marriage and the call for redemptive leadership

I have been thinking a lot about test God puts in the path of a marriage. My thoughts brought me back to a man i greatly admire and I draw strength from his testimony. May his story do the same for you. The except below is from my thesis on marriage.

Historical Example of a Marriage Marked by the Intellectual Attributes

A marriage centered on God and His attributes is a marriage that functions well in adversity. The wisdom of God rules the heart, the truthfulness of God stabilizes it, and God’s knowledge of man and his destiny secures it, in His love.

A newlywed couple was walking in the German Harz Mountains enjoying the scenery, but they did not realize until it was too late that a storm was fast approaching. Surrounded by lightening and thunder, the bride was overcome with fear. Though the two made it home safely, the bride suffered a nervous breakdown which left her frail and an invalid for the rest of her life.

The woman’s name was Annie Warfield. She was the wife of theologian Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, who was considered one of American’s top theologians at the time. He studied under Charles Hodge at Princeton Seminary and was a Professor at Princeton until his death in 1921. Annie and Benjamin were married August 13, 1876. Soon after they traveled to Europe so Benjamin could study there. The two had their faithful encounter with the violent storm just before Benajmin began his studies.

Annie never fully recovered. In her last years, Annie was bedridden and in need of constant attention. Warfield became her primary care giver, and he faithfully nursed her for more than 40 years of marriage. Students and friends noted the tender care he showed his wife during the rare times they were out in public. In the later years, Benjamin did not leave her side for more than two hours at a time, leaving only to do lecture before rushing back home to her aid.

Amazingly, he did not neglect his duties at Princeton. He was an author, and he was a mentor to many of his pupils. J. Gresham Machen stated that Warfield “had done about as much work as ten ordinary men.” Yet, sacrifices were required. Warfield was a man of considerable talent who could command a great influence over the church at large, but he had the wisdom to see that his primary task was to tend to his house and wife. He gave up fame out of love and chose the bedside over the prominence of the pulpit. It is no doubt why one pupil wrote, “I am more and more impressed with him; he is certainly one of the very biggest men in the Church either in this country or any other.”

Before he was a theologian and a husband, Warfield was a great lover of God. He understood the nature of God as wise and truthful. He trusted in the sovereignty of God. The sure footing with which his marriage held is surely a witness to Warfield’s belief in God’s wisdom and knowledge over all circumstances. It was his abiding understanding of God’s nature that made the doldrums of suffering in his marriage; resound with the melody of redemptive leadership. He saw his God given place to be a husband and remained by his wife’s side even when putting her away could have been justified even in the formal and rather Victorian setting in which he lived. God and Warfield's knowledge of him strengthened and girded up his soul to bear the weight of such a glory (Rom 8:17-18). His witness shimmered with the brilliance of this glory, a glory born of suffering; eerily reminiscent of the cross and beautifully emblematic of Redemptive love.

James Bond on Marriage

When I say James bond do you think of marriage. For me, I think of Ursula Andress or Jane Seymour and how after one night with Mr. Bond can be transformed from a cold hearted temptress/Assassin to a altruistic heroine fighting with James (I mean Mr. Bond).

As for many Male's, James Bond is a mythic legend, half man, half hormone. A super spy, who possesses the virility of 10 men and has “mad, crazy, skillz” when it comes to saving the world and not fathering any children. I remember watching Gold-finger for the 6th time and thinking, "How does he do that. She was going to kill him, he kisses her then *bam*, she is willing to die for him?" Wow, talk about good loven…. but I digress. My point is marriage is not the first thing to pop into your head when you think “Bond, James Bond”.

One of the most famous actors to play James Bond, Sean Connery has been married for 32 years. Yes, to the same woman. Hollywood’s most famous James Bond is all about the faithfulness. He credits his marriage's longevity not to what he learned playing bond (though, sex so great it can invoke self-sacrifice, really can only help fidelity). Connery believes that the language barrier between him and his French wife is the reason for their successful marriage. They met in 1972 and married that same year.

Connery credits the success of his happy 32-year long marriage to his inability to speak the same language as his wife, he states. "I don't speak a word of French but often think that what should be a handicap is actually a godsend." He continues, "She may be half my size, but she's got a few snappy comebacks. We're total opposites - that's what has kept us together all these years."

While it can be assumed that his wife Micheline Roquebrune Connery can speak English. It can also be assumed she more than likely curses in French. Next to being a little hot, I’m sure it can’t hurt not knowing weather her passionate French monologue is telling you to take out the trash or defaming your character. I have a French friend, he taught me a little. The French language is just beautiful and cursing in French is, well, like wiping your butt with silk.. but I digress..

Connery's point is French woman make great wives but poor partners for playing "twenty five thousand dolor pyramid" (If you don’t get that joke, google it or go watch the game show network). Seriously, Connery's testimony teaches us that in marriage differences make a difference and marital love transcends language even for James Bond.

When all Around has Fallen........

In today’s divorce-ridden society, do young people still want to get married? This pod, from the producer’s of the Emmy nominated documentary “Song of Songs,” travels to colleges across the country asking students about their take on long term commitment. As one that has spent his life watching from the wall, this watchman asks all navigating life to be wise and don't just follow your heart but also your head and the words of others.

A Wedding Sermon

I wrote this because I was tired of writing my thesis and after I finished I thought I would post it. Though I am not a Priest, Preacher or Rabbi. I now have a wedding sermon any taker?

Dawson's first wedding sermon

Introduction
We are gathered hear to day to watch two worlds collide. I say “worlds” because before me are not just two people but two lives. Lives with worlds of experience between them and ways of viewing that world, such worlds are bound to collide. This coalition, this two becoming one flesh, God calls marriage. Marriage is his idea. In Genesis 2:22-25, God preformed the wedding. He even let Adam write his own vows.

The LORD God … brought her to the man. 23

The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman ,
Because she was taken out of Man ." 24

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

I believe it was the first and last wedding in which all participants were naked. (Ha ha)

If you keep reading this great story does not have a happy ending. Sadly, one chapter over from where I read Adam and Eve experience failure and deep disappointment. The up side to such a fall was threw it all they where still one because God had made them One.

My point is that a wedding is the beginning of being one.

U2 has a song call “One.”
They have many songs, but the song One is one of their finest.

The song starts

Is it getting better
Or do you feel the same
Will it make it easier on you
Now you got someone to blame

So is this the best thing about being married, about being one?
That you get someone to blame.

To the Groom
Repeat after me

I ______ _______
take you ________ _________
so I’ve got someone to blame.

To the Bride
Repeat after me

I ______ _______
take you ________ _________
so I’ve got someone to blame.

That’s not all being One means.
The song by U2 continues

Did I disappoint you?
Or leave a bad taste in your mouth?

To the Groom
Repeat after me
I, ______ _______
take you ______ ______,
to disappoint me
to leave a bad taste in my mouth

To the Bride
Repeat after me
I, ______ _______
take you ______ ______,
to disappoint me
to leave a bad taste in my mouth

What does it mean to be one?
For U2, being one includes times of disappointment and of blame. God would agree.

There is a French philosopher with the rather unfortunate name of Nancy. Jean Luc Nancy. Mr Nancy can’t stand false “oneness”. He can’t stand relationships and marriages and communities that just put up a good front. But Mr Nancy does not give up on marriage. Instead Mr Nancy argues that true relationships, deep oneness, starts with us being real.

True relationships start with each of us acknowledging that there will be disappointment and blame and a bad taste for this or that offense.

Because when we are real, when we face our limitations and name our struggles. We are then able to see the world of another; we can see the other’s reality. This opens us to face others limitations and struggles.

And in that shared reality, we are one.
World’s collide and we are one.

And so the key to building a good marriage is to be real.
to face your limitations and struggles.

Or as U2 sings,
One life
But we’re not the same
We get to carry each other
Carry each other.

Personal words to the groom (something like)
I remember sitting with you, slumped over a café table in Raleigh
Two weeks before you had asked for some advice on how to choose a marriage companion, how to know someone was “the one.”

And then there you were, slumped over the café table, telling me that it was over.
In that moment, your relationship had a sense of reality,
a since of disappointment.

Yet here you are today and you are looking very handsome. Look at your bride, isn’t she beautiful? Now tell me and was it all worth it?

So my charge to you is Remember
Remember that times of disappointment there will be many more but do not remember it without remembering the risk, and courage and fortitude you mustered to continue after her. Do not remember without the memory that in the end being ONE is worth it all!

Personal words to the Bride (something like)
On your website on May 16th you wrote:
I am sooo over being engaged. I am sick of organising stuff. Why does deciding you want to spend the rest of your life with someone equal becoming a manic, diarised control freak? I hate who I am becoming! And sometimes I just want to shut down and just quit. But I cant.. I just can’t.

And so you have built your relationship on reality and on struggle.
Yet here you are today and you are looking beautiful and you’re soon to be husband is looking handsome. The struggle was worth it. The pain of being real was worth it. It was all worth it.

So my charge to you is Continue
From this day on you will build a house and a family, it will be a struggle and as long as you open yourself to be real it can be a joy. Look at your husband, He can be trusted, He is willing to fight for you, willing to be one. In all the ups and downs of life build your marriage on reality and in the knowledge that the struggle is worth it, and it will be! So I say to you continue to be real. Continue, for it is worth it!

You both are Christians

You follow a God who accepted you.
Who knew your reality and your limitations.

Who loved you as you are.
This is what love is:
That God loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which are sins are forgiven.

God
who did not accept false oneness
who looked past all our “good fronts”, our “love-like phoniness”, our “painted smiles”
God send his son when we were yet sinners to die for us, in our place, for us.

So God
Who looks past our “Good Fronts” and Self-righteous actions and saw hearts that said
I don’t like you!
I hate you!
You make me sick!
I am indifferent to you!
I don’t know how I feel about you!”

and still he Loved and Still he died! ------ For US.

God accepting our reality and our limitations.

Marriage is now a part of your Christian spirituality.

Remember Adam and Eve, they messed everything up and ended blaming each other. After being given the punishment for there disobedience, God for there own Good, kicked then out of the Garden I imagine them hand in hand walking with heads down, for the weight of there actions rested squarely on there heads. But if you read closely you see God's grace at work in this mess. God likes to work in the middle of the mess. Adam and Eve fell but God did not kick them out and write them off. God did not give up on them.. The last thing we hear of there marriage is the two dealing with the lose of one son and the other son being the killer. MESS! But God is not done! that is not the end of there story. The end of there story is the same as ours, the human story ends in the same place ours does - At the Cross. God works in mess and thought the mess of the cross to make a way for man. God will work in all the messes that happen in your marriage if you let him be the center of your marriage.

Keeping short accounts, not taking each other for granted, making time to listen.
Is not part of romance or love, it is part of your life in God.
Romance can’t secure forgive but a life in God can.
Life-together in God can forgive, and endure the hurt,
Life in God can open us to say I’m wrong and grow closer through the pain.
For your part of a bigger story, your story is part of God’s story,
Your life is no more it is now Our Life with God for you are ONE.

Christian spirituality is a journey Marriage is part of the journey.
A journey of a shared commitment to grow and change.
And the only way you can grow and change,
the only way you can wrinkle and mature with each other,
is to be real with each other, to accept your limitations and “name” your struggles.
But take time to
Have Fun!
Be adventitious!
Enjoy each other!

Have Sex all the time! - God Invented it for your "oneness"!

It's all part of the journey get into it!

Conclusion
You will probably not remember a single word I say.

When you watch the video tape, you will hear me say

Build you marriage on reality.
Build your marriage on your limitations and struggles.

But every time you hear U2, I hope you will remember

One life
Because you’re not the same
You get to carry each other
Carry each other

AMEN.

The marriage relationship as a Dance Part II

[This is the second half of part one dealing with the vision of marriage using the metaphor of a dance. ]

Two, Dance is a social interaction. Now this point does not strays far from the first point, because such an expression does not stop in a formal comparison but digs deep into the heart of lived reality. The gospel is also seen in our social interactions. First the necessity of order: One leads and one follows both participate in an elegant expression of harmony and cooperation. This participation is an art of learning, serving, and loving.

Dance takes timing and timing takes knowing the other person. I remember when I was 12 first coming to the knowledge of this truth. We were at a football game and Dad was watching mom more than the game. I asked why? All he said was “I’m learning son, one day you will too?” another time I found him reading, “Jane Austin,” yep learning (Don’t tell him I told you!). My dad understands what’s at stake is the gospel. The expression of their dance together is the expression of the Gospel. So he learns and repents and forgives and learns anew. They have been married 45 years and he tells me he’s still learning.

Second is service. This is important for men to here. Christ’s way of humble service and Christ’s example of leadership by service is (and men here me clearly) THE WAY WE ARE TO LEAD! We are to give of ourselves wholly in service to her sanctification, and to use the metaphor, we are to wash her feet. This is the leading that leads her to love well. When we care for her needs, discerning her needs from her wants, and seek to be present with her in her moments, these are some less than obvious ways we serve her well. Biblical is the man that finds little moments to creatively remind her that you deeply understand, "He who finds a wife finds a good thing..." Proverbs 18:22. Men we must never forget she said, yes! We may have taken the initiative and asked and risked trauma to our pride (not always a bad thing) BUT she made the choice. God has given every woman the power to say yes or no. She holds the keys to open or shut up the hope dwelling in every word of that one question.

Third is loving. This should come easy for any man trained in Christ’s school of humility. If you’re not a student well pray for entry, ask God to enroll you in Job University. Later you can go for a Mdiv at the providential smack-down school of divinity. Christ will train you in such things. Best part, you can’t fail. You just take the tests over again until you pass. But I digress. Love is clearly not just a verb. It is a deeply heart felt passion that gives, sacrifices, and is totally voluntary, unforced, and free of manipulation or control. A love that hears before it acts, moves and operates in grace and stands firm so to dare the other to move in faith, to risk, dream, and discovery God’s grader glory in unyielding reliance. In short, a love that is supportive, kind, and understanding. Such love sees with eyes fixed on God’s glory and loving the lover in a lesser love that puts her worship ahead of his passion for her. In short, the husband’s first passion is to see his wife a greater worshiper of God. And a wife’s first passion is to see her husband captured by one thing, a passion for the glory of God. All secondary love flows clean and with passionate intensity from such a centering source.

Loving Her more by loving her less.
May be I’m weird, Ok we all know I’m weird. But I believe that God’s glory is ultimate and all other things are in its shadow. I believe in Love shadowed by the glory. I believe, a person is no more a radiant vision of beauty and attraction than when they are worshiping, repenting and obeying. Take Sasha a friend from Greece. I remember seeing the moment God worked his grace. Seeing her eyes light up just as her heart was opened to the gospel. Her repentance beautiful, in tears and pain, then tears and joy it was all just a stunning display. Even, the snot, the swollen eyes red from crying, hair once pulled back now in disarray, the repentance lased with self-defacing profanity, it all was beautiful. It is true, Messy repentance is beautiful. She stood up and looking back at me for the first time the cleanness of soul went all the way down, she was exquisite. If a man can’t see a woman as radiant beauty in those moments he is not ready to love as God would have him love.

Back to my story, two weeks later I saw Sasha again this time she was clothed in greater glory. As I laid a daisy on her casket, I saw her face at peace, home, free from a life of soulless domination. She was completely a worshiper of her Warrior king. “The One that won her” was how she described to me, how a missional atheist could drop the drugs and fallow lovers for Jesus. “The One that won me,” it was this truth that gave her the courage to tell her Muslim family. No one even thought that such life remade would not remain. I stood there at her casket crying little man tears sober and streaming, remembering telling her of Jesus, her telling me to go to hell. The long lunch’s about the benefits of communism and the joy of Good coffee. The moment, when out of the blue, she told me, “this week I will go to church with you, Barney Rubble.” Further still Her words, “He is real! AND He LOVES ME, to death he loved me!” I will never forget that look as long as I live! When I told her just talk to him and hearing the sound of honest, real, raw, worship! Worship bursting forth, bright and full as a sunrise over the Macedonian mountains. How were we to know what such a luminescent life was too bright for earth? Yet it was the knowledge that she was and still is worshiping that still trains my heart to love all the more. I smile and rejoice for she is doing what she was created to do. She is a worshiper. One that adores the one that won her. She is beautiful because she is a worshiper now and forever more. I still tear up sometimes but not in lose, in her gain. she lost the world but gained the One desire worth knowing. The knowledge of worship before her warrior King. When we talk of earthly love it rest best in the shadow of the eternal. Love is only as real as our hearts are captured with a vision of God’s passion to make worshipers. We must understand how to love well for the gospel is at stake. Be must move in effortless love for a life for the glory of God is a life loving someone more by first loving them less. This is at the root of marital love.

The marriage relationship as a Dance. Part I

Did you know, Dance is universal? Almost all cultures have some form of dance within its tradition, well except for Southern Baptist. On that note, in this blog, I promise not to promote dance in any way that would make/lead anyone to have sex with anyone. Unless, they are married, then, well, they can dance. Ok, a definition of dance will help me explain what I mean by this metaphor.

Dance is a movement used as a form of expression or social interaction often to music but not exclusively.

There are two key points here I wish to bring out. One, Dance is a form of expression. In Eph 5, Paul writes that marriage is an expression of the gospel. That is to say, as a man and a woman are one in love and existence so is this a picture of Christ’s unifying love for His Bride.

Dance is gospel in movement, its love on display. Have you ever seen two, dance as one, with power and tenderness they express life and love? The vision is such that you’re awed and capture by every moment. Grace, openness, harmony, strength Love all put on display. Why do you think we say, “They graced the dance floor?” we saw beyond the movements, through it the unseen was unveiled and the eternal captured our hearts vision. This beauty seen in the dance of lovers corresponds to the beauty of an invisible love. The extent of His love is great. We must not forget the infinite measure of such love extended to us, Love dancing out to make rebels into lovers, the broken wholly human, the sinners newly cleaned, a thing into a person, a orphan into a child, and a whore into a bride. This dancing union of his work and our faith is where all our hurts find hope, dreams find fulfillment, and is a beautifully brilliant expression of the gospel of exchange. And in the love of a man and a woman something of this exchange is seen. I have seen such love in the eyes of lovers, its message spoke clearly of the hope that in a higher love all the isolated find home, unaccepted find rest, the abandoned are welcomed, and the lost are found and guided back home.

The center of marriage: a panoramic vision of life together

As Paul the apostle says in Ephesians 3:21, "unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen"

In Ephesians 3:21 Paul concludes his prayer with six important universal facts that bring context to human life. From these six facts we will make application to that particular mode of human existence called marriage.

1) In all its doings, marriage is to be God-centered ("unto Him"). God is to be at the center of the marital union in the same way that creation is God-centered. Creation exists by God, through God and to God the same is true of the mode of existence we call marriage. God is self-existing therefore what exist finds its sources from him. He is self-sufficient therefore the power for life emanates from him. He is the life giving power than brings harmony, shalom, and well being to a marriage. He exists in an independents and infinite abundance needing nothing. Therefore creation is dependant on God. Life in Him is dependant living. Man and woman are to be dependant on God being, living in the reality of Him, and be actively sustained by the helps of faith Hope and Love flowing from him. All other centers are idolatry and hindrances to the sacramental reality of life in God. Marriage abides in the garden once again when God is at the center.

2,) It is purpose-centered ("be glory"). In other words, a marriage exists for God's glory. The glory of God is central to Himself and it is central to the marital existence. Everything God does is ultimately for His own glory, and everything that happens in a marriage should be for God's glory. Worship becomes the fuel and goal of marriage. Partners see the growth of the other as growth of the whole of which they are apart. Marriages thrive when two personalities purpose to help the other become a better worshiper. Lovers of God make great lovers. Any marriage where God is more and we are less is a marriage on the road to the city of God. So it can be said, marital life is a pilgrimage to glory. Worshipers on the way growing down, loving up, and learning from one another becoming more like the one there lives are moving towards.

God’s passion is for His glory and this is even true in marriage. The ultimate purpose of marriage is God. God’s purpose for marriage is that it would be an instrument by which the glory of God would be shown. Marriage is for God thus the shining forth of who he is, is for marriage. God’s glory informs just as it also motivates. The glory of God for Marriage then is beholding the character and attributes of God resulting in reflecting back to him right action and rejoicing in Who he is. Said another way, Who God is informed and motivates our ethic of marriage. Marital ethics finds its purpose and meaning in God. Marriage is made to flourish in this way. The mode of existence called Christian marriage is marked by the indelible print of God and its ability to exist in harmony, shalom, and well being is directly related to its conformity to the vision of God. Marital life is an envisioning and outshining of who God is to such an existent that all actions, attitudes and goals come under the gravity of God’s manifest glory. Thus marriage moves from glory to glory in a cyclical rise of Loving adoration and contentment of being, beholding and becoming worshipers for the glory of God. For me I see it, I can almost envision it: Two holding each other close in a chosen togetherness, looking God-ward, Burning alive as flames of love pulled upward, shining forth, light and heat in unison sound forth the Nature of God. Two as one being-in-the-world engaged in daily life, normal movements, yet embody otherness, pulsing, radiating in infinite waves declaring “I AM and there is No other!” THIS IS MARRIAGE!!!

3) Marriage is ecclesiologicly-centered ("in the church"). In other words, the church is the visible location for doing marriage well. Marriage exists as a singular unit of personalities in community with other. In the church by the Spirit and the Word, marriages are strengthened, encouraged, guided, corrected and blessed. God centered servant leadership and wise following properly orients a marriage and the family.

4) Marriage is to be Christ-centered ("by Christ Jesus"). Christ is the word that made all things. The word formed life into it created order and in each thing molded a function. form should follow function but we have to recognize there is a Fall. Sin is in the world. So the word was made flesh. Marriage’s form when lived out in real time often falls short. This is the evidence of sin, the disordering principle. Yet, like Jesus on the cross, when marriage is at its best it is in its darkest moments. When sinners say I do, it takes grace and gospel to make it work. Man is good a messing things up yet God is perfect at redeeming. The power of the gospel is the power that redeems every sinful movement in marriage. With life together come tension, strife and all the sewage of living with a sinner. Such things are compounded in when sinners say I do. But 2 sinners and one God is still a good plan. We need not forget. Christ is the gospel. He is faith hope and love. A marriage can get saved, sanctified and set free! Marriage can even be filled with the Holy Ghost! But when two walk together they must be in agreement. That is to say, they must have a REAL LIVING “want too!” Then they must begin to walk the way of Jesus. When sinners in marriage live through the garden of “thy will be done”, find a freeing exchange at a cross, look up from the empty tomb and drink in the everlasting hope, they finds the rhythm to heal, forgive, and move beyond just living. They come to Pentecost. This is when a marriage comes alive. The Spirit of Christ reveals to us deeply human truths in marriage. Marriage is a sanctifying reality. The gospel in all its dimensions has the potential to be personally experienced. The heroic lengths and breath of sacrifice, the height of divine love and the depth of human sin can be experienced from the context of marriage. The gospel is the means by which we regulate the marital relationship in service and gratitude. In short Life has a rhythm and Christ is it. Live in his steps and by his work together.

Marriage is formed to functions as a picture of the gospel. As sinners we twist this form and pervert the function but sometime when grace and obedience blend there are moments that redemption shines through. In those moments marriage is a road side preacher witnessing to the reality of God and the evidences of grace rightly expressed as an envisioned, sustained expression of Holy love.

5) Marriage is to be generation-centered. Marriage should in proper season bring forth a continuation of life through children. Not just in having children or adopting, but in making the home a proper context for development. A marriage is to be the relational context for childhood development. Thus the parental responsibility of guiding development is primary. They will be who we are and they will grow in the frame of Home life we give for them. Five models of home life seem to develop this mandate more vividly.

The Home as a center for spiritual development.
The Home as a leadership training institute.
The Home as a sacrd space for worship.
The Home as a missions sending organization.
The Home as a boot camp in the virtues.

6) It is eternity-centered ("world without end" literally "from the age to the ages"). God has put eternity into the hearts of His people and marriage lives out its life with eternity's values in view, both in its understanding of the temporal nature of marriage and in the ultimate value of the beatific vision. Eternal vision sustains hope and ignites infinite desire to the soul.