“Marrying On Purpose”

A Sermon Based Upon 1 Corinthians 7: 1-17 NRSV

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin.  

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Pentecost +16,   September 13th, 2015

Because we are all human beings ‘who fall short of the glory of God,’ we may marry by accident, rather than on purpose.  What we do when that happens can make all the difference between marital bliss, or having the ‘marriage dismissed’.

Several years ago, a frantic mother with two wonderful sons came to be asking that I perform a ceremony for her younger son, who had been in a relationship with a girl and she became pregnant.   The mother was adamant.  “I told my son that he needed to right and responsible thing.  He must get married.”  Seeing that she was sure about this I just reminded her that ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’.  She was still insistent that her son get married.  I performed the ceremony.  In the next month, she had a miscarriage.  Sadly, within the next year, the couple went through a divorce. 

Marriage should be much more than an accident.  It should be about bigger, greater, and an even a grander divine purpose.  As we talked about in last week’s message, God’s designed for marriage is more than for people to be attracted to each other and falling in love.  Interestingly, a recent study has shown that arranged marriages are less likely end in divorce ones based upon courtship and romance.  The purpose of marriage and even finding love in a marriage is more than romantic feelings.  Marriage by design is about life-long companionship, it is about procreation—having and raising children-- and it is about a covenant that bears the image of God to the world through marriage fruitfulness and faithfulness. 

But as beautiful and profound is the sacred purpose, in the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul sounds like he belittling marriage by recommending that Christians not get married at all, unless they have to.  As a Jew who only recently became a Christ-follower, Paul says that he and we should have much more important matters to attend to than getting married.   

Of course, to us who value marriage and family, Paul’s advice is quite surprising.  But we are also reminded that Jesus never married and that he once renounced his own family.  He declared for all to hear that his new family were “those who do the will of the Father…” (Matt. 12:50). 

All this is a long way from Genesis 2, where God says “It is not good for the man to be alone” (2.18).  What has happened?  And how does this fit with what comes later in the letter to the Ephesians, where Paul calls marriage a mystery signifying the relationship between Jesus and his church (Eph. 5).  What should we make of Paul’s strange suggestion to the Corinthians that it would be ‘better’ (7:1) if they did not get married at all, and ‘were all as” he is (7:7)?   What’s up with that?

SURRENDERING TO A HIGHER PURPOSE

Most of us grow up with fairly simple expectations:  Graduate.  Find a job.  Get married.  Start a family.  Get a life.  Nothing wrong with that unless this is all we do, especially when it comes to marriage.  This might sound a bit strange, but if we don’t make our marriage about more than letting happen whatever happens, or even making happen what we want to happen,  our marriage could end up being an accident that is just waiting to happen.     

 

Before we dig into why Paul is so reluctant to recommend marriage, we need to realize how we can relate.   Many young people in our culture also are more hesitant about getting married.   Many are delaying marriage until they finish their education and get established in a career or job.  Others, for many different reasons, are avoiding marriage all together. 

When I lived in Europe, my neighbor was Surgeon in the local hospital.  He had two sons, one the same age as my daughter, and a wonderful companion who was a biology teacher at the local high school.  She had grown up atheist, but wanted her students to understand that Science did not have all the answers about life.  She invited me to speak to class about why I believed that life is more than cells that divided by chance and without a higher purpose.

When our families were sharing supper together in their apartment one evening, I asked the doctor how long they had been married.  “Oh, we’re not married”, he answered.  “Well, you sure look married,” I said.  You seem happy together.  Your children are beautiful and happy.   Why aren’t you legally married,”  I asked.  His answer was sincere,  “We decided not to get married because all the married couples we know end up getting divorced.”  We didn’t want that, so we decided not to ‘get married’.  

I’ve thought about what that surgeon told me for many years.  It sounds strange to say, but what was keeping his family together was bigger than getting married and going through a wedding ceremony.   I know it sounds strange, but I observed their relationship together and I came to respect his reason for not getting married.   But even though they didn’t have a traditional wedding, they surely did have a very real marriage and they started a family so that their overall purpose for marriage was very much like my own---they purposed to stay together--forever. 

When I’m preparing couples for marriage, I still try to remind them that it’s less about having an unforgettable wedding ceremony, but it’s about preparing for durable marriage.  I also warn them that this is not what most people work on.  Most people work on having a big wedding, and few take as much time to work on their marriage.   Deciding not to work to developing good relational skills can work against your marriage.  We need this kind of ‘work’ because, contrary to popular opinion,  there is no ‘Mr. or Mrs Right out there.”  As someone has wisely said, all of us marry the ‘wrong person’ and none of us will end up with the person we thought we married.  We all change.  We all have personalities.  We all fail to measure up to each other’s expectation.   We are all ‘fools’ for love.

It is because we can be ‘fools for love’ that we all need to ‘purposely’ work on our marriage skills from time to time.  In most circumstances, if both partners are willing to work at it, they can have a much better marriage because they have taken the time to develop the skills they need for understanding and acceptance.   But how does this fit in with Paul’s recommendation to the Corinthians that it is better not to marry, unless they have to  (1 Cor. 7.8).  This sounds like the ‘wrong’ purpose, doesn’t it?

What should we take away from Paul’s reluctance about marriage?   For one thing we need to understand that he is not ‘commanding’ this, as if it is an unchangeable command from Christ for all time, but he admits it is a ‘concession’ (7.6) in a moment of time.    You only ‘concede’ something when you realize that another truth is surprising you or overwhelming to you.   Paul’s reluctance toward marriage is a concession because he and the Corinthians are facing an ‘impending crisis’ (NRSV) or ‘present distress’ (KJV,  7:26) in their own moment in time.   We don’t know exactly what that ‘distress’ or ‘crisis’ was, but it made it a very ‘bad’ time to be recommending that people get on with their normal lives and marry.  

Paul’s warning about such a ‘crisis’ should remind us that having a good, healthy marriage is not a given in this world.  Because marriage is such a challenging and demanding relationship, now doomed to fail for the majority of couples in our own culture,  the decision to marry or not to marry should be based on much more than just having feelings of love or attraction.  In fact, contrary to all those who told you and I that we needed to grow up, go to school, get a job, fall in love and get married,  Paul’s reluctance, and our own ‘impending crisis’ concerning marriage should cause us all to stop and think about why we marry at all.  In a day when marriage vows are too easily broken, and when romantic love not the glue that holds us together as we thought it would, shouldn’t we also be looking for an even greater purpose to marry or not to marry?

SALVATION THROUGH A SPOUSE?

Since most marriages will end up in the pain and brokenness of divorce, why get married at all?  Can we still justify marriage or would it be better for us to do like that Surgeon in Germany---not get married so we don’t have to go through a divorce?

My parents were married for over 50 years.  They didn’t have a big wedding because they didn’t have the money for it.  Much of their early lives were lived in times of crisis.  Both of them survived the depression.  They grew up on farms.  Both of them belong to large families.  They survived the Great War.  They got married right after World War II with nothing more than the opportunity to move to town, get jobs, and start a life together.  When they decided to marry, they went off to South Carolina and hired a preacher to marry them with the few dollars they could find.  Their ‘honeymoon’ was being able to come home and start life together.  They were not interested in having all the great memories of one day, but they wanted to experience togetherness in life that encouraged their faithfulness to God and their faithfulness to each other.  It was life together, that grew and matured through hard work and adversity.  They never thought of their lives as a ‘romantic getaway’ or holiday from the challenges of life.   

I tell that story because it reveals a very good reason my parents had for getting married and why they stay married their whole lives.  It wasn’t just that they had fallen in love with each other.    Sharing their love for each other was a wonderful benefit of their marriage and it was one of the very good purposes for their marriage, but it was not the only or even the greatest purpose.   For my parents, and for most of those who remain married most of their lives, marriage has had an even higher, greater, and bigger purposes than love, passion or romance.   Love and romance is what all the hype is about in music and the movies, but in real life, marriage is about the kind of relational glue that can also hold ‘love’ together.

Paul speaks directly to this greater purpose right in the middle of his discussion about the marriage question as he comes to the divorce quesiton.  After Paul has conceded that it is better to marry than to ‘burn with passion’ (7:9), he goes on to discuss the ‘nitty gritty’  details for those marriages that are living in the middle of this ‘impending crisis’ that might threaten to pull them apart.  He even says that he is passing on to them ‘the Lord’s command’ (7:10) that they should try to ‘stay together’ even when it’s not easy.   He admits that some will have go through a divorce (7:15) because of unbelief, but he also encourages couples to try to stay together and to keep working on their marriages, not only because of their love for each other,  but because there can be an even greater benefit to marriage than finding the ‘perfect’ love of your life. 

Even greater than finding a marriage you will “save” yourself for or dream about,  is to find the kind of love that saves you, and might just save your spouse as well.  Most of us don’t think about marriage as being a part of our ‘salvation’, but that’s how Paul saw it.  The Catholic Church and others have seen marriage that way too and they have given it an official term, ‘Sacrament (http://www.americancatholic.org/features/special/default.aspx?id=29).   

A ‘sacrament’ is simply an action or activity that can have a ‘saving’ or ‘redemptive’ effect in life.   The Catholic Church recognizes seven Sacraments: Anointing of the Sick, Reconciliation, Confirmation, Baptism, Eucharist or Holy Communion, Ordination and “Marriage”.   While we don’t use this language in Baptist circles, this doesn’t mean these activities don’t have a saving, redemptive or lasting effect in our lives.   Certainly, Paul believed that marriage does have a ‘saving’ impact upon couples, especially upon those who are unbelievers.  

While we must be careful not to use Paul for recommending marriage to an unbeliever, he does understand that it happens, and when it has happened, the predicament should point us to the most important reason anyone gets married---to find God’s saving power alive and well in our lives, especially in a world when things are not like they should be.   Again, though we must never read Paul’s words about the ‘saving’ hope in marriage as a ‘command’ that people to stay together when they have irreconcilable differences (7.12),  Paul is saying that working through our differences that which are reconcilable may have an the greatest benefit of all---the saving of your spouse---or , as he has already said it another way, the sanctifying of both wife and husband (7.14).  

Have you ever thought marriage as a way to receive salvation or to be sanctified?  Most wouldn’t dream of such, but Paul did.   Paul says that even when couples are ‘unequally yoked’ together (2 Cor. 6.14), whether by choice or by the conversion of one of them, they can find this greater purpose of marriage which is even more than finding the ‘perfect’ match.  When people love another person unconditionally, as long as there is no abuse,  and there is love and understanding,  even an imperfect marriage can have a saving and sanctifying effect because it can change a person for good and for God.   There may be no greater purpose in marriage, than the personal and practical witness for the love of God we will give to the one we spend our life with.  Giving this kind of love, in spite of our differences, changes people and it changes us.

MARRIAGE AS A HOLY CALLING

I think we all could tell many stories about how being married has changed and shaped us to be better people.  I like to tell funny stories about our marriage and the things I’ve learned in these almost 40 years of being married.  One of the most important stories, I don’t like to tell is how being married started changing me from day one.   It was in those very first months of being married that I argued with Teresa about who was supposed to ‘answer’ the telephone.  In my home, my mother always answered the phone.  Dad never did.  No matter what mom was doing, and no matter what Dad was not doing, mom always answered the phone.  I thought that was how it should be.

One day when the phone rang, Teresa had her hands in the dish water.  I was setting at the table reading the paper.  Who did I think was supposed to answer the phone?  Who did Teresa think should answer the phone?  Who ended up answering the phone?  Well, you guessed it right, if you said it should have been me.  It was out of habit that I needed to grow up and learn how to answer the phone.  That’s what marriage will do to you and for you.  It can help you grow up, be saved and be sanctified even in the simple task of answering the telephone. 

It doesn’t matter whether you use religious language or not, marriage will ‘make  you’ or it will ‘break you’ and that may be one of the most important purposes that a marriage can ever have---to make you the person you never thought you could become.   But unfortunately, having a marriage that makes us into better people is not always what happens.   Any successful marriage will take work, and it will take the cooperation of two people, who will work at it together.  This is why Paul’s final word about marriage reminds us again that the higher purpose of marriage, especially during difficult and challenging times, will be much more than doing what people have always done, but it must be about finding higher, holier, and greater purposes that will hold love together as the world around us falls apart.  

When Teresa and I were dealing with the stress of my dying parents, a troubled church, and a mentally difficult daughter,  we went through a time it put a lot of stress on our marriage.  I found a place for us to find pastoral counseling, and I asked her to go with me so we could have someone on the outside, helping us look at what we needed to be doing to help instead of hurt and blame each other.  We only went a couple of sessions when the counselor fired us.  Do you know why he ‘fired us?’  He said that we already had the spiritual and emotional resources to get through our difficulties.  He told us to go home and to keep talking, to keep caring, and to keep walking through this together because we already ‘wanted’ to get through it together.       

Finding a ‘greater purpose’ for our marriage is not accidental at all.  This is why Paul concludes by saying that marriage is about living “the kind of life the Lord has assigned when he called each one (1.17).”   I wonder what it would do for most marriages if we understood our marriage not just as a natural, traditional, response to love, but as an ‘assignment’ or a ‘calling’ or  as something we are ‘gifted’ to do with our life?    I know it doesn’t sound very romantic to tell you spouse that you’ve taken them on as a ‘mission’ or special assignment.  Next week, we will hear Paul speak about marriage as a great mystery, just as love is.   But for now, the greatest foundation of marriage is mystery that has already been solved.   Of course, the great purpose of marriage about what you will do for each other, but an even greater purpose of marriage is what God will do in and for you, when you give yourself to unconditionally love and to cherish another with your whole life.   Amen.