Christian Living: Marriage & Parenthood

Sermon planned for Sunday, May 15th, 2011

Texts: Genesis 2:18-24; Ephesians 6:1-4

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”

Loneliness is not a good thing. It is not good that we as humans should be alone. Last week we talked about how God has given us the gift of friendship. Friends are gifts to us from God. As friends, we work to overcome loneliness. Two weeks ago we looked at the gift of children. Children are also one of the gifts that God gives us to overcome loneliness, but in a different way than with friends. This morning we’re going to examine Christian discipleship and what it means for Christian marriage and parenting. This morning, my goal is to provoke all you married folks to a life of radical hospitality for the sake of God’s Kingdom – to open your doors wide to others - children, to strangers, to the needy and to the weak. This morning, my goal is to provoke parents to vulnerablity and a welcoming embrace towards their children as a gift from God, rather than a possession, accessory or curse – to welcome them as a sign of God’s care for this world and for the church.

If friendship is one of God’s gifts to us – a gift that helps us to overcome loneliness – than marriage is another gift that strengthens us in a similar way. Genesis gives us a glimpse at how God views His creation. After finishing Creation, God said that it was good. But we also hear, from God’s voice, what isn’t good – loneliness. It’s the first problem we encounter in the Creation story; and it’s a problem that God quickly remedies by creating the male-female relationship. “Helper” and “partner” are two of the first roles we hear about in the relationship between spouses. In other parts of scripture we learn of other roles as well, including “companion”, “friend”, and “lover”. But it’s interesting that the first description of the roles of spouses assume that husband and wife will be doing some significant work together. They are helpers and partners for one another. This begs the question: what is the significant work that husbands and wives are given? What important work does God have in store for marriages?

First of all, the most foundational work for a marriage to do is the work of companionship – the work of friendship. Man was lonely and so God gave him a helper and partner. The ‘helper’ and ‘partner’ roles in marriage are first of all directed towards one another as work to overcome loneliness. You need to be there for one another. This, of course, sounds simple enough. But one of the biggest challenges I hear about for couples, when they talk to me about some of their struggles, is a lack of effort put into spending time with one another. Many of you, in your marriages, are lonely.

Last week I said that it’s unfair to assume your spouse will take care of all your loneliness – and that’s true. Husbands and wives do need deep Christian friendships with people outside of their relationship. But from what I hear, husbands and wives frequenly have almost no time together. When’s the last time you went on a date with your spouse? When’s the last time you had a conversation with your partner that wasn’t about the kids, or about work – but rather about you two are doing? How’s the relationship going? What do I like about the relationship? What do I struggle with in regards to the relationship?

If part of God’s reasoning for giving us the gift of marriage is for us to overcome loneliness – and that’s what we get from Genesis 2 – if that’s the case, then why are so many Christian marriages made up of people who are lonely? Why are so many Christian husbands and wives seeking companionship and love in another’s arms? Why is there so much adultery? Why do Christian husbands and wives feel so isolated? In my opinion, coming from reflection on limited experience and some counseling, I am quite sure that a major part of this loneliness results from husbands and wives forgetting the basics of what marriage is supposed to be. Many Christian husbands and wives forget, or have never heard, that the most basic task for husbands and wives is to help and partner with each other in overcoming loneliness – by cultivating deep and intimate friendship and companionship.

If God’s purpose in gifting us with marriage is to overcome loneliness and alienation, how do Christian marriages go about receiving this gift from God? The first step in Christian marriage is to cultivate the Christian part of the marriage. Both husband and wife need to cultivate an ever growing and deepening relationship with God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Husbands, how often do you pray? Wives, how often do you read scripture? Men, why are your projects and your work more important than knowing the Word of God? Wives, why are we so worried about what others think of us, of our children, our husbands – why not think, instead, of the Word that God has spoken about you in Jesus Christ – that you are dearly loved children of God, made in His image. Why not join women like Mary, Jesus’ mother, who “treasured God’s Word and pondered them in her heart.” The first step in Christian marriage is for husbands and wives to join together in the joyful work of cultivating a deep relationship with God. That’s step one.

Step two: Deepen your relationship with your partner. If God’s first purpose in gifting us with marriage is to overcome loneliness and alienation, then why are husbands and wives busying themselves with the very opposite? For some reason, husbands and wives have been convinced that it is more important for them to make sure their children are busy with all kinds of extra-curricular activities than it is for mom and dad to spend a good amount of time together, strengthening their marriage? Some of you will barely have time to see each other during any given week. Consider last week, how much time did you and your spouse take for each other? To get closer? To be intimate? To listen to each other? Now I know that life and work get busy and complicated – some of you have jobs that take you out of the home for extended periods of time. That said, you did not get married in order to be alone.

This morning, I encourage you to deepen and strengthen your marriage in whatever way possible. Talk to each other, and listen to each other. Actually listen to what your partner tells you – turn off the tube, the computer, the internet – for once, and face your partner and talk to them, and listen to them. If you have problems in your marriage – don’t avoid them. Communicate your hopes and desires for the relationship. Get help if you can’t find a way through the conflict by yourself. With Genesis 2 in mind, remember that this relationship you have with your spouse is called to be a gift to both of you. That means that each of you is supposed to be a helper and a partner – with the #1 job of overcoming loneliness.

Step #3: If step #1 to a Christian marriage is to deepen and cultivate a relationship with God; and if step #2 is to get on with the good work overcoming loneliness; then step # 3 is to join together for discipleship as a team. Although husbands and wives have a similar discipleship call to singles and celibate people; there is something unique that a marriage offers to discipleship.

Husbands and wives are called to a radical hospitality towards others in a unique way. Whereas singles and celibates have the opportunity to respond to ministries that require greater flexibility, financial sacrifice, and time commitments; Christian marriages have the opportunity to offer greater stability & economic security to discipleship. For example, Christian marriages have the opportunity to offer a safe and stable home. There are a few important reasons why Christian marriage is invaluable to the Church and the Kingdom of God. At least two these reasons are so that there can be places of radical hospitality for (1) children, and for (2) strangers and the weak. If the first job of marriage is for husbands and wives to join together to overcome loneliness, the second important job is for them to minister to others who find themselves in need of friends.

One of those ‘others’ is children. Marriages are called to make room for the gift of children, and to provide for children a safe home, with stability, care, nurture, and love. These children are often the biological children of husband and wife; but they need not be. Marriages are called to be hospitable to children, and this calling also refers to adoption and fostering. There are many children in our world that need a safe and stable home, and so adoption should always be a possibility for us in our discipleship. But this calling to hospitality isn’t only for children.

Husbands and wives are called to create a home of radical hospitality for the stranger and the weak. We have it modeled for us in scripture by couples like Abraham and Sarah with Lot and his wife, with the three angels that come to visit them, and in other stories as well. A ministry of hospitality for the stranger is assumed in many of Moses’ laws, and it gets reaffirmed in the New Testament, with numerous exhortations to help lift up the poor, the needy and the weak. Husbands and wives are uniquely positioned to respond with hospitality to those who need a safe and stable home. Think of all the MCI students from afar that are housed by couples in the area – it’s much easier, and perhaps also more appropriate, for these students to have a home where there’s a mom and dad present.

Many of you already know stories of this kind of hospitality. A husband and wife choose to help out another member of the community by adopting a child that cannot be looked after by the mother. When I first got the youth pastor job in Rosthern, I came for a week of candidating and I stayed at a friend’s place in Saskatoon. I didn’t know it before I got there, but my friend’s parents were foster parents. They already had well over fifteen foster children come through their home during my friend’s lifetime. When I stayed there, they had about four or five foster children, two of which were in wheelchairs, and with most of them having several physical and learning disabilities. It was an interesting week, living at their home. My friend helped his mom prepare a table full of medication; and then we spent many hours playing blocks & Lego with their foster children. My friend’s mom and dad had the courage and the will to serve God and offer a home of radical hospitality. These kinds of situations are rare: too rare, if you ask me.

A marriage can also be a gift of radical hospitality to others, not just children. Consider, for example, my uncle and aunt Cornie and Barbara Harder in Asuncion, Paraguay. When they found out that they couldn’t have children they decided to open up their home to Bible College students. After years, this caught on, and they were asked to be house-parents at the college’s residence building called MennoHeim. They did this for most of their adult life, welcoming young adults to their dinner table, comforting them when they got homesick, helping people resolve their conflicts, and just being there as a listening ear. They understood that their marriage was given to them as a gift in order to bless others. They did this by providing a home of radical hospitality to strangers in their community. What opporunities have you encountered to open up your home in hospitality to those who are in need?

When parents are given the gift of children, life changes completely. A relationship that was primarily about husband and wife now becomes entangled in the life of a new human being. The longer a couple waits with having children, the more this new life will shock their sensibilities and their habits. Children tend not to fit into tidy schedules and a well-organized life. When husband and wife are convinced to have children on their own terms – God often has a way of shaking things up a bit. One child will love a schedule – and for another, chaos is the norm. One child will respond to one form of parenting, but that same approach won’t work at all for a different child.

Christian marriages are called to be radically hospitable to children as gifts from God. At least one of the things this means is that children are to be dearly loved, welcomed and appreciated. As we heard two weeks ago, children are a gift AND NOT an accessory or curse. But what do you do with gifts?

The bible includes numerous stories that shape us and our understanding of children as a gift. For example, think of the story of Hannah and Samuel. Hannah was this woman who desperately wanted a child. She’d spend her time at the temple, praying to God and promising God that if she ever had a son, she would dedicate her child to God’s service. After her son Samuel was born, she went over to the temple and she dedicated him to God – she literally put him in the Temple’s care. We have a similar story with Samson and his mother and father, who dedicated him to a life of serving God. From stories like these, and that of John the Baptist’s mother Elizabeth, you get an increasingly clear picture of what it means to receive children as a gift from God.

If children who are viewed as accessories are controlled, forced, and manipulated; if children who are viewed as curses are aborted and abused – what kind of parenting flows out of the view that children are a gift from God? A big part of what this means is that children are dedicated back to God in service of God’s purpose in our world.

I wonder if that was what my mom was thinking, when she helped me move to Saskatchewan. Together with some of my friends, including Andy, who some of you know, my mom came out to Saskatchewan to help me move my stuff into a really small house on 10th St. in Rosthern. After my friends went on their way, my mom stayed a few extra days, helping me unpack my car-load of belongings (I fit all my stuff into that Honda Civic I drive). She met the wonderful folks in that church, whom I came to love over the next five years. She met John & Tina Siemens; the elderly couple that adopted me as their new 21 year old grandson. When my mom had to return home, I drove her to the Greyhound station in Saskatoon and we began our goodbyes. We said our farewells and hugged… and boy did we cry. We both had tears streaming down our cheeks. Later she told me that this was one of her most difficult acts – to give me over to ministry; to give me over to an unknown future, to a community in a small town amidst strangers. That week and that goodbye are defining moments in my life.

Christian parenting is about welcoming children as a gift from God and then dedicating them back to God’s care. This dedication begins way before you actually head for the bus station. Each and every day, there are opportunities for you, as Christian parents, to dedicate your children to God’s service. It involves forming their imagination with the truth that they are Created by God and deeply loved. It involves immersing your children in the stories of scripture, and helping them to understand that this story invites their participation; that they are invited to join the story of God’s redeeming work.

In his letter to the Ephesians, we read Paul’s words about parents disciplining and instructing their children. It’s clear what Paul has in mind here. He wants parents and children to have a relationship that grows deeper and deeper in obedience to Jesus. He tells children to obey their parents in the Lord. It’s not just a straightout command to obey their parents no matter what. This key piece, ‘in the Lord’, makes all the difference.

The ‘in the Lord’ names the flavour, the context, the space, in which Christian children and Christian parents are to exist. This means constant care for cultivating a deep relationship to God, knowing His Word, and obeying His will. ‘In Christ’ names the flavour of the conversations that are supposed to be ‘the norm’ for moms, dads, and their children. A Christian child’s obedience to their parents assumes that their parents are living for the Lord and dedicating their children to God. If your parents aren’t actively dedicating you and your activities to God’s purpose – then the question is, should you be obeying them? If they refuse to take you to church, or to teach you the gospel, then what are you to do? What kind of obedience does the bible envision for Children? This isn’t obedience because mom and dad said so – not even maybe (nicht mohl maesst). This is an obedience that comes from patient relationship building, loving communication, and a constant openness and dedication to Christ.

The disciplining and instruction that Paul tells parents to give their children is a very specific kind of discipline and instruction. It is discipline and instruction “of the Lord”; a continual pointing of children to God, through Jesus Christ. Paul is not telling parents to discipline for any purpose or reason – your child is not your tool that you bring to the grindstone, in order to shape according to your desires. Your child is a gift from God to be continually dedicated to God and His purposes. For this goal, discipline and instruction is permitted and commanded.

Is your child stubborn? Is your child passionate about something you care little about? Does your teenager want to do something with their life that worries you because it won’t make enough money? Remember, your child is a gift given to you – they’re not an accessory to your vision of life… your job is to point them to Christ and dedicate them to him. Maybe God wants a disciple that has a stubborn streak, willing to stand up for the truth without wavering or being a push-over… don’t think it’s you’re job to root-out his/her stubornness – it might very well be exactly what God needs from that disciple.

Instead, view your child as a gift that God has given you so that you can point them back to Christ – that is your first responsibility as a Christian parent. All the other responsiblities, as important as they are, take a seat far behind this first one. What do you spend most of your time talking about with your children? Is it about money? About sports? A job? A bad habit? Why not talk about what kind deed you can do for the widow down the street… and then do it? Why not study the scriptures, and tell your children the stories of the Bible. Allow Christ’s Spirit to form them according to God’s Word. You don’t need to shape them into neat accessories to your life. Let God shape them into instruments for His Kingdom.

Where do you encourage your children to spend most of their energies and time? Are these activities that move your children closer to Jesus? What priorities dominate your parenting approaches and how you form your children’s goals and desires? How do you yourselves, as parents, model a Christ focused, Kingdom-centered life? What do you talk about most as a couple in front of your children? This sets the tone as to what they think you find most important in life. Is it money? Worrying about the neighbours? Or is it the bible, the Church, Jesus and His Kingdom, and your relationship with God? When you dream together as a family? Are you dreaming of vacations, or do you take some time to dream about a service trip? Do you conspire together to help out a neighbour?

This morning, our discipleship provokes husbands and wives to a deeper calling – to radical hospitality to children, strangers, and those who are weak. Our discipleship provokes Christian parents to receive their children as a gift rather than a possession, accessory or a curse. The question and the challenge we receive: will we allow the Holy Spirit to provoke us in these ways? May God bless you as you overcome loneliness by truly loving one another; may God make you a blessing as you open your home to radical hospitality to children, to strangers and to the weak; and may God bless you as you cherish your children as gifts from God. Amen.