Second Presbyterian Church

"Uh Oh!
Preaching From the Gospel of Luke"
May 1, 2005

Upcoming Events

Worship Schedule

Sermons

About the Church

• Accessibility to the Church

• Directions to the Church

• History of the Church

Church Staff

Groups & Organizations

• Boy Scouts of America - Troop 175

• Choirs

• Presbyterian Women

• SPY (Second Presbyterian Youth)

Committees

• Building & Grounds

• Church Growth

• Congregational Care & Fellowship

• Education & Nurture

• Finance

• Office & Personnel

• Stewardship

• Witness & Service

• Worship & Celebration

Ad Hoc Committees

• Architectural - Engineering

• Building Fund

Presbyterian Internet Sites of Interest

Virginia Links

• Virginia Cities

Web Site Statistics

Site Map

Second Presbyterian Church Homepage

Sermons Homepage » Sermons for 2005 » Sermons for May 2005 » Sermons from the Series on Luke

#49 in the Series on Luke
The Rev. Daniel E. Hale, D. Min.

• Genesis 2: 18-24
• Luke 16: 18

In nearly 30 years as a minister I have never preached from just one verse. And if each sermon were based upon just one verse, then preaching through just the Gospel of Luke (1,151 verses) would take almost twenty-five years!

Ah marriage, that Divine institution that continues to be a popular enigma. In our day, it begins with a relationship that is based upon a socially acceptable form of insanity. When the temporary state of insanity wears off, then the couple decide whether or not to love one another. Perhaps you believe that I am being flip, but that is not my intention. When two people fall in love, you know that giddy, teenager feeling that we call infatuation; they have lost touch with reality. He sees and experiences the other person, as having no faults, can do no wrong. Indeed, he sees the other person as having the potential of meeting all his physical and emotional needs. What is insane is that this perception of the partner is not realistic. It is an insanity that our culture condones.

Not all cultures condone infatuation. It was not that unusual for a marriage to be arranged, usually by the parents of the couple getting married. Infatuation was irrelevant. Most of these marriages survived. And I would assume that many of these couples learned to love one another.

But sooner or later the infatuation gives way to reality. The spouse, or partner, begins to look more realistic. It becomes obvious that a person's unmet emotional needs from their childhood remain primarily unmet. The partner is no longer the one and only source to a person's happiness and sense of fulfillment. All of a sudden the spouse takes on an air of a stranger. This might feel stronger for some people than others. But the experience is common; we refer to it as "the honeymoon is over."

There used to be a light bulb ad in which a rather elderly couple are sitting across from each other eating soup. The wife says something like, "What's happened to you, George? You don't seem to care for me anymore. The minute the lights go out you fall asleep!" At that point the light in the room burns out; it is pitch black, and you can hear the man snoring with his face in the soup, making a gurgling sound. The honeymoon is over.

Some people can never seem to get past the infatuation stage. Once the insanity starts to evaporate and reality begins to set in, they begin to believe that the relationship is over. It is the Mickey Rooney or Elizabeth Taylor syndrome. These, and other people who have married multiple times seem to be on a perpetual journey to find the magic partner who can meet their fantasies forever. Someone who will fulfill all their needs. But love and marriage is so much more, so much more fulfilling than honeymoons and infatuation. It is care and commitment. It is the giving of one's self to the relationship. It is seeking to assist and encourage your spouse to be the person whom God desires him/her to be. It is putting yourself last, at least once in a while. The marriage vows did not, by coincidence have the words, "For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health." Love sometimes means choosing what's best for your partner, regardless of how you feel. Love means sticking it out and staying together during the tough times.

Love is commitment. There will be times when you don't particularly like your spouse. Maybe he did something to irritate you. Maybe she did something to make you mad. Being irritated with your spouse, or mad at him/her, does not mean love or no love. Love is the context behind these situations that come and go. Love is making the FREE CHOICE to remain committed, regardless of how tough the situation gets.

Because of sin and the broken world in which we live sometimes things go wrong, terribly wrong. Some husbands, a few wives, become abusive to their spouses and children - even to the point that they are in danger of injury or death. Spouses who are in a physically abusive relationship need to get out, at the very least, so that the physical abuse can no longer happen.

Sometimes a spouse becomes alcoholic. This may or may not mean that the partner needs to leave. It depends upon, again, the safety of the spouse and the children. Sometimes an alcoholic comes to his senses, seeks help and can make a go of it. The key here is if both partners ARE COMMITTED TO KEEPING AND REPAIRING THE RELATIONSHIP!

Sometimes a spouse has an affair. An affair is inexcusable behavior. But an affair is almost always a very bad solution to some unresolved tension in the marriage relationship. Again, the affair may destroy the marriage; it certainly destroys the trust in the marriage - at least for a long time. But some marriages can survive an affair if both partners ARE COMMITTED TO KEEPING AND REPAIRING THE RELATIONSHIP!

As you might suspect, marriage requires a lot of honesty and forgiveness. Partners have to learn to forgive each other for their wrongs. This is harder for some people than others, because the family in which they grew up (their family of origin) had a hard time forgiving one another.

Yet this is why marriage is so important and should be maintained if at all possible, with God's help. Marriage reflects our relationship with God. It is a relationship of mutual love. We learn how God first loved us. We, in turn learn to love and adore God for all His compassion, grace, and mercy. We come to him for forgiveness when we are sinful.

The Lord created marriage for mutual love, companionship, and progeny. The Lord created marriage as a mirror of how we are to commit ourselves to the Lord. This is one of the ways of understanding how the Lord created us in the image of God. Listen to Genesis 1: 27:

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

We reflect God's image in the mutual love that takes place in our marriages. It serves as a model for us to understand how much our Lord loves us. It serves as a model for us to understand how we are to love our neighbor as ourselves.

This is why you won't find much support for divorce in the scripture. Yes, Moses did provide for divorce under certain circumstances, "because of the hardness of our hearts." And although you will find slight variances to what Jesus said about divorce, the main point is clear:

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Gen. 2: 24)

Some of you have already divorced. Take heart. Even if divorce, or remarriage is a sin, it is a forgivable sin. We have all sinned. So people who remarry have no corner on the market of sin. If you are in your second or third marriage, then make that one reflect the image of God in your mutual love and respect and commitment for one another.

During the time of Jesus it was too easy to divorce. Although it is not so easy to divorce today it has become an option that has been much over-used, a cop-out for facing one's own problems and working them through. I have often been amazed at how one will divorce and then remarry only to find that the second partner represents some of the same problems. Why? Because the problems are within ourselves, not our partners. Others have used the mistake of divorce to go and seek out what needs to be worked-through in their own lives. When they are successful with this, then the next marriage tends to NOT repeat the same mistakes. Amen.

The Rev. Daniel E. Hale, D. Min.