A Sermon: Clothe Yourselves with Love

Scripture reading Colossians 3:12-17

As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

The truth of the matter is this: we need more courageous Christian marriages.

Perhaps these words are worth unpacking a bit.

Marriage… …a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman, to live together and to make a home, to support one another through the trials and triumphs of life, to tend to one another in every situation and in every need, and to promise that each will seek the good of the other.

At a minimum, we can say that it is a legal civil contract between a couple. Better still, it is a lifelong commitment that is bigger and more substantial than either of two individuals would be on their own. Even more, it is a gift God has given to all humankind for the well-being of the entire human family.

Christian marriage… …still a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman, but now understood from the eyes of biblical faith.

Regardless of our age or even if we are married, everyone who is baptized is called to live a life of faithfulness before God: loving God and loving neighbor. We call this discipleship.

But in Christian marriage, two people are called to live this life of faith together. They now have each other to walk with in this journey we are all called to make: to worship, to pray, to love, to serve, to do justice, to make peace, to nurture faith in children and in others. These callings are possible because God makes them possible.

Christian marriage affirms God’s old, old observation, first made in Genesis. God turns to Adam—which in Hebrew means human—and says, “it is not good for you to be alone.” And God creates a corresponding partner.

As such, we have the audacity to confess that it is indeed possible for two people to relate to one another on such an intimate level—heart, mind, emotions, body, and faith— that we can come to speak of those two people as becoming one flesh. And this becoming is only possible within the strength, security, convictions, confines, and commitments of the marriage vow made in the presence of God.

A Christian marriage stands before Jesus and says, “Use us together to build up your kingdom and better your world, and along the way use our marriage to make us the people you have called us to be. Sanctify us through each other and in the process we will root ourselves in a community of baptized faith, lest we forget that these vows we have taken are larger than our individual selves, they are bigger than we are. And so we need Scripture, congregation, sacrament, prayer, worship, and faithful brothers and sisters in order to fulfill this heavenly calling.”

That, or something very much like that, is what we mean by Christian marriage.

But even still, what we need more of; what the world needs most to have modeled; what can and must take place lest we all slide further into the murky mess that is male-female relations these days; what the Lord Jesus calls us to are more courageous Christian marriages.

We need couples who have the courage to be active, responsible, brave participants in what is surely the most daunting, challenging, mysterious, and wonderful relationships ever conceived by God. So wonderful and mysterious is it that the New Testament sees fit to describe the relationship between Christ and his people, the gathered church, as a marriage: Jesus the groom, we the bride.

It takes great courage to live into this kind of calling. Marriage is not for wimps. And we all need all the courage we can find.

We need couples who recognize the great gravity and enormous significance of the vows we take in marriage. Listen closely to what will be said here in just a few minutes: I vow to be faithful through whatever may come. Till death do us part.

We need couples who understand that the working out of a good marriage, a faithful marriage, is a lifelong journey. Their sights are set on the big picture. They understand that it is something you work at, not at all automatic, but a thing you practice every day.

We need couples who are wise enough to understand that romance, sexual intimacy, warm affection, heartfelt passion, etc. are the fruits, not the foundation for a good marriage. Everyone hungers for these things these days. And as well they should: they are good and blessed things, gifts from God. But you cannot put the romantic cart before the marital horse.

We need couples who are brave enough to remember that the question is not whether you will disagree, fight, argue, or struggle. That much is certain. The only real question in a courageous marriage is how you will do these things; how you will disagree, fight, argue, or struggle. For the Christian, these things can be done with love, kindness, forgiveness, and patience. Not if, but how.

We need couples who are not afraid to be honest with each other, with themselves, with God, and even with those around them about their struggles, their imperfections, and especially their need for each other. Let us stop trying to pretend that we are totally self-sufficient people. Hear this: self-sufficiency is idolatry of the highest order. We are built to need each other. The need is the gift, as long as that need is fulfilled in good and right ways. Outside of those few who are called to a life of singleness, for most of us marriage will be the primary way we are kept from “being alone.”

We need couples who are courageous enough to realize that in order to make a lasting marriage, a man and a woman have to be willing to dig deep into their own lives, to be honest about what they find there, good and bad, and to take responsibility for their own actions and habits. Then, and only then, will a marriage—a “two becoming one” —take place. How much time do we spend trying to work on our spouse? Perhaps instead we should let our marriages work on us.

We need couples who are sober enough to realize that this world is no longer a friend to faithful marriages, if it ever really was. The prevailing culture no longer applauds what we are about here this morning, at least not in the main. This ever encroaching culture of promiscuity, entitlement, resentment, “what’s in it for me,” profound isolation, addiction, cynicism, and secrecy—it is, at best, benign to a faithful marriage; at worst, it is hostile to it. We must be careful and intentional about how and where and with whom we spend our time; careful about how we nurture our lives and our marriages.

We need couples who realize that what most characterizes a faithful Christian marriage is not the fact that two people are parents, workers, wage earners, home maintainers, or even lovers. At the bottom of a good marriage are two people who are simply Christian friends. When everything else in your marriage becomes mundane, predictable, painful, or worn out, try just being a faithful friend for awhile. Learn to do that again, and everything else that is a part of marriage will soon follow. We need couples who sense that there is deep and powerful connection between our relationship to God and our relationship to our spouse. The more one nourishes their soul and follows Christ where he leads, the more one worships, prays, reflects on Scripture, serves the world, and fellowships with faithful folk, then the more one will be able to, even desire to love his/her spouse.

We need couples who have the courage to remember that no matter how bad things get, no matter how hopeless it seems, how bad it feels, how bumpy the road gets, or how dysfunctional it may become, the vows they took are always bigger than the difficulties they face. Again let me say, the vows they took are always bigger than the difficulties they face. I am a pastor, so I see a lot of brokenness. Yet I believe this to be true: that God is able and willing to redeem even the most broken of marriages.

We need couples who will make daily decisions to keep at it, to do their part to be faithful to these marriage vows so that the Holy Spirit can do its part: to pour into those fragile, clay jars of human faithfulness the divine treasures of affection, joy, blessing, and hope.

This is what we need, this is the kind of thing to which Christ calls us, and this is what we pray for in Stephanie and Mark and for anyone who would marry in our midst: courageous Christian marriages.

So how does one set out to be courageous and Christian in a marriage? I have only been at this seven or so years. Most of you have been at this a lot longer than I have. And yet I can at least tell you where it starts: in Colossians 3.

“Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and love.” What a marvelous image: clothe yourselves, put on these things, cover yourself in them like a good sweater covers your body. It is an image we can all relate to because we all wear clothing. And it is a particularly helpful image, I think, because clothing yourself is a daily activity. No matter what you are up to a on a particular day, you have to put on clothes of one kind or another.

This Christmas my mother gave me a nice, new bathrobe. That’s no small order for someone this tall! I swear it is the most comfortable thing I have ever put on in my life. I would wear it to work if I could get away with it. So now, every morning, as a part of my routine I get up and put on that robe. We can all relate to this. Clothing yourself is an active, not a passive thing to do.

As baptized Christians, we are called to wake up and begin every day by clothing ourselves in Christ, to say with old Martin Luther from the 15th century, before the start of every day, “I am baptized.”

And to say, “On this day I will love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength and I will love my neighbor as myself.” This is our daily regimen, our daily calling.

And for a Christian in marriage, the same holds true. We are called to begin each day by taking again the vows we take at the beginning of marriage: to clothe ourselves in love.

Marriage—like the baptized life—is a daily decision. You take one set of vows, one time, but then you retake them again, day after day.

The worst thing you can do is imagine that once you have begun, the real work is behind you. That would be like a sea captain assuming that because he leaves port headed in the right direction, that his ship will stay on course on its own. It will not.

Winds will blow, storms will come, days will drag on, perhaps the helmsman will fall asleep at the wheel.… Countless things will seek to take him off course. And so the smart captain takes the time to constantly check his bearings, to make constant little course corrections, knowing that a few degrees off at the beginning of a trip means several hundred miles off at the end.

The same is true for marriage. Every day is a chance to make course corrections, to live into the vows we take with our spouses.

Shortly after we were engaged, I found out that Elizabeth’s mother sent her a note. In it she said, “There will probably be days when you wake and do not feel as though you are in love with him.”

Now you interpret that however you like! I chose not to take it personally!

But she went on. “In those times you will have to choose to love him, and keep choosing, until the time when you feel in love with him again.”

Now that is pretty good advice. And very biblical as well. Even though the words of Paul in Colossians 3 are written to all Christians, married or not, they make a marvelous daily reminder for husbands and wives. Couples ought to put these words up on the refrigerator so that they can be seen every morning:

bear with one another,
forgive each other when there is a complaint,
clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony,
let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,
be thankful for each other,
let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
teach and admonish one another in all wisdom,
and whatever we do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

What would your marriage look like if you started each day by clothing yourself with these things?

This is our calling: courageous, active, loving marriages. Marriages clothed in the peace and kindness that only Christ can give.

I want to say to Stephanie and Mark that it is our great honor as a congregation, along with so many guests, family, friends, to gather with you here today in the context of worship to witness your marriage.

Having had the privilege of hearing their story and working with them in preparation for this day and their life together, I have no doubt that God, in his good providence, has brought them together at this time. They enter this marriage with great courage, great humility, and a deep love for each other. They are good for each other on many levels.

This marriage is a grace, a healing, and an encouragement to both of them at this time in their lives. I even sense it is a reminder to them that God really does wish them well. I am confident that they will seek to be faithful to God and to each other for the long haul, even as they learn from one another about what that looks like day after day.

Let us encourage and support them in this new marriage. Let us do our part to help them foster a courageous Christian marriage. And whether you have been married 5 or 50 years, whether you look ahead to a time of marriage or look back on one that was, let us all renew the claim we share in Christian marriage.

Let us “do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Amen

This sermon first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Mar/Apr 2005).