?
Love is a mutual self-giving, a mutual surrender … as we lay down our lives for one another, at the foot of the cross.

To make one another the best we can be … for in the healing and health of the other, we find our own health and our own healing as well …
And it’s not just about marriage in the formal sense …
This is about love … any kind of love …
Paul goes on in his letter to speak about children and parents,
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. “Honor your father and mother” - this is the first commandment with a promise: “so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.”
And, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

And then to slaves and masters - though Paul does not decry slavery outright, Paul redefines the relationship for Christians:
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ…. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord … knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.
And, masters, do the same to them. Stop threatening them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and with him there is no partiality.

Again and again, Paul seeks to put all of this in relationship to Christ – because it’s a level playing field at the foot of the cross.

At the end of his treatise on marriage, and the mystery of the church, Paul concludes: Each of you should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband.

Finally, be strong in the LORD and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

As I think about my own life, how I’ve loved Donna and how I’ve failed to love her, one thing is clear, painfully clear – the power of sin – the relentless self-interest that poisons the soul and disfigures our character.
We might do well to look at Christ once again.
Why in the world did he die?
Just for the heck of it?
So he could say, “Been there, done that”?
He died for the sins of the world … but let’s be careful here … the sins of the world, indeed … but that includes me, and that includes you …
All have fallen short of the glory of God.

One of the first things we learn in the love of Christ is why he died on Calvary’s cross … because I put him there, and so did you … and we put him there ten thousand times a day.
With grace amazing, and love immeasurable, Christ takes the nails we hammer into his hands and feet; he takes the thorns we press onto his head; we lash him with our pride and our relentless self-interest; we pierce his side with our vanity and our coldness of heart … we wrap him in linen woven by our own cleverness and spiced with our skillful excuses … even as we “worship” him, we bury him in a tomb hewn by our sin, far away from ourselves, lest his love change our heart and call us to newness of life.
“Thank you, LORD; we’d rather be left alone!”

Yes, all have fallen short of the glory of God!

That simple truth cuts to the core of our life … to heal us and bring us out of ourselves … this relentless self-interest prowling around the edges of our spirit.

In Christ, we learn … we grow … and we find our true selves.

In all of our relationships, Christ at the center …
In our friendships and in our families,
In our work and in our worship …
In our love for one another …
In our marriages …
Christ at the center!

Amen and Amen!