Thursday, October 3, 2024

Christian Marriage

 


God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. My sermon title is Keys of Christian Marriage. My focus is our gospel (Mark 10:2-16). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”  Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

Love and marriage, love and marriage

They go together like a horse and carriage

This I tell you, brother

You can't have one without the other

"Love and Marriage" is a song with lyrics by Sammy Cahn and music by Jimmy Van Heusen. It was introduced by Frank Sinatra in the 1955 television production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. Sinatra recorded two versions of the song for Capitol Records in 1955, and on the 1956 album This Is Sinatra! It became a major hit and was later used as the theme song for the sitcom Married... with Children.

Love is obviously key to marriage, and undoubtedly to Christian Marriage. Before I go into that, let me look at our Gospel. As Jesus travelled throughout Judea, the Pharisees approached him with a test question, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Divorce was widely accepted in Jewish society at the time, despite the Biblical assertion that God hates divorce.[1]

There was some controversy among Pharisees over what constituted sufficient grounds for divorce, but here the question was whether divorce was permissible at all. Actually, theirs was not a question, since they already knew the answer, but a trap to expose the unorthodox teachings of Jesus; to which Jesus posed a counter question.

Moses was silent on the question of divorce, and the only mention of it in the Torah is Deuteronomy 24, which granted a man the possibility of writing a bill of divorce. The bill relinquished any legal claims he had on his wife and allowed her to marry someone else. It also afforded her some legal protection from the man who rejected her. The purpose of the bill did not authorize divorce but limited consequences for the woman.

Jesus explained the reason for this was the hardness of their hearts that led men to dissolve their marriages. Jesus chided the Pharisees, and even his own disciples for their hard hearts and stiff necks.[2] He then drew attention to the real commandment found not in the fifth book of the Torah, but the first, where he cited the two creation accounts.

In Genesis 1:27, we read, “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” In 2:24, we read, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” By linking the two verses, Jesus indicated that the communion of love between a husband and a wife is a sign pointing to God’s ultimate purpose in creating humanity in his image.

Raising the discussion to a new level, by referring to humanity before the fall, Jesus implied that God’s original intention is the true standard for marriage, and that the concession in Deuteronomy no longer applies because humanity is no longer captive to sin, hard-heartedness or family breakdown. Jesus ushered in the new reality – the Kingdom of God – that empowered people to live and experience what God intended from the beginning. This new reality was made possible through the Paschal Mystery – the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Jesus concluded his teaching with “What God has joined together, no one must separate.” In other words, the bond God created – the union of husband and wife – cannot be dissolved by any human authority.

His disciples must have wondered why Jesus would take away what was allowed in the Law of Moses and set a stricter standard. He did not make life more difficult for them. Rather, he empowered them to live according to God’s original plan through the cross and resurrection. Once they experienced that, they could no longer settle for less.

Inside the house, Jesus expanded his teaching: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.” This is radical in two ways. First, the indissolubility of marriage was as challenging and countercultural then as it is today. Second, it recognized that adultery was a sin against the woman. Note that in Jewish society, adultery was one man’s sin against another man because his wife was considered his property. Here, Jesus acknowledged the total equality of man and woman, and the mutual belonging of husband and wife in marriage. His teaching also challenged Roman citizens to be countercultural where women had a legal right to divorce for it affirmed that they were equally responsible for upholding the permanence of the marriage bond.

So, what does Jesus’ teaching mean for us – all of us whether we are married or not? As a married Christian man, I cannot compartmentalize and choose Jesus’ teachings about different areas of life – marriage, wealth, respect for law, authorities, life, parents, prayer, almsgiving and so on. I cannot separate his teaching from how I live marriage. I cannot choose to observe his teaching on prayer and parents, and ignore his teaching on almsgiving and authority. Jesus’ teaching on any area of life, like his teaching on marriage is like the song, they go together with love. And this love, I find through the cross and resurrection.

I bear the cross as Christ’s disciple and experience the resurrection. Whether you are married, single, divorced, widowed, young and vibrant, aged and frail, rich, poor, male, female, student or business owner, you know that life, marriage, relationships, keeping the law, bearing the cross is difficult because of sin. It is difficult because I am a hard-hearted, stiff-necked person – and yet I know that I can experience life, marriage, relationships, work and whatever in a new way because of the cross and resurrection. It is possible for me because I live not only in God’s creation, but also in God’s kingdom. Living in God’s kingdom and reflecting on his original plan for me and all people means that living life and marriage is not only easy, it’s wonderful.

Cindy and I have been married for 14 wonderful years. Since the beginning, prayer time together has been an essential ingredient in our relationship. We pray before meals, and often share a daily reading and reflection from Portals of Prayer before Supper even if we have company. We pray the psalms in the morning and before retiring for the night. She also reads and offers feedback on my sermons. I lovingly call her The Sermonator.

We have always looked for ways to deepen our relationship, and on the weekend of October 12-14, 2018, we took time away to be with each other on a Marriage Encounter weekend.[3] We did this because we look forward to learn more about each other through effective communication and prayer. Even to this day, we take time for a Daily Dialogue question.

The question might address my fear or anxiety. It may be about my role model as a child or an activity we are anticipating. There are questions about our children or grandchildren. Each day we dialogue on a different question because each day is different, and there is so much more we can know about our spouse and learn to love that person more and be loved more by that person.

In closing, some answers from married people who answered my question, “What are the keys to Christian marriage?”

First, my wife, Cindy, penned these words: 1. God First - By keeping God first in the marriage, you don't put yourself first. Keep God first by praying together as much possible. 2. Spouse second - Put your spouse ahead of yourself. Marriage is not 50%/50%. It is 100%/0%. Give 100% of yourself without expecting anything in return. 3. Respect and love each other always. Final thoughts - It is important to take time together every day to unplug and just communicate with each other. Taking the dog for a walk together is a good time for talking.

Lou and Mary are married nearly 60 years. In no particular order, Lou bullet pointed his keys.

·       Openness to growth as an individual and as a couple

·       Willingness to forgive and to ask for forgiveness

·       Stop keeping score … put aside your ego for the sake of your relationship.

·       Always ask yourself, “Would I rather be right or would I rather be in relationship?”

·       Understand that living in a Christ-centered relationship requires that we take responsibility for our actions and have a deep belief that Christ has a stake in our relationship.

·       Believe that the Holy Spirit is working in our relationship and ask daily for the grace to love, to forgive, for healing and for intimacy in our relationship.

·       Surround yourself with other couples who believe in the sanctity of marriage, who share common values and support each other.

·       Continue to learn about the complexities and dynamics of a love relationship. Never stop learning … never be satisfied.

·       Give back to your faith community and share your “coupleness” and talents with others. Our faith communities and our society need strong role models who believe in marriage. Get involved in a marriage ministry program, marriage prep, couples’ faith sharing circles/bible studies, etc.

·       Make time for each other especially when time demands may pull you in twelve different directions.

Paul and Mary, are in what he describes as a cross-cultural marriage. Of the Keys of Christian Marriage, he wrote:

At the top of the list is the way the apostle Paul tells husbands and wives to treat each other in Ephesians 5:22-33 – wives submitting to and respecting their husbands as to the Lord; and husbands, loving and giving themselves up for their wives as Christ did (even to the point of dying!). There are greater depths there than I am summarizing here, like a husband loving his wife so as to “nourish” her and see her grow (Eph 5:29).

But one key thing that the passage points us to is the idea of doing everything in relationship not to each other primarily, but first in relationship to the Lord. The wife respects the husband, not because he’s always worthy of respect, but because she does it for the Lord. And the husband loves the wife, not because she’s always lovely, but because Christ loved us and the husband is called to reflect that love and extend it on to His wife as the Lord wants us to. Primarily, our marriage relationship is about our relationship with God, and our actions that flow out of that.

…Which gets to the greatest piece of wedding advice, in the form of a prayer, that I ever got, written to us in a card on our wedding day: “May you love God more, so that you love each other better.”

That primary relationship with God, before the relationship with each other, is what a couple will have to lean on in the difficult times. We need to know and experience God’s love and forgiveness through the Lord Jesus, so that, in the words of the sermon preached on our wedding day, “when you realize you’ve married such a sinner,” it will be God’s abundant love and forgiveness that you can rely on to comfort you – and to flow through you to the other person. And when you finally realize there’s no amount of griping or complaining or nagging that you can do to change your spouse, you go to the one who can change a person’s heart, and you ask and trust God to do the work.

Wendell and Kari have been married for 43 years. He summarized his thoughts this way:

1. Be polite and courteous. Open doors, say please and thank you for everything (and mean it), help carry stuff, etc., etc.

2. Walk away when mad. Much better than having to spend weeks cleaning up unkind words.

3. Never utter the “D” word. Once you’ve rung that bell you can’t unring it.

4. Realize that there will be times you simply don’t want to be married to that person. Keep quiet and pray about it. You will be amazed in a week or so when you can’t imagine you ever wanted to be without that person.

5. Make a conscious effort to make “deposits” into the marital bank account. If you consistently take withdrawals without ever making deposits, pretty soon the account is empty.

My friends, these are a few thoughts about marriage. As you have time today, reflect upon them and God’s desire for marriage, and share your loving thoughts and words with one another and others. And when you do, may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.



[1] Malachi 2:16.

[2] Mark 6:52; 8:17.

[3] http://www.wwme.org/

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