A New Way of Life

detail, lower left panel, The Covenant with Moses, art-glass window, FPCE, photo by jch

Sermon Series “Through the Bible,” № 73, Ephesians 5:21-33

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” –Ephesians 5:21

In today’s worship service, we’ll be participating in the renewal of marriage vows between Robin and Mark. I’ve officiated events like this one a handful of times, but this is the first time in the context of Sunday morning worship. My sermon files on marriage are thin.

If you read about the subject, then you’ll find that preachers in the early Church didn’t give much attention to marriage, either. Early on, the focus of their teaching and writing was Jesus’ death and resurrection, and making sure their people were morally prepared for the day when he would come again. The church developed and refined funeral rituals long before it gave thought to rituals for weddings. For a long time, Christians married according to the laws and practices of the Roman Empire.[1]  Only gradually did the Church assimilate practices to bless marriages.

But it would be a mistake to deduce from these facts that marriage was unimportant to early  Christians. For evidence, we can turn to the Bible, which holds many stories and symbols of marriage. Any decent concordance will show you more than one hundred references. 

From the Hebrew Testament, we inherit the understanding that marriage is an institution ordained by God.  In the creation story of Genesis 2, there is a poetic recognition of the way humans are mentally and emotionally wired for close relationships. The Lord says, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a helper as his partner.”   Prophets like Isaiah and Hosea describe God’s covenantal relationship with Israel in terms of the intense joys and heart wrenching sorrows of marriage. 

Christians, when turning to Gospel record, usually hope to find the best and truest words about life coming from the mouth of Jesus.  But when we look there, we find not exactly the kind of support we were expecting. We could say Jesus seems to support marriage. For example, in a dispute with the Pharisees, Jesus assumes God blessed marriage in a special way, that a married couple is “one flesh.”[2] There’s a parable in which he describes the kingdom of heaven in terms of a wedding feast. [3] We could look to the wedding at Cana of Galilee, where Jesus performed his first known miracle, turning water into wine, a symbol of joy.[4]

But have you ever noticed the point of these stories has less to do with celebrating the love of the two people in a marriage, and more to do with something else going on in the background? Jesus’ talk of one flesh is made to point out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees with whom he is in conflict. The parable about the wedding feast focuses mostly on the consequences for guests who are behaving poorly. The miracle at the Cana wedding stems from a fight between Jesus and his mother about whether he should rescue the wedding host, who has prepared poorly with too little liquid refreshment. Jesus assumes that God ordered and blessed marriage, but his talk about marriage is not the sort of thing that inspires Hallmark movies, or that brides choose as poetry for their wedding.

If we’re honest, then we have to admit that Jesus’ gospel of grace and peace sometimes feels at odds with the real-world challenges of marriage in our time. In one sermon, I can’t even begin to meaningfully address how, during my 37 years of ministry, we’ve gone from a time when same-gender marriage was prohibited to a time when it is celebrated by our PC(USA), with many bitter battles in between. When I look back through my record of weddings officiated, I’m not convinced that the rate of divorce for church-blessed weddings is much less than for society at large. When young people today think of a wedding, they may fear with good reason an outcome like the one implied by a pastor in a New Yorker magazine cartoon I clipped many years ago: “And do you, Rebecca, promise to love only Richard, month after month, year after year, and decade after decade, until one of you is dead?”

But, in defense of Christian marriage, if it were to disappear, then it would be difficult to understand and appreciate significant portions of the Bible. We would lose one of our best models for understanding God’s covenant of steadfast love. We would lose one of our best opportunities for living out the tangible expressions of steadfast love we all need.

Our Ephesians reading is one of three New Testament tables of duties that describe the relationship of partners to a marriage.[5] It is different from the others in one important respect. It opens with a call to mutual subordination: “Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.” 

Paul lets the reader know that the authority in the marriage relationship, traditionally exercised by the husband, is not the authority of a selfish tyrant. What does he mean to “be subject to one another”?  One New Testament scholar explains that the same Greek construction is used to describe military units working together.[6]  On the field of battle, each unit works in harmony with others to strengthen the entire army in support of its larger battle plan. In a similar way, during the battles of life, partners in marriage are called to work together in ways that strengthen their marriage and support their partnership.

Mark and Robin stand before us today as the veterans of many battles, some similar to those of most marriage partners here today, some completely unique to their circumstances.  As they renew their vows, somewhere in their hearts and minds, they will see people in what one of my mentors called the “spiritual balcony.” Somewhere just beyond this space and time, they’ll see their parents, family, and friends who were present 50 years ago, who first celebrated with them the promise of a lifetime together. They’ll be remembering the younger faces of their children and friends present at the first renewal of vows 25 years ago, at which, I’m told, Robin appeared in her original wedding dress, as she does again today.  Those of us who look on, and have been on similar journeys, will be remembering the people in our spiritual balconies, too.

Mark and Robin, we celebrate with you the blessings of your marriage.  We thank you for your particular example of steadfast love.  We’re grateful for the reminder and lesson, that when we take a vow to honor the one we love in marriage, we open ourselves to a new way of life, one of God’s greatest gifts of grace.

NOTES

[1] Christian Marriage: The Worship of God, Supplemental Liturgical Resource 3, The Office of Worship for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986, p. 81.

[2] Gospel of Matthew 19:1-9.

[3] Gospel of Matthew 22:1-14.

[4] Gospel of John, chapter 2.

[5] Markus Barth, Ephesians: Translation and Commentary on Chapters 4-6, The Anchor Bible, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1974, p. 609.

[6] Barth, p. 609, pp. 708-715.

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