Genesis 2:18-25
Mark 10:2-16
Attending a wedding for the first time, a little girl whispered to her mother, "Why is the bride dressed in white?" "Because white is the color of happiness, and today is the happiest day of her life." The child thought about this for a moment, then said, "So why is the groom wearing black?"
A man left work one Friday afternoon. But instead of going home, he stayed out the entire weekend fishing with the boys and spending his entire paycheck. When he finally appeared at home Sunday night, he was confronted by his very angry wife and was barraged for nearly 2 hours with a tirade of his actions. Finally his wife stopped the nagging and simply said to him "How would you like it if you didn’t see me for 2 or 3 days?" To which he replied, "That would be fine with me!" And, after 2-3 days the swelling in his eyes came down just enough for him to be able to see his wife again.
A bride was very nervous. It was right before the wedding and she wasn’t sure she could even walk down aisle. So her father gave her some words of wisdom. He said to her. “There’s only three things you need to focus on. If you focus on these three things, you’ll be fine. The first is walking down the aisle. Just focus on walking down the aisle of the church. I know it’s rather long, but just concentrate on that. Don’t get caught up with those on either side of the aisle. Just focus on getting to the end of the aisle. Next, focus on the altar. It is your destination today. Make your way down the aisle to the altar. There you will stand before God with the man you love and will make vows to God and him. Focus on the altar –for the altar represents the love God has for you in Jesus Christ. Lastly, focus on the hymn. In poetry and song, the hymn will remind you of God’s blessing for your marriage. So, to help you not be so nervous, just focus on those three things.
Walking down the AISLE,
Standing before the ALTAR and
Listening to the HYMN.
The bride was very thankful to her Dad for his words of advice, and with a look of calm here friends and family watched her walk down the aisle. But as she passed them, they began to chuckle quietly. For along with the look of calm, she was mumbling three words over and over again.
“Aisle, Altar, Hymn… Aisle, Altar, Hymn… Aisle, Altar, Hymn.”
Today’s bible readings have much to say about marriage.
Marriage is a topic that is so common to all of us that we are tempted to rely too heavily upon assumptions of the Bible rather than actual study of the text. We're all aware of what can happen when we make assumptions. So, let's take a look at a couple of the more popular ones and allow the text the freedom to actually speak to them.
One of the big assumptions that I hear often enough is that God created people for the purpose of marriage. You hear this in the pie in the sky notion that somewhere out there “over the rainbow” there is a perfect match waiting for each of us..a match made in heaven. This presumes that marriage is the precursor to the creation of man and woman.Let's look at our text from Genesis.
Mark 10:2-16
Attending a wedding for the first time, a little girl whispered to her mother, "Why is the bride dressed in white?" "Because white is the color of happiness, and today is the happiest day of her life." The child thought about this for a moment, then said, "So why is the groom wearing black?"
A man left work one Friday afternoon. But instead of going home, he stayed out the entire weekend fishing with the boys and spending his entire paycheck. When he finally appeared at home Sunday night, he was confronted by his very angry wife and was barraged for nearly 2 hours with a tirade of his actions. Finally his wife stopped the nagging and simply said to him "How would you like it if you didn’t see me for 2 or 3 days?" To which he replied, "That would be fine with me!" And, after 2-3 days the swelling in his eyes came down just enough for him to be able to see his wife again.
A bride was very nervous. It was right before the wedding and she wasn’t sure she could even walk down aisle. So her father gave her some words of wisdom. He said to her. “There’s only three things you need to focus on. If you focus on these three things, you’ll be fine. The first is walking down the aisle. Just focus on walking down the aisle of the church. I know it’s rather long, but just concentrate on that. Don’t get caught up with those on either side of the aisle. Just focus on getting to the end of the aisle. Next, focus on the altar. It is your destination today. Make your way down the aisle to the altar. There you will stand before God with the man you love and will make vows to God and him. Focus on the altar –for the altar represents the love God has for you in Jesus Christ. Lastly, focus on the hymn. In poetry and song, the hymn will remind you of God’s blessing for your marriage. So, to help you not be so nervous, just focus on those three things.
Walking down the AISLE,
Standing before the ALTAR and
Listening to the HYMN.
The bride was very thankful to her Dad for his words of advice, and with a look of calm here friends and family watched her walk down the aisle. But as she passed them, they began to chuckle quietly. For along with the look of calm, she was mumbling three words over and over again.
“Aisle, Altar, Hymn… Aisle, Altar, Hymn… Aisle, Altar, Hymn.”
Today’s bible readings have much to say about marriage.
Marriage is a topic that is so common to all of us that we are tempted to rely too heavily upon assumptions of the Bible rather than actual study of the text. We're all aware of what can happen when we make assumptions. So, let's take a look at a couple of the more popular ones and allow the text the freedom to actually speak to them.
One of the big assumptions that I hear often enough is that God created people for the purpose of marriage. You hear this in the pie in the sky notion that somewhere out there “over the rainbow” there is a perfect match waiting for each of us..a match made in heaven. This presumes that marriage is the precursor to the creation of man and woman.Let's look at our text from Genesis.
We begin just on the heels of the text in Genesis declaring that God has created all things and claimed them "GOOD". Now, we read the very first time in which God looks upon his creation and finds something that dissatisfies him..something that is NOT GOOD. God is dissatisfied that Adam is lonely. Now, there's something interesting about this little snippet of text. The gender is not masculine, it's neutral. The word Adam, despite all of its traditional baggage, in Hebrew literally means something more like "mankind" than a masculine engendered "man". If the Hebrew wanted to specify the gender specific word "man" there is a different word for that, ish. Isha is the feminine form, or woman. So, we have a gender neutral expression for man as the object of the very first point of God's dissatisfaction stated in the Bible, and the cause for this dissatisfaction is loneliness. God doesn't want people to be lonely.
We were made in the image of God. The best image of God is a Trinitarian one. It's one in which three parts share in mutual companionship, and submission. God is love, the apostle John declared. As we study the image of our Trinitarian God, we meet a God who is in constant companionship. Human beings, made in the image of God, we were made for companionship.
When God notices that Adam is lonely he recognizes that this just isn't right. So, God immediately goes to work to fix this problem. He creates another who will be made "from the same flesh" of man...woman. Had God created woman as a separate creation, there is no guarantee that the two would long for each other as companions. The point here is overcoming loneliness, creating a companion, not merely creating two individual entities, which was certainly within the realm of God's power. But since the goal here is companionship, God creates isha out of ish. Because God created first the gender neutral "adam"...the end result of the project is less about creating gender specifications, less about sexuality, and more about companionship to overcome loneliness.
Companionship is not the institution of marriage. We were created for companionship, but not necessarily marriage. Now, if this notion doesn't sit well, just ask this question, "If God created people for the purpose of marriage, then why don’t we hear any mention of marriage in creation texts?" The notion that people were created for marriage presumes that marriage was an existing institution prior to the creation of people. That just isn’t the case. However, companionship was within the nature and image of God, pre-existing before people. So, I’m sorry to break it to you, but marriages aren’t made in heaven…their made on earth. Companionship, love, fidelity, intimacy…these are made in heaven.
This brings us to the next assumption
The bible is clear about marriage. Therefore biblical marriage is the standard for Christians, and this tradition should remain unaltered.
According to our Gospel text, the Pharisees came to Jesus with a question about divorce in order to test Jesus. The fact that the Pharisees came questioning Jesus informs us that changes in the traditions of marriage were afoot in Jesus’ day. As a matter fact, the traditions of marriage have been changing and evolving for as long as marriage has been an institution at all.
So, as followers of Christ, our question then should turn on how our Lord responds to this test in his day. Does he endorse the traditions of His day? Or, does he suggest that the traditions should be open to change? Jesus, first asks them what do the traditions say? The Pharisees respond with a quote of the Law. They are the defenders of the Law and therefore the traditions of their day. They come at Jesus to trap him, and he responds with a question that essentially traps them. He takes their answer and then declares that the traditions they are recognizing were only put into place because of their hardness of heart. In other words, not because it is God's intentions, but in order to offset man's intentions. Jesus then calls them to the same Genesis text we just talked about as an example of God's good intentions. Jesus looks beyond the traditional institution of marriage and points the Pharisees back to the Genesis text about companionship and commitment. He does not endorse the letter of the laws of traditional marriage in his day. Instead he points them toward God’s role in fixing the problem of loneliness.
In Jesus' day the grace of divorce had been turned into a law that was misused and flouted, causing great loneliness among women. Men were permitted to divorce as they wish, but women were not. Men were leaving broken, lonely women behind, and all they needed to do was offer a written statement as to why. The reasons were often cultural misunderstandings of science, such as claiming that the woman wasn't able to bear children. Or, they were frivolous claims of infidelity from the husband. In those days a man need only make this claim public, and he was dismissed from his marriage. It is fair to say that men took advantage of this and more often than not simply lied. They would then go off and marry again, and possibly do the same thing. The reasons a man would leave his wife lonely and disgraced were not to do with the reasons why God had brought them together in the first place, companionship.
Today, one of the more painful things that people endure is when a wife or husband find themselves living each day with someone, but they have no deeper relationship with that person than as that of a room mate. They are married, but the promises made have been broken long ago and now they live separate lonely lives under the same roof.
Just as God went to work to overcome loneliness in Genesis, Jesus goes to work to overcome the loneliness of his day. He defies traditions of his age and suggests that those who misuse the gift of marriage or the grace of divorce be labelled as adulterers. In Jesus' day that would be the equivalent to what our local Amish would consider shunning. In other words, Jesus is suggesting that those who exploit the grace given in the divorce Law for selfish gain should have to face the same measure of loneliness that the woman faces in divorce. By holding the men of his day accountable, not to the Law, but to an even higher standard of morality, Jesus draws the people back to the purpose for marriage---companionship.
Elsewhere we hear Jesus suggesting revisions in traditions as well. One example is where he is tested on the purpose for the Sabbath. Jesus responds in the same manner there as he does here. He draws them away from the exploitation of grace that exists within the law that created the tradition. Then, points back to the intentions of God in the gift of Sabbath. His words there are, "People were not made for the Sabbath. Sabbath was made for people."
In Jesus' day the grace of divorce had been turned into a law that was misused and flouted, causing great loneliness among women. Men were permitted to divorce as they wish, but women were not. Men were leaving broken, lonely women behind, and all they needed to do was offer a written statement as to why. The reasons were often cultural misunderstandings of science, such as claiming that the woman wasn't able to bear children. Or, they were frivolous claims of infidelity from the husband. In those days a man need only make this claim public, and he was dismissed from his marriage. It is fair to say that men took advantage of this and more often than not simply lied. They would then go off and marry again, and possibly do the same thing. The reasons a man would leave his wife lonely and disgraced were not to do with the reasons why God had brought them together in the first place, companionship.
Today, one of the more painful things that people endure is when a wife or husband find themselves living each day with someone, but they have no deeper relationship with that person than as that of a room mate. They are married, but the promises made have been broken long ago and now they live separate lonely lives under the same roof.
Just as God went to work to overcome loneliness in Genesis, Jesus goes to work to overcome the loneliness of his day. He defies traditions of his age and suggests that those who misuse the gift of marriage or the grace of divorce be labelled as adulterers. In Jesus' day that would be the equivalent to what our local Amish would consider shunning. In other words, Jesus is suggesting that those who exploit the grace given in the divorce Law for selfish gain should have to face the same measure of loneliness that the woman faces in divorce. By holding the men of his day accountable, not to the Law, but to an even higher standard of morality, Jesus draws the people back to the purpose for marriage---companionship.
Elsewhere we hear Jesus suggesting revisions in traditions as well. One example is where he is tested on the purpose for the Sabbath. Jesus responds in the same manner there as he does here. He draws them away from the exploitation of grace that exists within the law that created the tradition. Then, points back to the intentions of God in the gift of Sabbath. His words there are, "People were not made for the Sabbath. Sabbath was made for people."
Likewise we can say about marriage.
People were not made for marriage.
Marriage was made for people.
Marriage is an institution made for the benefit and blessing of people. People were not made for the benefit and blessing of marriage.
And, as times have changed over the centuries, so has the institution of marriage. For instance, in Luther's day marriages were taken to the local civil authorities first, not to the church. Then, a couple would go to the church to ask the priest for God's blessing on their marriage. Today, our theology of a marriage is the same, while the traditions have changed. We Lutherans believe that a marriage is actually two parts that come together under God. One part is that which the civil authorities uphold by defining marriage in our current day, and by assessing what secular benefits are attached marriage. The other part of a marriage is when the married couple bring their companionship to the church for God's blessing. As a pastor, I wear two hats when I do a wedding service. One hat is that of the civil authorities, whereby the state of PA gives me permission to sign a marriage license and declare the two people married under the laws of our state. The other hat is that of the church. With this hat I offer the sacred blessing of God upon the couple.
This notion that the tradition of marriage needs to be kept within the realm of what the bible declares a marriage to be assumes that the biblical form of marriage is something that is capable of remaining through the ages. But, that simply isn't possible. It is a tradition, that is informed by our faith, but in and of itself is not our faith. It was changing during Jesus' time. It was changing during Luther's time, and it will continue to change throughout all times. Marriage is not created by God, but it is blessed by God for God's purposes of companionship, commitment and community.
Today there is much to do over the institution of marriage in politics and culture. This is a topic that we should be passionate about. It’s important to the basic building blocks of our society. But, we should not blindly lean upon assumptions, especially those that are not scripturally sound.When Jesus was challenged by the topic of marriage, his actions reminded his listeners of the grace of God. God does not intend for us to be alone, without help, or without a person to share the gift of love. Scripturally, it is companionship that takes precedence to marriage. And it ought to us as well.
Today there is much to do over the institution of marriage in politics and culture. This is a topic that we should be passionate about. It’s important to the basic building blocks of our society. But, we should not blindly lean upon assumptions, especially those that are not scripturally sound.When Jesus was challenged by the topic of marriage, his actions reminded his listeners of the grace of God. God does not intend for us to be alone, without help, or without a person to share the gift of love. Scripturally, it is companionship that takes precedence to marriage. And it ought to us as well.
I sometimes wonder what would Jesus thinks of us today. I wonder if Jesus looks at how we tear his church apart over the tradition of marriage. I wonder if he asks himself, "Did I die for this?" At the end of our life, we will not regret having failed this generation’s challenge of the institution of marriage. No matter how hard we fight, or sacrifice for one side or the other. In the end, should we lose this fight to save what we think to be so dear about marriage we will not regret having lost this battle. But we will regret the time not spent with the ones God gave us to love.
We are all broken, and sinful people. God has given us the gift of marriage because He loves us, knows our loneliness, and wants to fix it. His blessing helps us to heal the brokenness in our marriages, persevere the difficulties, and overcome the loneliness. With God's blessing, a marriage becomes a life-giving gift of God that bears the image of God to the world. God first came to our aid when he recognized that it was not good for Adam to be lonely. Today, God continues to help us overcome loneliness, by placing so many people in our lives in which we might share the love of Christ. We have the gift of friends and family. But, all of us have the church, a place where we get the privilege of sharing the intimacy of a common faith, prayer, and mutual concern. All of these people, you are drawn toward all of these people because they are your people. As Adam declares, they are flesh from your flesh. We, male and female, were made for this grace. Where there is loneliness, marriage may or may not be the answer. But, the grace of companionship is.
Marriage will always be debated, and it will always be evolving. Fortunately, God did not create us for marriage. He gave marriage to us as a gift and blessing for the benefit of those whom God calls to remain in companionship together.
With God's grace we are not held captive to traditions, or to false assumptions of the Bible.
With God's grace we are free to build companionship ministries and work to defend the relief of loneliness.
Amen
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