Sept 20, 2009 Love for a Lifetime Matthew 19: 1-6
Fireproof Your Relationships: Sermon Three
Two little guys were sitting in a wedding, watching what was going on, when one asked the other, “So, how many marriages can you have?” His friend whispered, “16, I think.”
“16?” “I think so.” “How do you know?” “I added it up one time. Every time I come to a wedding the pastor says ‘Four better, four worse, four richer, four poorer.’”
Of course, we’re all hoping for the better and richer ones…Every time I do a wedding, I hand the rings to the bride and groom. Those rings are round, which means they have no end. That’s the nature of marriage. Those gold rings are costly because all marriages will have costs and sacrifice. And when I ask them to say their vows, it always ends with, “As long as we both shall live.”
We’re learning these days about how to fireproof our relationships, and especially how to fireproof your marriage. We all want our close relationships to last forever. But it seems to be difficult these days to make that happen. How can we make love last forever?
In our scripture today, Jesus tells us that love should last forever. He says “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.” That’s the warning I hear given by every pastor at the conclusion of every wedding. By this point, the couple is beaming. They’re about to turn and face their parents and friends, as husband and wife, for the very first time. In just a minute, the music will swell, the people will clap, they’ll descend the stairs and live… happily ever after.
It’s at that moment I’m most tempted to say, “Wait, wait! Let me tell you what’s most likely to happen from here! Because reality is, while you married for better and worse, richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, there’s going to be a lot more worse, poorer, and sickness than you hope for. Yes, you’ll have better and richer and health, but not all the time.”
Every relationship will go through seasons. And if we want those relationships to last, then we would do well to understand those seasons. So what is the first stage of a relationship?
1. Infatuation
The first season of most any relationship is Infatuation. Whether it is a romance or with two friends who just met, there is a time when we see our new relationship through rose colored glasses. We really like this new person and some part of us feels that this person will add to our life. Maybe it is an attractive person of the opposite sex. Or maybe it is someone we enjoy to play golf or to go to the movies. Whatever, we like this person and so we begin to spend time with them. This is a time of infatuation when we only see the best in our new friend.
Let’s say two young people meet and fall in love. Unlike the rest of the world, they have a picture-perfect relationship. While in this first season, they know that they have something special between them. Theirs is a rare love, not like the common stuff their parents’ experienced. More like Anthony and Cleopatra or Romeo and Juliet. There’s a surrealistic aura between them. Infatuation is the season that songs are written about.
Years ago, Lewis Wright wrote a song about this stage, and Michael Bolton updated it in the 1990’s. The title was “When a man loves a woman.” It goes like this….“When a man loves a woman, he can’t keep his mind on nothin’ else.” (Apparently including grammar.) “When a man loves a woman, he’d give up all his comforts and sleep out in the rain if she said that’s the way it ought to be.” Can we talk a minute? I ask you: wouldn’t most men want to discuss plan B if their wife said, “I want you to sleep out in the rain because that’s the way it ought to be?”
“Trying to hold onto your precious love baby, don’t treat me bad.” Personally, I think she treated him bad when she told him to sleep in the rain. But somehow, when we’re in this phase of infatuation, nothing else matters. We don’t think straight, we don’t act smart. Prominent Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck says that this phase of love is a prank played on us by our otherwise rational minds to trick us into doing things that we would normally never consider.
For most Americans, this infatuation stage lasts right up to somewhere between the “I now pronounce you man and wife,” and the first time he leaves the toilet seat up. In friendships, it last until we realize our friend is not so perfect after all. Psychologists tell us that feelings of infatuation wear off, on average, about 2 ½ years into any relationship.
And then you know what you’re left with?
2. REALITY.
Reality. That’s the second season of any relationship. Suddenly, one or both parties realizes that the object of their pursuit, the person of their dreams, the individual they feared they could never attain… is now someone they can never get rid of. They begin to think, “Now that I have this relationship, what do I do with it?” It’s like the dog that’s been chasing cars for years and one day he catches one. “Now what do I do?” he says. What do we do when the feelings of being in love begin to fade?
3. We choose to love.
The third season to any long term relationship is that we still choose to love. Despite the failures, despite to short-comings, we choose to still be with our friend. In our friendships, in our families, in our marriages, we can decide to love and keep on loving. One of the biggest lies put forward by Hollywood is that relationships are all about feelings. Every other song or movie tells us that we should always follow our hearts. But the Bible says the heart can be deceitful. Instead of following your heart, you need to lead your heart. Love isn’t a feeling, it’s an action. It’s a way of acting, a thing you do. The Bible’s most famous passage on love, 1 Corinthians 13, says that love is patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not proud, not rude, not self-seeking, not easily-angered. It says that it doesn’t keep score, doesn’t secretly like it when someone has something bad happen to truth, protects, trusts, hopes, and hangs in there. That’s God’s description of love. What part of that is based on emotions?
None of it. It’s all based on decision. To love is a decision. To hang in, even when happily ever after isn’t happening, that’s love. To try again, even when we do not feel it, that is true friendship. That trying again season is the season of…
4. Rebuilding
I have done research and work in archaeology. As you dig down on an ancient site, you discover that the deeper you go, the older the remains. Why is that? In ancient times, when a city was destroyed by an earthquake or a fire or a flood, the survivors would rebuild on top of the ruins of the old city. Yes, their city was in ruin and in rubble, maybe just like your relationship. But they also knew they could re-build. They knew they could have life again in that place. Our relationships are the same. No matter what ruin we have made, if we choose, God can enable us to re-build. All things can be new in Jesus Christ.
Is it a bad sign that we have to re-build? No. All friendships, all families, all marriages go through seasons. For most people, rebuilding is a normal state. After the first round of Infatuation and Reality and Choosing, most relationships come back to rebuilding in one area or another of their relationship. Just like spring follows winter and summer follows spring, relationships pass from one season to another to another, over and over again. It is all a matter of choosing to love even when we do not always feel so in love. That is the secret to making love last forever. If we choose, and choose again, and build and rebuild, at the end of it all, we will say, “We lived mostly happily ever after.” And others will say, “Those two had a really good marriage.” Amen.