Rev. Stephen E. Stults
Brazos Bend
June 25th, 2015
Matthew 19:4-6 “ And
he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at
the beginning made them male and female,
5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and
mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? 6 Wherefore they are no more
twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put
asunder.”
There are some acts which
involve genuine joy for a priest. Aside
from the baptism of a child, in which we enfold a new member into the household
of God, one of the more blessed occasions is that of Holy Matrimony. As your
Rector, I am indeed blessed to officiate the occasion of the marriage of James
Joshua Phillips and Ebony Rasheeda Moore, now Mr. and Mrs. Josh Phillps. I
think it might be fine to break decorum and ask the congregation to give the
new couple a hearty round of applause.
Well, Josh and Ebony, God
Bless both of you, as you begin this truly wonderful journey into adult life.
We say “adult life”, because marriage really is the beginning of adulthood, for
those called to the married state. Marriage
and family are the way God planned things, even though in the hurly-burley of
life and the natural sinful nature of man, it doesn’t always work out
perfectly. Nevertheless, we are to try
to live God’s way as much as possible; when we fail, we are to repent and seek
forgiveness from Him.
Let me refresh your remembrance
as to how God designed the family and marriage as a way to rule our lives. Remember
today how God created Eve to be Adam’s companion and helpmeet. Recall those stirring words from Genesis 2
where Adam said, (Genesis 2:23-24) 23”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 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his
mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
Thus, we have a beginning. God
meant it to be so, and so it has persisted from time immemorial to the present
day.
Let us “fast forward”, if you
will, to St. Paul’s day and the times of the early Christian Church. Recall how he had brought the Gospel to the
Greek world and to those in the ancient Near East. He brought a word of hope,
and of light, and of salvation to those who had been in darkness until
then. Paul brought the Greeks the Good
News that Man no longer had to fear death.
No longer was Man sentenced to a shadowy, ghostly afterlife across the
river Styx, to wander in grayness forever. Now, Paul preached a true
life-giving gospel: that Man had been reconciled to His God, the only God of
Heaven and Earth through the one-time, all sufficient sacrifice of Jesus
Christ. Man was to live with God
forever, in perfect bliss, and to be free from all taint of sin and
unhappiness, someday. It was glorious
good news to the ancient Greeks, and it is glorious good news to us today. We too, if we trust in Jesus Christ as our
Lord and Savior, will have that perfect life with God. No longer do we need to wander about in
grayness and uncertainty, but now, through Christ, we are brought into His most
glorious light. Hallelujah!
Yet, beloved, as one wise man
observed, “the evil be always mingled with the good”, so we saw the early
church battling with the world, the flesh, and the devil. St. Paul converted a good many Greeks to
Christianity, but they were still surrounded by their pagan culture with its multiplicity of gods
and its pagan practices. Among these was the practice of fornication, both for
ritual religious reasons, as well as the Greek feasts of bacchalia, to honor
Bacchus, the god of wine and fertility.
For this cause, Paul writes to the Corinthian Church in 1 Corinthians
5:1-2: “It is reported commonly that
there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as
named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife. 2 And ye are puffed up, and have
not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from
among you.”
So it seems that we have a
serious moral problem among this group of early Christians. It is obviously one
that Paul knew he must address and quickly.
Thus, Paul turns to the will of God for an answer, and writes to the Corinthians
later in the same epistle: 1 Corinthians 7:2-3: “Nevertheless, to avoid fornication,
let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband. 3 Let the husband render unto the
wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.”
Thus, we see God’s plan for
men and women to live together, in some semblance of order. Rather than the furious
hunt for temporary mates as in the animal world, we humans are to engage in a state
of lifelong union, in Christ. This gives order to human society, as well as to
the individual human soul. It is no wonder that one’s car insurance rates go
down massively when one marries, especially for males! Trust me, this priest
knows about that….
This leads us to consider the
words of St. Paul as he enjoins us to “give thanks always for all things unto
God and the Father in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
This is good counsel for
anyone, whether married or not. We are
to give thanks in all circumstances, always, for all things. Why? How can we give thanks when things
aren’t going our way? When circumstances
are negative, how can we thank God?
Simply for two reasons: first, because we are told to do so. To the disciple of Christ, this should be
enough, but we know that oftentimes, it is not. When in trouble or difficulty,
we often ask, “Why, O God?” Then, as we
grow in faith and Christian maturity, we realize that all things in this life,
in some wonderful and mysterious way, are meant to form us, shape us, and
prepare us for our eternal life with God.
All of our acts are somehow foreseen and even foreshaped for some
mysterious purpose in God’s Will. There
were many times in the past, and there will be many times in the future, when
we simply didn’t understand why our life was going the way it was. Yet, looking back, we can see the Hand of God in all of our affairs. When one has given their life to God, this
happens in a glorious, yet baffling way.
For our newly wedded couple, I urge you to continue this married journey
in like fashion as you have begun it: in faith and in trust. You have re-consecrated your life together in
the Church; let your married life continue in that holy vein. Put Christ in the middle of your marriage,
and He will only draw you closer, one to the other. After almost 35 years of marriage to the
lovely and talented Delfina Maria Anita Fratangelo, now Mrs. Stults lo these many
years, we have survived as a couple only because Christ has been in our
marriage. We have worshipped together,
worked together, loved and cried together these many years because Christ is
the ‘glue” in our union. May it be so with
you, Josh and Ebony, as well.
Let us briefly mention a
couple of wonderful pointers St. Paul has for married couples. First, let’s discuss the one verse that so
many men like, which is this: Ephesians 5:22-24: “Wives, submit yourselves unto
your own husbands, as unto the Lord. 23
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the
church: and he is the saviour of the body.
24 Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the
wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”
At this, many men seem to
“puff up” a bit and think, “Yes, that’s the way it should be…” Well, let me
tell you something, gentlemen, and especially you, Josh, this is a two-edged
sword. In return for reverence and
submission, the man is asked to give something as well, as in this verse: (Ephesians
5:25) “ Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church,
and gave himself for it;” According to
St. Paul, the man is to love his wife to the ultimate degree, as Christ loved
the church. What did Christ do for the
church? He went willingly to a horrible death for her on the Cross. He gave absolutely everything he had for the
Church, His holy bride. So, let me ask
this, O men: are you willing to die for your wife, if necessary? Would you give
everything you have to save her, just as
Christ did? So, the next time you think
so fondly about wifely submission, think about the all-consuming, sacrificial
love you are called to give.
In short, according to St.
Paul, the man is to love his wife as he loves his own flesh. It is evident that most men love their own
bodies. The so-called “metrosexual”
phenomena a few years ago gives evidence of this. All the care and trouble those men took to
groom and present themselves to society! Nonetheless, the lesson is clear: the
good Christian husband is to love his wife as much as he loves his own body;
even more, if that were possible.
The end result is this: in
engaging in the holy union of Matrimony, man and wife symbolize the greatest
union ever, that of Christ and His Church.
When I say “His Church”, I mean all of us who trust in Him for our
salvation. No greater love has ever been
shown or ever will be shown, than which Christ has demonstrated for us. He gave Himself for us, in perfect love, that
we may join Him in perfect love together, forever.
Thus, Josh and Ebony,
congratulations on entering into one of the deepest, most wonderful mysteries
of life: the union of man and woman in holy marriage. You are undertaking probably the most important
and meaningful experience of human life, the blessedness of traveling this
earthly road with a partner, lover, friend, and companion. As Jesus Christ as your Guide, walking
between you, yet uniting you, you will not take the wrong path. May God’s richest blessings be on you both.
In the Name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost. AMEN.
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