Marriage,Singleness,Transformation
Message M2: Marriage, Singleness and Transformation Nov. 2, 2008
Text: Eph. 5: 18, 25-33
Big Idea: Both marriage and singleness in Christ are gateways to transformation and holiness.
If we are single and thinking about being married one day, we tend to view potential partners through a kind of market lens.
Perhaps we are looking for someone who’s attractive, or a person of sincere character, or someone who’s smart or funny or someone who can bring us security. We want to make sure that we don’t get a bad deal; we want to get a good deal. We tend to think about what a person can do for us.
But Paul in Ephesians presents us with an altogether different kind of vision for marriage.
A greater and loftier vision…
Paul calls us to see marriage as a place where we pour out our lives for another person as Christ loved us so that she or he will become pure and beautiful before God.
If you have your Bibles please turn to Ephesians 5
Eph. 5: 25-33
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing [a] her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, people have never hated their own bodies, but they feed and care for them, just as Christ does the church— 30 for we are members of his body.
Paul calls us to see marriage as a place where we pour out our lives for another person as Christ loved us so that she or he will become pure and beautiful before God.
How can this happen? Remember this text is preceded by Ephesians 5:18 where Paul says:
Eph. 5:18
18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
The way a person can love like Jesus is to be filled with the Spirit of Jesus.
In our text Paul says in vs. 25: “Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”
WOW! This is a rare and amazing vision for marriage. If you are single and think one day you may be married, do you have vision to pour out your life for your spouse so that that person becomes more holy and beautiful before God?
(T) Conversely, do we have a vision for marriage (if we are married or sense we might be married one day one day) to become more holy through marriage?
Paul calls on husbands specifically to make their wives holy and beautiful by washing them with water through the Word. The washing is likely an allusion to baptism. When a person is baptized, as Haein was last Sunday evening, part of what the water symbolizes is the washing away of our sin.
One of the great doors that marriage can open up to a person is that it can provide space for a person to both experience cleansing himself or herself and help their spouse experience cleansing. How so?
One of the ways that marriage can cleanse us and make us more pure is that marriage can help to wash away our sins as the waters of baptism symbolize (Use prop). How does this happen? Marriage is a place where our sins are put under a kind of magnifying glass.
By nature, we are all self-centered, but that self-centeredness is not always apparent if we are not married, or not in a close relationship to person. For example, a single guy can live with the attitude, “I don’t need a laundry basket. The floor serves that function just fine.” When you can no longer see a square centimeter of the floor because your whole apartment is covered by clothes, you know it’s time to do the laundry. If you get married to a woman who likes some order in the home, especially when guests come over, you need to rethink the way you manage your laundry. A lot us guys become a little neater after we get married because we need to think of someone else’s preference for the home.
And as a single person we can pretty much largely live as we please without really needing to consider someone else’s preferences. As a single person I could be out 10-14 nights in a row. I could work pretty much work as long I wanted to. I had a lot of freedom to travel as part of my work. But as a married person I, like every married person, I had to re-adjust my work patterns.
Even in something as small as renting a DVD, as a single person I can choose something I want to watch. As a married person I am thinking not only would I enjoy this, but would my wife enjoy it. One of the things that marriage can do is that it can reveal our selfishness. Once that is revealed, it is possible, with God’s help, to start living a less self-centered life, more giving life.
The Ephesians text says in vs. 28 that the husband ought to love his wife as his own body.
He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, people have never hated their own bodies, but they feed and care for them, just as Christ does for the church. One of the ways that we care for ourselves physically is to wash ourselves, to shower, brush our teeth, etc. Our spouses can help us “wash” ourselves by helping us to see our self-centeredness and our flaws. Ideally, they do it gently and lovingly.
Other people can see things in us that we don’t necessarily see in ourselves. Sakiko might ask me, “Are you angry?” I may respond by saying, “No. Not angry.” “Well, you sure seem upset.” A day or two later, upon reflecting on it, I may come back and say, “Oh, yeah, the other day I was angry. You were right.”
A spouse can help you not only see your own self-centeredness, but when you don’t see something in your life, a spouse can help hold up the mirror to your anger or moodiness. If you are single, it is possible that you are angry or moody and no-one may notice.
If you are married or in a very close relationship with someone, a person will pick it up. If you are single or alone a lot, you may have a streak of anger, or sexism or materialism, or be overly controlling and it may be that no one notices. But if you are married or in a very close relationship with someone, the person will pick it up and may gently name it, and you will have the opportunity to experience cleansing and change.
So, marriage can be a place to make us holy.
We experience cleansing, purification, in our marriage through washing, but also through the Word. Paul has in mind the Word of God, specifically the Gospel that leads us to Christ.
Paul also talks about caring for our marriage partner by nourishing her or him. In verse 29 Paul talks about how people will nourish their bodies by feeding them and caring for them. It is as we nourish and feed each other through Gospel and through words that build each other up that we can experience being made more like God, more like Jesus Christ.
It is as we nourish and feed each other that we can present our spouses as radiant before God.
I spoke earlier about how we human beings can be self-centered.
Ironically, at the same time, we can also suffer from an empty self where we experience this inner void with little or no sense of self in a positive sense, at all.
Part of what can happen in a good marriage is that the husband and wife can love and nourish each other in a way that fosters the development of true self.
“The human soul is like a wild animal,” says Parker Palmer in his book A Hidden Wholeness. Like a wild animal, the soul is shy and seeks safety in the dense underbrush of the woods. But if we can create a sense of safety… then the wild animal of the soul will make an appearance.
In marriage one of the ways that the soul can be purified, made more complete, is as husband and wife love each other in a way that enables the wild, shy animal of the soul to emerge.
The other day my wife Sakiko and I were talking about this and I asked her if and how her soul was made more complete in our marriage. She said, “One of things that this marriage has done for me is that it has enabled me to become a person who is willing to take more risks and be more adventuresome…” As a result of our marriage, she was willing to venture to a new country. And then on a smaller scale, “When we went on that sailing trip a few trip a few years ago, I found myself doing something that I would have never done on my own.” (We had taken a week on a sail boat to sail out to the Gulf Islands as part of a sailing course.) “As a single person,” Sakiko said, “I would never have done that. And being in this relationship has stretched me in being more willing to take risks and pursue adventure.”
For me, being in the safety of our marriage has meant that I have been able to pursue parts of my soul that I wouldn’t have explored otherwise. It is not that difficult for me to be out at on rough sea or jump out of an airplane with a parachute on my back, but it is much more difficult for me to access certain emotions and then to express them. In the safety of our marriage, I have found that I have been able to access parts of my heart and emotions that I didn’t know were there and then to be able to express them. It can be scary. It is easier to jump out of an airplane for a person like me, but through the love and security of our marriage bond I have able to explore new parts of my soul and thus become more whole.
Marriage has the capacity to make us holy and whole.
Even if we have come from backgrounds where we have been hurt maybe by our families of origin or by people or circumstances, marriage has the power to bring healing to us—to make us whole and holy. That wholeness can come as we offer the story of God to each other (vs. 25) and as we offer words of affirmation to each other.
Someone who attended the same seminary that I did has said that God has invested the marriage relationship with sufficient power to challenge the authority of accumulated, biographical verdicts against us, and thereby redeem the past. If you grew up in a family or in an environment where you were made to feel stupid, but your spouse makes you feel bright, you are going to feel bright. If you grew up not really feeling especially attractive, but your spouse makes you feel beautiful, you will feel beautiful. In marriage you have the capacity to re-program the self-appreciation of your spouse. Your word has the power to completely overturn verdicts that have been passed on to your spouse over the years. We can nourish our spouse through our love and words in ways that make her or him more beautiful.
So marriage really does have the power to transform us… to make us holy and whole.
Singleness can also be a gateway to transformation, as well.
At this time I am going to invite Kirsten Rumary, a member of this community, to come and talk about how singleness has been the gateway of transformation for her.
Singles Testimony – Tenth November 2008
Right around my 35th bday, I was part of a small group that was doing an exercise where we imagined being on our deathbed at 70, looking back over our lives and reflecting on the things that were most important and life-giving. The first thing that struck me at the time was, “If I die at 70 then my life is half over!!” Thoughts of my own mortality gripped me. The next thought was, “This is not how I imagined my life would be at 35.” In particular, I didn’t think I would still be single. “What if I’m still single at 70? The first 35 years went by pretty fast – it’s not inconceivable that the next 35 will go by and I may never marry or have a family of my own. What will life look like if that’s the case?”
I decided I wanted to tap into the life experiences of other singles, so I sent out a question far and wide to all the singles I knew and more – from 19 to 69, men and women from all different backgrounds – “Tell me what is the Best and Worst thing about being single for you.” (INSERT POWER POINT BULLETS)
Best Things About Being Single:
*5) Financial Freedom
*4) No Requirement to Share
"I have my own bed, blankets and pillows all to myself, without snoring and motion"
*3) Not Having to Consult Anyone When Making Decisions
"I can do what I want, go where I want, eat what I want, learn what I want, putter at what I want."
*2) Time for Family & Friends & the Freedom to Choose Your Friends
"If you want to hike, you can hike with your hiking buddies. If you want to Kung Fu, you can Kung Fu with your Kung Fu buddies. There is no obligation to spend time with a spouse who may not have the same interests or friends that you do."
*1) Less Conflict in Relationships
"Being single means that I only have one set of quirks, neuroses, and relatives to deal with."
Worst Things About Being Single:
*5) Having No One who is Responsible for Me:
"Sometimes I think if I died it would take weeks for someone to find my body."
*4) No Children
"Don't you have to have sex to get one of those? Wait. I want to change my answer. No sex."
*3) The Nagging Feeling that there's Something Wrong with Me
"Why don't I get the same results when I use Axe Deodorant?"
*2) Single Person Pity
"When people say, "Don't worry, the right one is out there somewhere. Like I'm half a person or something."
*1) No One to Share Common Experiences of Life over Time
(Holidays, mealtimes, shared history, times of difficulty)
My conclusion was that in all the answers there was a common theme: the Best part of being single had to do with Freedom, and the Worst part had to do with Loneliness. So I asked myself: “If I’m single for the rest of my life, how will I handle the Freedom and the Loneliness that will be a part of my life?” As a Christian, my first thought was to look to Jesus for inspiration. Lucky for me, he was single!
First of all, as a man in ancient Hebrew society he would have had access to a fair amount of freedom, and although he was fully human he was also fully God and would have had access to a lot of power. But I saw that Jesus used his freedom to liberate and heal, to transform and serve those around him, not to dominate or control. Ultimately he laid down all His freedom to rescue the whole world. And even Jesus had accountability: “I only do what I see the Father doing.” As a North American woman in the 21st century I have a lot more freedom than the women in Jesus’ day - but how do I use it? As I examine myself I see that often my tendency is to indulge my freedoms (my time, my money, my resources) for my own pursuits and pleasures, or to hoard them, to store them up as a reward for the times when I feel hard done by.
At the time, I decided that how I was using my freedom needed some tweaking and I implemented a few practical changes. First of all, I decided to start a home group – to provide a space for others to become known in more intimate ways in Christian community. I also decided to become part of a family. I figured, instead of complaining about not having my own family, maybe I could funnel that energy into actually participating in the lives of other families? (Sam and Ben) As a symbolic gesture, on my 35th bday I threw a party for my friends and didn’t tell them it was my bday – I splurged on them rather than having them splurge on me. Since then Jesus continues to inspire me to use my freedom and my resources more generously, because I can.
Now for the loneliness – I know what it is to struggle with loneliness like many other singles. Sometimes when I pull up to my house at the end of the day, I have to sit outside for a while because I’m just not ready to go inside and be alone. (Married friend’s dream) But as I looked at Jesus’ life I thought that He too must have known great loneliness – people rejecting Him, leaving Him, a lot of the time people just didn’t get Him, his closest friends abandoned Him, and He experienced total separation from the Father when He was on the Cross. He probably knew what it meant to be completely alone more than anyone. This comforted me but it also challenged me, because I observed that Jesus still chose to be present to people, He still reached out to those around Him, even when He withdrew from others it was to spend time with His Father - my tendency in my aloneness is to withdraw into isolation and cut everyone off, and then comfort myself in selfish or illicit ways (to indulge my freedoms as if they were an antidote to the loneliness), or else let bitterness and resentment become my closest companions. I could see that another round of tweaking in my life was in order. Was I going to choose to be present to others, to still reach out, to press through my loneliness rather than wrap myself up in it?
And what about the illicit comforts I mentioned? I had been sexually active in my teens and 20’s, but by the time I was asking all these questions I had been walking in sexual abstinence for a while. I had come to believe that the narrative in the book of Genesis where God lays out His intention for human sexuality as being within that one-man/one-woman lifetime commitment was indeed the best plan. Now, I had embraced that belief assuming that I would marry and actually have the option again!
At 35 I was looking at abstinence not just as a means to an end of my choosing, but as an end in itself. It may sound silly, but sex wasn’t easy for me to give up and I chose to walk in that desert (so to speak) because I assumed I knew what the Promised Land was going to look like! So I have since had to ask myself: “Can I continue to choose abstinence with no thought of that future reward?” (And not just abstain from having sex with another person, but could I choose to embrace abstinence even in the little things?)
For example, I know there is a school of thought that suggests that fantasy, let’s say, is an acceptable practice for the modern single Christian and that Jesus didn’t condemn it or say anything about it (true), but what I hear Jesus and scripture pointing to and reaffirming is that story of human sexuality in Genesis; and I have to think there is something to that. So even creating fantasies of relationship in my mind seems less than God’s best intention because it doesn’t build on anything that’s actually real. Fantasy about another person actually violates that person because it uses them as a means to our own personal end. Now, I realize this is not a popular thought because we live in a culture where sexuality is seen as a personal right, rather than a gift to be given. But if sexual energy is meant to be used in service to one other, for the purpose of building mutual bonds of affection within a lifetime commitment and for creating new life, then allowing that energy to leak out anywhere else doesn’t make sense to me anymore.
So back to turning 35! Since then I have continued to ask myself hard questions around freedom/loneliness/abstinence.
As I was asking myself these questions I was reminded to look again to Jesus. It struck me that in the book of Revelation it talks about the time in the future when the risen Jesus will be revealed to the whole world – and that only the Father knows when that time will be. Even Jesus has to wait - right now Jesus is with the Father in heaven and He’s waiting – but I’m pretty sure He’s not sitting around moping or doing nothing. That thought is incredibly comforting to me! And I can see that my experience of waiting has been bringing me into a deeper walk with Jesus and it is refining me - my ability to persevere through difficult things is increasing – I’m learning how to follow instead of just doing my own thing – I have more self-control. This process has helped me see that I really do hold a lot more in my hands than I realized.
Pray: pray for the spirit to work in us as married… as single… Eph 5:18.
The reason that singleness or marriage can be transforming for us is because of Jesus Christ.
At this communion table, we see an example of person who was single and utterly faithful to God even to the point where he even was willing to lay his life for us as a sacrifice for our sin.
It’s as he lives in us, we can be utterly faithful to God as well.
As a married person the presence of this single person can help us love our spouses as Jesus has loved us and make us humble enough for us to allow God to transform us through our spouse.
Let us come as single people or as married and feed on Christ in our hearts by faith…
On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread…
posted by Shigematsu at 6:17 PM
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