Dressing For The Marriage
Sermon
THIS NEW LIFE TOGETHER
An Anthology Of Wedding Meditations
For A Protestant--Catholic Marriage
Well. Here you are, finally, __________ and __________, all dressed in your wedding clothes: a lovely, lovely bridal gown and a dashing GQ wedding tuxedo. You are a very attractive couple on this most significant day of your lives, a couple I like very much - each of you separately, and as a couple. Behind my affection for you is my respect: you each have deep spiritual convictions which have shaped your character as Christian young adults. You've done a lot of work with me, with Father __________, with the __________ Conference to prepare yourselves spiritually and emotionally for being married. We've talked very honestly about marriage in our premarital counseling sessions. I believe you're more than ready to joyfully undertake the challenges of marriage. Right now, fitted out in all your wedding finery, you're undoubtedly agreeing with me 100 percent!
Now, I don't want to be misunderstood here, but I have a question to ask. When you take off your wedding clothes, what are you going to put on? When you take off the bridal gown and the tux, what do you put on for the marriage? How does one dress for success in a marriage? What are you going to wear to ensure that yours will be enduring and satisfying?
Paul, in Colossians 3:12--17, has some suggestions for a marriage wardrobe. First, put on compassion. This is something you wear inside. It has to do with having a heart for the other, each of you having the other at heart. Literally,
compassion means ''a heart of pity.'' Compassion is an inner attitude you each have toward the other - an inner stance you each take - a fullness of tender caring for and about the other's vulnerability and strengths which will overflow into how you treat each other privately and in public. Compassion is an inner garment.
On top of compassion, put on kindness. Now there's an article of clothing that you get to be in short supply in a marriage sometimes! After a while, you really get to know the other's weaknesses and sore spots. Kindness doesn't sweep these under the rug when they are destructive to the marriage, but when you are clothed with kindness you will be seeking the other's good as you deal with the weaknesses and sore spots. Kindness is a garment with healing in its wings.
Then there's another item of clothing that does a marriage good: humility. If ever there is an arena where pride and the need to be right and the struggle for power occur, it's in a marriage. Lack of humility leads to every kind of struggle, whether it's a struggle for power over the checking account, over the kids, over whose turn it is to make sure you don't run out of milk and orange juice, or a power struggle over who was supposed to be home when to do what. Humility is far from abject submission to the other's whims and wants. Rather, humility recognizes the other's equal status, recognizes that each has needs and plans which are equally valid. You can only put on humility when you remember that each of you is not God but an equal--in--God's--eyes child of God.
Gentleness is another worthy garment for a marriage. Aristotle has defined gentleness as the mean between too much anger and not enough. Gentleness has strength in it, but it is not the strength of the self--controlled person. Gentleness is the garment of the God--controlled person. Gentleness has sweetness in it, too. When you put on gentleness, the other can take off self--defensive armor, wariness, fearfulness, and can put on trust. Every marriage could use several garments of gentleness.
Now, here's an absolutely necessary article of clothing for a marriage: patience. Each of you will discover, if you haven't already, that the other has the capacity to drive you crazy! Whether it's chewing ice cubes, or trying to ignore for a week, already, that stack of magazines that the other has set out on the table to read but hasn't gotten to yet, or switching channels constantly with the all--powerful remote control, or never allowing enough time to arrive on time - it doesn't matter what the issue is: marriage takes patience. And these are just the surface things. Patience requires humor, a spirit of live and let live. But mostly patience takes love. Because patience is required for coping with the other's emotional habits, with the other's incomprehensible--to--you enjoyments, with the other's weaknesses.
Another essential garment for a marriage is a spirit of forbearance and forgiveness. There's a lot that needs to be endured in a marriage, a lot that requires forbearance. It is a spirit of forgiveness that makes difficult things endurable, maybe even erases them. I could never comprehend the movie The Love Story which ended with the line, ''Love means never having to say you're sorry.'' Nowhere more than in marriage, love is repeatedly having to say ''I'm sorry.'' Don't say it to get out of a tight spot. Say it because you know that in no other relationship is the other so vulnerable, so easily hurt. And when the other has asked forgiveness, grant it. Speak not only your pain, but speak the word of peace as well.
If compassion is marriage's inner, attitudinal, garment, and if kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance and forgiveness are its active--wear shirts and pants and skirts and socks, then love is the overcoat. ''On top of all these things,'' Paul says, ''put on love.'' Love keeps a marriage warm.
Love is not an emotion. Oh, it is maybe a little, partly, that. But love as an emotion can wear thin and threadbare when feelings ebb. Love as the overcoat that keeps a marriage warm is made up of two things, both of which must be there for marriage to endure: commitment and caring. I'd describe commitment the way a college professor of mine did: commitment
is a small island of certainty. It's an island you create for each other. It's the solid ground on which your marriage rests. ''I will be there for you.'' That's the commitment you make with your vows. But what good is commitment without caring? Caring says, ''I commit myself to you. I will be there for you.''
When you marry, you signal, in a real way, the end to your own rugged individualism, your own unfettered freedom, your control over your own life. Now marriage does not mean that you lose your individualism or your freedom or your responsibility to control your life. It does mean that the other will now always be a factor that conditions your decision making. When you marry, you commit yourself to the other, you bind yourself with promises to love the other as yourself, you promise to caringly bring your whole self to your relationship. Wear that caring, committed love you've promised today as the overcoat that will keep you warm for a lifetime together.
There is one more thing that needs to be said - actually, what I'm about to say undergirds everything I've said to far. These clothes Paul invites us to put on are not made of natural fibers. They are woven of spiritual stuff. These are supernatural clothes, and only those who have the Spirit of Jesus Christ can really put them on. Try as you might in your own power to create them, they run counter to our human nature. For instance, human nature says, ''I'll do my fair share but no more.'' Or, ''She deserved it.'' Or ''It's his turn to give in.'' Compassion, humility, kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, love - these don't come naturally. They are gifts God gives us when we pray for them.
__________ and __________, earlier I commended you for your deep spiritual Christian characters. I would invite you, from this very first day to ground your marriage in a life of prayer for each other, but, more importantly, with each other. Together pray daily to be clothed in spiritual garments so that tonight when you take off your beautiful wedding garments, you can begin to put on the spiritual garments which will keep your marriage warm for years and years and years.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all these things, put on love, which binds everything in perfect harmony. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. - Colossians 3:12--15a
For this word from God's Word, thanks be to God! Amen.
Mary Venema Swierenga is associate pastor of Vienna Presbyterian Church, Vienna, Virginia.
Well. Here you are, finally, __________ and __________, all dressed in your wedding clothes: a lovely, lovely bridal gown and a dashing GQ wedding tuxedo. You are a very attractive couple on this most significant day of your lives, a couple I like very much - each of you separately, and as a couple. Behind my affection for you is my respect: you each have deep spiritual convictions which have shaped your character as Christian young adults. You've done a lot of work with me, with Father __________, with the __________ Conference to prepare yourselves spiritually and emotionally for being married. We've talked very honestly about marriage in our premarital counseling sessions. I believe you're more than ready to joyfully undertake the challenges of marriage. Right now, fitted out in all your wedding finery, you're undoubtedly agreeing with me 100 percent!
Now, I don't want to be misunderstood here, but I have a question to ask. When you take off your wedding clothes, what are you going to put on? When you take off the bridal gown and the tux, what do you put on for the marriage? How does one dress for success in a marriage? What are you going to wear to ensure that yours will be enduring and satisfying?
Paul, in Colossians 3:12--17, has some suggestions for a marriage wardrobe. First, put on compassion. This is something you wear inside. It has to do with having a heart for the other, each of you having the other at heart. Literally,
compassion means ''a heart of pity.'' Compassion is an inner attitude you each have toward the other - an inner stance you each take - a fullness of tender caring for and about the other's vulnerability and strengths which will overflow into how you treat each other privately and in public. Compassion is an inner garment.
On top of compassion, put on kindness. Now there's an article of clothing that you get to be in short supply in a marriage sometimes! After a while, you really get to know the other's weaknesses and sore spots. Kindness doesn't sweep these under the rug when they are destructive to the marriage, but when you are clothed with kindness you will be seeking the other's good as you deal with the weaknesses and sore spots. Kindness is a garment with healing in its wings.
Then there's another item of clothing that does a marriage good: humility. If ever there is an arena where pride and the need to be right and the struggle for power occur, it's in a marriage. Lack of humility leads to every kind of struggle, whether it's a struggle for power over the checking account, over the kids, over whose turn it is to make sure you don't run out of milk and orange juice, or a power struggle over who was supposed to be home when to do what. Humility is far from abject submission to the other's whims and wants. Rather, humility recognizes the other's equal status, recognizes that each has needs and plans which are equally valid. You can only put on humility when you remember that each of you is not God but an equal--in--God's--eyes child of God.
Gentleness is another worthy garment for a marriage. Aristotle has defined gentleness as the mean between too much anger and not enough. Gentleness has strength in it, but it is not the strength of the self--controlled person. Gentleness is the garment of the God--controlled person. Gentleness has sweetness in it, too. When you put on gentleness, the other can take off self--defensive armor, wariness, fearfulness, and can put on trust. Every marriage could use several garments of gentleness.
Now, here's an absolutely necessary article of clothing for a marriage: patience. Each of you will discover, if you haven't already, that the other has the capacity to drive you crazy! Whether it's chewing ice cubes, or trying to ignore for a week, already, that stack of magazines that the other has set out on the table to read but hasn't gotten to yet, or switching channels constantly with the all--powerful remote control, or never allowing enough time to arrive on time - it doesn't matter what the issue is: marriage takes patience. And these are just the surface things. Patience requires humor, a spirit of live and let live. But mostly patience takes love. Because patience is required for coping with the other's emotional habits, with the other's incomprehensible--to--you enjoyments, with the other's weaknesses.
Another essential garment for a marriage is a spirit of forbearance and forgiveness. There's a lot that needs to be endured in a marriage, a lot that requires forbearance. It is a spirit of forgiveness that makes difficult things endurable, maybe even erases them. I could never comprehend the movie The Love Story which ended with the line, ''Love means never having to say you're sorry.'' Nowhere more than in marriage, love is repeatedly having to say ''I'm sorry.'' Don't say it to get out of a tight spot. Say it because you know that in no other relationship is the other so vulnerable, so easily hurt. And when the other has asked forgiveness, grant it. Speak not only your pain, but speak the word of peace as well.
If compassion is marriage's inner, attitudinal, garment, and if kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance and forgiveness are its active--wear shirts and pants and skirts and socks, then love is the overcoat. ''On top of all these things,'' Paul says, ''put on love.'' Love keeps a marriage warm.
Love is not an emotion. Oh, it is maybe a little, partly, that. But love as an emotion can wear thin and threadbare when feelings ebb. Love as the overcoat that keeps a marriage warm is made up of two things, both of which must be there for marriage to endure: commitment and caring. I'd describe commitment the way a college professor of mine did: commitment
is a small island of certainty. It's an island you create for each other. It's the solid ground on which your marriage rests. ''I will be there for you.'' That's the commitment you make with your vows. But what good is commitment without caring? Caring says, ''I commit myself to you. I will be there for you.''
When you marry, you signal, in a real way, the end to your own rugged individualism, your own unfettered freedom, your control over your own life. Now marriage does not mean that you lose your individualism or your freedom or your responsibility to control your life. It does mean that the other will now always be a factor that conditions your decision making. When you marry, you commit yourself to the other, you bind yourself with promises to love the other as yourself, you promise to caringly bring your whole self to your relationship. Wear that caring, committed love you've promised today as the overcoat that will keep you warm for a lifetime together.
There is one more thing that needs to be said - actually, what I'm about to say undergirds everything I've said to far. These clothes Paul invites us to put on are not made of natural fibers. They are woven of spiritual stuff. These are supernatural clothes, and only those who have the Spirit of Jesus Christ can really put them on. Try as you might in your own power to create them, they run counter to our human nature. For instance, human nature says, ''I'll do my fair share but no more.'' Or, ''She deserved it.'' Or ''It's his turn to give in.'' Compassion, humility, kindness, gentleness, forgiveness, love - these don't come naturally. They are gifts God gives us when we pray for them.
__________ and __________, earlier I commended you for your deep spiritual Christian characters. I would invite you, from this very first day to ground your marriage in a life of prayer for each other, but, more importantly, with each other. Together pray daily to be clothed in spiritual garments so that tonight when you take off your beautiful wedding garments, you can begin to put on the spiritual garments which will keep your marriage warm for years and years and years.
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all these things, put on love, which binds everything in perfect harmony. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. - Colossians 3:12--15a
For this word from God's Word, thanks be to God! Amen.
Mary Venema Swierenga is associate pastor of Vienna Presbyterian Church, Vienna, Virginia.
