“THE WORK OF LOVE” (In a Marriage)

A Sermon Based Upon 1 Corinthians 13,  NRSV

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

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Pentecost +19,   October 11th, 2015

Several years ago, Gary Chapman, associate pastor and counselor at Calvary Baptist in Winston-Salem wrote a book on marriage that was well read in Christian circles, entitled, “The Five Love Languages”.   Chapman’s love languages starts with words, saying the language of love starts with “Words of Affirmation”.  But then this love language must go beyond words too, as he says, like spending “Quality Time” together,  “Giving and Receiving Gifts”,  and showing the kind of tenderness which treats the other as one who is ‘beloved’, not a mere ‘object of affection’  (’http://www.amazon.com/The-Love-Languages-Secret-Lasts/dp/080241270X.  

That book is and practical, but as good as it is the ‘love language’ was not invented by Gary Chapman.   The Christian understanding of love goes way back all to the first very detailed description of ‘love’ found in the Christian Bible.  We know it as the ‘love chapter’ found in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13.  I preached on this chapter at the beginning of this year to address the meaning of love in general.  But now I want to return to it and dissect the meaning of Christian love as it particularly relates to love in a Christian marriage.

Starting where we left off last week, speaking about the importance of showing love in our ‘words’ to each other  (Ephesians 4: 29-32; 5: 4-6),  We now turn to Paul’s unforgettable discussion of love as the  ‘more excellent way’ that goes beyond words.  ‘Even if I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal (1 Cor. 13:1 NRS).   Of course we must speak love, but we also must ‘live in love’ (Eph. 5:1) and ‘sometimes to use words’, as the saying goes.  So, today let’s consider how Christian love goes beyond words in a Christian marriage?

LOVE BEARS ALL THINGS

In this ‘love chapter,  the ‘work of love’ (Kierkegaard) are summed up in four important ‘works’ found in verse 7:…‘love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things (13:7).  The goal of love in a marriage is of course, to be able to endure in all things.   The kind of love that endures is dependent upon the other three works of love, bearing, believing, and hope.  These also build on each other, as bearing each other in a marriage is dependent on finding ways to keep faith in the marriage, and keeping faith in a marriage depends on finding hope in each other and in the marriage itself. 

Let’s begin by looking at the first ‘work’ of love, Love bears all things.  While I started out this series on marriage using the image of marriage as a ‘lion’,  I now want us to learn how Paul says that that love can be a ‘bear’.  I don’t mean the animal, but that love will ‘bear’ the load of the marriage relationship even when there are weaknesses, limitations, or when one or both fall into fatigue, failure or sin.  As Paul wrote the the Galatians,  Christian love will bear its own load and it also ‘bears’ the load or burden of being with the other person (See Gal 6).

What does it mean to ‘bear’ with each other when you are married?  Just ask my wife.  Or maybe I should ask your spouse?  If you’re married, we all know what it means.  Bearing the burden of being married can mean many, many things, can’t it?  It can mean getting used to their habits; both good and bad.  It can mean putting up with all kinds of things that will annoy and aggravate you at times.  It can also mean staying with a person even when you sometimes don’t like them, or you can see right through them, or even when you may uncover deep, or perhaps difficult secrets about them.  And of course it means that we are to ‘bear’ the other when they are weak, sick, poor, sick or dying, as we say in our wedding vows,  “For richer, For poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”   Beautiful words, but sometimes hard for people to live out.   

While there are, of course, limits to what we should ‘bear’ or what we can ‘bear’ with each other,  being married will bring out the best and the worst,  the ‘bad’ along with the ‘good’,  the ‘weaknesses, as well as the strengths; things we admire, as well as the things we will come to detest.   The key to ‘bearing’ each other’s idiosyncrasies in ‘real life’, not just ‘romantic life’, will only be found in a relationship where there is genuine ‘love.’  Love can bear it because love wants to bear it.  And when we love, and love is reciprocal,  we give it to each other, we don’t just ‘bear’ it alone, but Paul means that we bear love together, with each other, for each other as we face both the challenges and the blessings of our relationships.   Bearing another means that we love them ‘unconditionally’ as we find ways find God’s redemption in our human condition. 

Our differences, our distinctions, and the dysfunctions of human life eventually find their way into every marriage relationship.  Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “Men are from Mars, and Women are from Venus”.   This means not only that we have differences, but we can come to believe we’ve married someone from another planet!     

This means that marriage is not easy, but it can be very rewarding.   Getting to the reward will mean that we must ‘bear’ each other in love.   Sometimes one of us will be wrong.  Other times the other will be wrong.  Many times both of us are wrong, because even in our strengths and weaknesses we both come from our own limited perspectives.   This is why one of the most important words that must be spoken and acted upon in any human relationship is: “I’m Sorry”.   Love means always having to say your sorry, even if you feel like you don’t have too.   

Again, we bear with someone, even when we feel like we can’t bear them, because we love them, not because we always ‘like’ them.  The real test of any relationship is not always asking ourselves can we bear it, but it’s about what is the nature of love.  Only the kind of love that will ‘bear’ the other, in good and in bad, can endure.  As Pastor Adam Hamilton has rightly said,  “Good marriages don’t just happen.  They take discipline, sacrifice and effort’, which is, I think, what ‘bearing’ each other ‘in all things’ means  (See ‘Making Love Last a Lifetime’  Abingdon Press, 2004, p.21) . 

We must make the effort to bear each other so the relationship itself becomes ‘load bearing’ like a load bearing wall.  Of course, I want to reiterate again that there are always limits to what any of us can and should bear.   Love means accountability, responsibility, answerability, and obligation to each other.  Unconditional love will always find a way to bear the other, unless that love has been destroyed by the lack of true love on behalf of one or both.  That is why who I love, not what I like is the true foundation of bearing with each other in a loving marriage.

LOVE BELIEVES IN ALL THINGS

But how do we bear the negatives within our relationships so that we can have a break through instead of a breakup?   How does love bear, when it gets hard, heavy and difficult?   The answer comes with the next word:  ‘loves believes’.  

Several years ago, Psychologist James Dobson, wrote a very popular book about Marriage, entitled, “What Wives Wish Their Husband’s Knew about Women.”   Some were critical saying this title is much too wordy.  It should have simply said,  “What Wives Wish Their Husband Knew, period.”  But you get the point.  James Dobson, along with many after him, like the sociologist John Gray, who wrote the very popular book “Men are From Mars, and Women are From Venus, have argued that marriages can be improved greatly if men and women come to understand their unique differences.   The point is that we can’t assume that we know what the other is feeling, thinking, or saying.  Our differences are real.  God has created us to complete and complement each with unique differences,  so we must make an effort to understand that difference, if we are going to believe that this different person really loves us, even when we find ourselves in dispute or argument.     

I don’t think anyone disputes that men and women are wired differently, and it would do all our marriages good to understand this.  But it doesn’t end with just finding out how we are different, but the key may still be that we realize again just how we are very much alike.  One recent expert on marriage, John Gottman, claims that he is able to predict the success or failure of a marriage with 91% accuracy.  He says that he can listen to a couple and tell you within 5 minutes whether or not they will divorce.  He says other surprising things like “frequent arguing will not lead to a divorce”,  or ‘financial troubles don’t always spell trouble”,  and ‘wives who make sour facial expressions when their husband talk are likely to be separated in four years”, and finally that ‘there is a reason husbands withdraw from arguments.”  There are many interesting findings in Gottman’s research of over 20 years, but what I like best is his finding that what couples want most from each other 70% of the time “friendship.”  “You see,” he says, “men and women come from the same planet after all.  When couples lose respect for each other and lose faith, which means they no longer believe in each other or in their marriage,  that marriage will most likely not recover.  More than anything else,  a marriage is about partnership and friendship.  If a couple still believe in each other, if they still are caring, nurturing, respectful, fond and full of admiration for each other and haven’t lost faith,  then there is always hope.  Belief is the key to having hope in a marriage.  (Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work,  by John M. Gottman,  Crown Publishing, 1999, p. 17).

When Paul puts ‘belief’ or ‘believing’ as one of the key works of love an enduring  marriage, he reminds us, just as the experts do, that conflict, differences, even occasional arguments will not destroy a marriage as long as we keep bearing with each other, helping each other , understanding each other, and as long as we keep believing in each other.   The kind of ‘belief’ Paul means more than having some kind of belief that resides only in our head or our heart, but he means actually being being ‘faithful’ friends to each other, as we are faithful to God.    Again, let me repeat that the greatest threat to marriage is not our differences, not our distinctiveness, nor even our normal dysfunctions as human beings,  but the greatest threat to a marriage is a failure of being actively, not just passively ‘faithful’ to the one we have pledged our ‘faith’ to in our wedding vows.  Only a ‘marriage’ that keeps the faith that results in friendship in all things, can bear all the other challenges of love. 

One last thing about ‘believing’.   In his book about Christian words, Fredercik Buechner calls Christianity “Wishful Thinking”.  What he means is not that having faith means that we wish for things that are less than true, but by ‘wishful thinking’ he means having a ‘faith’ that wishes and lives for what we want to be true, because we are living out its truth.   Our Christian faith is based on ‘wishful thinking’ in the same way a Christian marriage is ‘wishful thinking’ because we ‘want’ our love to be true to each other and we are faithful to each other in making this happen.   Faithfulness’ creates faith, love and hope in our marriages, and this faithful love makes us believers in love and in our life together. 

   

LOVE HOPES IN ALL THINGS

When we bear with each other and keep actively believing in each other, we will have hope, even when we go through troubled spots in our marriages.   Bearing with each other causes us to remain friends, to keep bearing, working, and believing in each other.  Because we haven’t lost faith in each other,  we can always have hope in our relationship.

Let me give you an example with something called a ‘love bank’.  As we saw either, it the apostle Paul told the woman to respect or practice submission to a man, not out of her weakness, but from a position of strength and power.   Also,  it is the man, whom Paul says is to supremely practice showing ‘loving devotion’ to the wife, because of his own power which my overpower his wife.   When Paul tells men to show their true strength by showing love, he is on to something that can bring a lot of faith, love and hope back into a troubled marriage.  

Willard Harley and Barbara DeAngelis have also worked with thousands of couples and they use a wonderful ‘metaphor’ to describe how a husband should show love for his wife.  They say that we should understand a woman’s heart as a ‘love bank’.  In the woman’s heart, actions of both partners constitute deposits to and withdrawals from the woman’s love bank.   When a husband shows his love for his wife in certain ways, deposits are made to her ‘love bank’.  When a wife takes care of home and children, when she give herself to the husband emotionally and physically, withdrawals are made from that love bank.  Thus, a relationship in a marriage is characterized by ongoing deposits and withdrawals.

When a couple gets married, there is all kinds of ‘hope’ because there is a huge ‘balance’ in the love bank.  The man has romanced her.  The man has talked to her.  The man has spent quality time with her.  The man has told her how beautiful she is, bought her a ring, and whisked her off on a honeymoon.  But then the honeymoon ends, life settles into a comfortable pattern.  You both start making withdrawals from the ‘love bank’.  Unfortunately, the man is making less and less deposits into his wives ‘love bank’.   Sometimes, days, maybe even weeks go by between deposits.  A huge balance is whittled away and now has become a huge deficit.   As the husband, you do not know it, and often your wife doesn’t either, because she is able to operate long periods of time working ‘in the red’.   But then ‘overdraw warnings’ start to appear like unexpected irritation, shorter temper, coldness to your physical advances, or tears.  When a woman’s love bank operates in overdraft protection for too long, the love bank will eventually have to declare bankruptcy and the account must be closed.  She will have nothing left to give and this is when the marriage loses hope  (Interpreted from Adam Hamilton’s “Making Love Last a Lifetime”, Abingdon Press, 2004, pp 27-51). 

While this is just a ‘metaphor’ is does make a valid point.  What restores ‘hope’ and ‘belief’ in a marriage for a woman or a man is that we continue to give each other reasons or proofs that we believe in each other.   According to a survey made in one Christian congregation,  to keep believing and having hope in their marriage, the top things women needed were:  ‘affection’,  ‘attentiveness’ and ‘active participation’ family life and chores.   In that same congregation, what husbands needed from their wives was “admiration” or respect, “sharing”, “support” and “sexual intimacy”.   The only way any couple can discover exactly what will bring faith and hope their marriage is through honest, open, and caring communication. 

LOVE ENDURES

The final thing Paul says about the nature of true, Christian love, is that ‘love endures all things’.  Certainly, every marriage will go through its ups and downs, and as I said before, all of us marry the wrong person, until we become the person we need to be for each other.   There is no map, manual or magic on how to make this happen other than helping each other know what we need from each other.   Needs are real whether they are always realistic or not.   Human life must always be negotiated and in a marriage, the only way we can negotiate the difficult moments is through the genuine work of love.   It is the love that endures, because love will do the work.  Amen.   

“What Makes Marriage Christian?”

A Sermon Based Upon Ephesians 4: 1-5:2,  NRSV

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

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Pentecost +18,   September 27th, 2015

Every once in a while I come across the statistic that reveals that people who call themselves Christians are no better at being and remaining married than non-Christians.  In fact, it wasn’t very long ago that it was being said that Christians even had a higher divorce rate than non-Christians.  Part of the reason may have been because they were expecting too much of each other, so that their hearts were broken and they gave up too soon.

While there is certainly something to be learned from such statistics, statistics never tell the whole story.   The part of the story they never can tell is what Jesus spoke about when he told the parable of the ‘Wheat and the Weeds’ (or Wheat and Tares, Matthew 13: 24-30).   In that story a farmer looks out over his crop and sees that the weeds are growing together with the wheat.  He knows that this means trouble, but he’s not exactly sure what to do.  Part of the problem is that he isn’t sure what is a weed and what is wheat.  Even if he does know, he can’t guarantee that the wheat will be saved by removing the weeds.  Sometimes by removing a weed, you can do even more damage to the wheat.  So what’s is this farmer to do?  

Jesus says that a wise farmer, one who will admit that he can’t always tell the difference, so he will let the ‘wheat’ and the ‘weeds’ grow together until the day of harvest.  When that day comes, there will be no doubt.  

The same truth about the kingdom of Heaven might also apply in a marriage.   We might call a wedding or a marriage “Christian”, but that does not always make it one.   Sometimes you can’t tell the difference, but you will only determine what is a Christian marriage by what happens down the road in that marriage, after some time has passed, as the children are being raised, when the couple have come through storms together  that have ‘tested’ and ‘proven’ that their marriage and their faith.

Because going to church doesn’t make you a Christian, just like going into garage doesn’t make you a car, it is important for us who want to have a Christian marriages, to learn what it takes to be “Christian” in our marriages.   Of course, it takes people who are Christians to make a marriage Christian.  What it means to be a Christian is exactly what Paul is talking about in chapter 4 of the Letter to the Ephesians.  Before he comes to his most amazing words about the ‘mystery of marriage’, he reminds us about the ‘mystery’ of Christ---which gives faith (see Eph. 1: 9, 3:3-9).   Like that sign which says rather humorously that the best vitamin for a Christian is “B1”, the best way to make a marriage Christian is to be who we’ve been “called” to be (Eph. 4:1, 4).  But what is this ‘vocation’ we’ve been called into and called to be and ‘walk’ (Eph 1.4)?  Can we summarize it as to how it can apply to having a “Christian” marriage? 

THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT (4.1-6)

When people come into my office or into my home for marriage counseling, which is a lot less these days, one of the first questions I ask them has to do with ‘what do they want’ to have happen?  Do they want to work on their marriage?  Do they want things to work out?  Will they be willing to do their homework?  Will they be faithful to come to all of the counseling sessions?   If they answer ‘yes’ to this kind of question,  I know we have a chance to work on their relationship.  But of course, the most important thing comes before I make one single request.  Did they both come in together? 

This is what Paul is talking about when he says that among true Christians there is a desire to ‘keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’.    That’s how you can tell a true Christian from a false one.   Do they want peace?  Do they want unity?  Do they want to come together or do they enjoy coming apart?

In my church in Lenoir, a retired couple came to me asking me whether or not I would counsel with their son and daughter-in-law, about their marriage.   Of course I would, but when the son came, he came alone.  It was impossible to get his wife to come along.  Neither of them were committed to the Church or to their Faith, though the Son was a nice guy and I think he really did want to save his marriage.   But no matter how much I tried to help him see his side of the problem, and no matter how many good changes he made to try to make his marriage better, it never worked.  It never worked because we could never get her to come to the “table”.   We could never get her to ‘want’ to come together to find a way to make the marriage work.

The Christian faith is not a faith for loners and it is not a faith that can be worked out all alone.  Paul makes this clear when he says that the Christian walk is a ‘calling’ which calls us to come together ‘with all lowliness, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.’   This is still the difference between true and false Christianity, and it is still makes the difference in making a marriage or any relationship Christian.  Do we want unity?  Do we want to come together?  Do we want the relationship to work?  Do we want to have a ‘bond of peace’ with each other?

A MEASURE OF MATURITY (4.12-24)

The second signal of true Christian faith which serves our marriages is not only to answer a call to ‘unity’, but it is also desire to grow into the ‘full measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ (4.13).  It is one thing to want to have something, but it is another to want to become someone; to be willing to learn, to grow, and to desire to be Christ-like in all that we do and all that we are in our marriage to each other.

Of course, to want to be Christ-like in our life and in our marriage means that Christ must be the ‘head’ of our marriage and lives (4:15).  We can only ‘grow up into him in all things’, as Paul says, when we are ‘no more like children, tossed to and fro’ by everything in the world, but we have to ‘learn Christ’ (4.20) which means we have to be ‘taught the truth’ which is Jesus, not be taught truths about Jesus (4.21).  When we ‘learn’ Jesus we ‘put off the old’ person which includes having false desires and lusts (4.22), and we are ‘renewed in the spirit of our mind’ (4.23) to ‘put on the new’ person, who is ‘re-created by God for ‘righteousness and true holiness’ (4.24).  

When you understand what Paul means, you will understand what it means to be growing toward a certain ‘maturity’ of faith in Jesus Christ, which gives you one of the greatest resources for having a Christian marriage---a new you.   In the psychological world people talk a lot about “EQ” verses “IQ”.  IQ stands for your intelligence—how much you know and your ability to use what you know.   “EQ” on the other hand, stands for your “emotional” ability.   This is about your ability to relate to other people in mature and stable ways.   Many people have passed tests and been given degrees and jobs they couldn’t handle, even though they had the intelligence to answer all the questions correctly. 

It’s much the same in being married and staying married, because a ‘getting married’ means a lot more than being able to say “I do” or “I will”.  Being married and staying married means that you are willing to say “I do” based on what you know today and what you know you need to know and do tomorrow.  This is what ‘maturity’ means.   It means growth, change, adjustments, flexibility and responding to each other in ways that you are growing together in Christ and not growing apart or away from Christ.

GRACEFUL WORDS  (4: 25-29)

One of the best ways to make sure that you do not ‘grow’ apart is grow together in your faith in Jesus Christ.   You can only know that you are on the same journey together in Christ when you learn how to ‘talk’ and ‘communicate’ with each other, both when you feel like it, but even more so, when you don’t.   It is even more important to speak “Christian” to each other when it’s difficult.   Not only must we refuse to lie to each other (v.25), but speaking Christians means we speak the ‘truth in love’ (4.15) to each other.   Learning to speak and hear the ‘truth is love’ is how we keep ‘growing together’ in Christ.   As we ‘speak the truth in love’ and refrain from the ‘anger’ and ‘wrath’ (4:26) that leads to the kinds of relational sins that will destroy relationships, are called in a marriage especially, to ‘speak the truth in love’, which also means to be ‘angry’, but to let Christ help us control our anger with each other so that ‘we don’t let the sun go down upon our wrath’. 

One of the greatest things I teach couples in pre-marital counseling is how to ‘fight’.  That might sound strange, but for most people, in order to have a marriage where you grow deeper and stronger in your relationship with each other, you will have conflict.  Those who never have conflict in their marriage are rare, and normally have very shallow relationships with each other.  Those who only have conflict, are also not fighting fair and have yet to grow up so they can move beyond shallow, immature, superficial ways of relating to each other.   Continual fights and unending conflict only prove they are stuck somewhere, maybe even back in the mind of their childhood, so that they have never been able to rightly address a problem in their own mind, so they are unable to solve a problem between them, so they can only relate to each other in ways that make them like children or juveniles. 

What a Christian marriage means is that we want to deal with our past and our present in ways that will help us break-throw the barriers and open new doors of communication and understanding.   I try to teach this to couples before they marry by teaching them how to listen and hear each other talk.   It sounds silly to them at first, but once they get the hang of it, before they blow up in anger at their partner or spouse, I teach them to ‘repeat’ the words they have just heard, so that they both can hear what is being said.   Then, I remind them that you can’t argue with how another person feels whether it is true or not.  

Let me give you an example of ‘speaking the truth in love’, not anger.  My wife may tell me that she feels like I don’t love her because I don’t put up my socks.  My immediately fleshly, unchristian response would to move beyond acknowledging what she is saying, by responding,  “But I do love you, whether I put my socks up or not.”   That may in fact be true, but it is not what she is feeling in this moment.  

There may indeed be other reasons that she or he is feeling a certain way, but you’ll never get to it until you acknowledge what you are feeling, hearing, listening, and ready to try to understand from each other.     What you should say when she or he says that something is wrong, is to first acknowledge and respond with empathy what has been heard.   For example, when she or he says, “You don’t love me because you don’t put up your socks,”  is first of all to acknowledge that you have heard and understood exactly what has been said by saying something like:  “You are saying to me that my not putting up my socks makes you feel as if I don’t love you.”  

It’s hard to listen and to repeat what we don’t want to hear in the first place, but it will begin the whole conversation in a much better way, letting the other person know that you at least admit to hearing and understanding what seems or is so frustrating to them.   All good “Christian” communication begins not only by ‘speaking the truth’ of how we feel, but also being willing ‘acknowledge’ that this is ‘truth’ to the other person, whether or it is ‘true’ or not.  I remind couples that saying what you ‘feel’ should never be opposed or argued against.  Acknowledging how we ‘feel’ is how we feel, whether it ends up being the final or whole truth.  Only by acknowledging what we feel when we are alone, will we ever hope to discover any truth together.

KINDNESS AND FORGIVENESS (30-32)

Of course, Christian communication and conversation must go beyond speaking the truth, because the truth must still be spoken in love.   Speaking the truth in love means that ‘how’ we say things to each other is just as important as ‘what we are saying’.   Furthermore, being Christian in our conversation and in our life together also means that we must stand ready to speak lovingly to each other and to be willing to forgive each other, even before the conversation begins.   We must keep in mind what we want to happen to guide us in how we speak.  Paul puts it this way: “Let not evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up….  Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God….Put away all bitterness, wrath, anger, wrangling and slander, together with all malice…AND be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”  (4:29-32). 

Perhaps you’ve heard that old saying that ‘sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you….”.   As children, we often use rhymes like this to try to break the charms and powers of people who were bullying us.  For good reasons, perhaps, we didn’t want to let them see us sweat or show signs of weakness.  That may seem to be a good strategy in the moment, but it doesn’t hold up for the long haul.  In the real world words do hurt.  Those ‘sticks and stones’ that could ‘break our bones’ from a stranger never will hurt as much as the sharp, cutting and biting words from the one who is closest to us.  Although words don’t inflict visible bruises, they do pack and punch and verbal attacks are harder to heal because put scars in our hearts.

This is why Paul says that Christians should not let any kind of destructive, ‘evil speech’ come out of their mouths.  Instead, Paul demands that Christians ‘be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving as Christ forgives.”  But how do we do this when we ourselves are hurting?  How are we able, especially in a marriage where our feelings are so tender and sensitive to each other, refrain from the cruel ‘talk’ that can work like a cancer to destroy our marriages?

LIVING IN LOVE (5:1-2)

Paul’s final word explains that we can only do this when we live ‘in love’, as “Christ loved us and gave himself for us” (5:2).  The only way a person can live in love with another person in every situation is to stand ready to make the daily ‘sacrifice’ of loving the other, even when it hurts or it is hard to love.   This is what God does for us, so ‘be imitators’ of God (5:1), Paul says. 

Of course, Paul qualifies that he is not talking about one person allowing another to walk all over them.   Paul goes on to insist on maintaining a ‘loving’, clean, genuine,  and faith-oriented atmosphere among Christians (5: 3-6).   There are things in a Christian marriage and home that are ‘entirely out of place’ (5:4) or you will find yourself up against the ‘wrath of God’ (5:6) which will fall upon those who are deceptively disobedient to the command to ‘live in love”. 

This is heavy, but good stuff, so let me end with a lighthearted story.  A young woman named Liz was sure her that her boyfriend Martin would make a great husband, especially when she met Martin's parents. "They're so nice to each other," Liz remarked. "It's great how your dad brings your mom coffee in bed every morning."

Eventually, Martin and Liz got married. As they were heading for their honeymoon destination, Liz spoke of the loving home they would have, and mentioned once again Martin's father's habit of bringing his wife coffee in bed each morning. Liz asked jokingly, "And does this trait run in the family?"   "It sure does," answered Martin, "and I take after my mom." Dwayne was entering his third month of marriage when he ran across a bachelor friend of his. "How's married life treating you?" the friend inquired.

"It's the best, man," Dwayne replied. "I think everyone should be married. I'm living a great life. Every day, I come home to a hot meal and a clean house. My slippers are right in front of the easy chair, and dinner is brought to me while I watch television. I'm really getting spoiled. Of course, WE'RE STILL LIVING WITH MY MOTHER."

(Collected Sermons, King Duncan, Dynamic Preaching, 2005, 0-000-0000-20).

“Living in love” with each other means created ‘loving “Christian” climate’ in our own homes and marriages.  It will include saying good, loving words to each other, but it must also go beyond words.  It will mean that we have a unity of Spirit with each other,  that we are growing and maturing together in faith and life, and that we do speak gracefully, tenderly and forgivingly to each other, and when we do misspeak out of pain and hurt, that we ‘do not let the sun go down on our anger.’    That in a nutshell, is Paul’s perspective on what makes a marriage ‘Christian’.  There is of course, more, but for now this is the “Christian” foundation for building a marriage that promotes love and protects life.  Amen.