Sermon from May 15, 2011
"The Divine Structure"
Mark 10:8-9

I'd like to build in your minds a picture of something simple, uninteresting, and boring. Then, I’d like to show you how genius takes that simple, uninteresting, and boring thing and turns it into something magnificent.

Let’s begin with two pitches on the piano – a g and an e flat. (Play them.) A child might accidentally hit those pitches in succession. If the child hits them often enough, parents will put a stop to it. It becomes intolerable quickly.

So, how can we make them interesting? We might play them as an ostinato – e flat-g. That has promise, but it too gets old unless we can place it in an interesting context. Here’s an idea. Let’s play the pitches downward and then follow that by sequencing them down one full step – g-e flat, f-d. What is this, Big Ben beginning to chime across the River Thames? No, it isn’t, but you begin to see how a simple, uninteresting, and boring thing begins to have possibilities.

A musical genius would take those four pitches and explore many possibilities. Well, I am neither a musical genius nor a pianist. So, I’ll cut to the chase and show you what a musical genius did with those four notes. He made the g pitch into three eighth notes followed by the e flat in a dotted half note. (Play that.) Then, he sequenced it down in the same rhythm to an f pitch in three eighth notes followed by the d in a dotted half note. (Play that.) Then, he added an octave to give it fullness. (Play that.) In the end he orchestrated that, and it sounds like this.

It’s hard to remember, as you hear the whole orchestra playing the first measures of the symphony that it’s just those four pitches in a certain rhythm. If we had time enough, and I had skill enough, you would be amazed at what Beethoven did with those nondescript pitches, g e flat f d, over the four movements of Symphony #5 in C Minor.

And what, pray tell, does this have to do with marriage and the family? This sermon is built around four ideas, just as Beethoven’s Fifth is built around a four-note motive. I think our world, which is determined to go about its business as if God doesn’t exist, will think they are simple, uninteresting, and boring ideas. Thanks to Beethoven’s Fifth, I hope you are prepared to see them as building blocks of ordered human existence. So, I’ve got to stop sitting down on the job and introduce you to our four building blocks.

Marriage and Children
Let’s start at the very beginning, Genesis 2:18. The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Verses 21-24: So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

Jesus quoted verse 24 with approval and added His own memorable commentary: “So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate” – Mark 10:8-9. That’s where the formula comes from. God’s design for marriage is one man and one woman for life. That’s why we say that marriage is good; God created it. That’s the first building block for ordered human existence.

We call it the unitive function of marriage. Not only does the act of marriage unite a couple, but so do their many acts of mutual help and comfort. When a spouse dies, it’s the little things that haunt the surviving spouse – the favorite shirt, the old slippers, certain smells, little rituals now gone. All the little things they hardly noticed had knit their hearts together so that they were no longer two but one.

That brings us to the second building block for ordered human existence. Genesis 1:28: God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”

We call that the procreative function of marriage. Not only does the act of marriage unite husband and wife spiritually, physically, and psychologically, it also unites them in the birth and care of children. There is a delightful restaurant near the intersection of Rockland Road and Route 100 called Krazy Kat’s. The food and ambience are delightful, and outside is a sign with a sentiment that catches unsuspecting diners by surprise. It says, “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” It makes me want to rechristen the restaurant as Kool Kat’s.

Everywhere that sentiment has lost its hold upon the imagination of a people, that people is beginning to die. “In Germany, as in Western Europe generally and in Italy most particularly, people are not having babies. . . . Having children is no longer considered a duty owed the future but is viewed as one of many possibilities to be taken into account in calculating personal satisfaction and securing one’s preferred way of life.” (First Things, March 2003, 9)

The dangers are more than demographic. We find the language of Genesis 1:28 to be quaint: “Fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” Let me have a go at a contemporary paraphrase. “Fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the leisure necessary to generate new ideas and over the technology necessary for clean energy and over everything seven billion people need to do to feed themselves and live in peace.

We need people to carry on our civilization: geniuses to make discoveries, smart people to teach and do research, and hundreds of millions of people to pay for it. A generation devoted to “personal satisfaction and securing one’s preferred way of life” instead of having babies will gradually cost a nation the ability to keep up.

Piety and Fidelity
We have two building blocks so far: 1) let a man and a woman marry for life and 2) let them have babies. The next two building blocks grow out of those first two, much like the f to d sequence grew out of the original g to e flat in Beethoven’s symphony. We can do one-stop shopping for the next two building blocks.

We find them both in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20. The Fifth Commandment in verse 12 says, “Honor your father and your mother.” We often render this as “Obey your father and your mother.” That is appropriate for children. Obedience is their first lesson in honoring parents. The second lesson is honoring your parents when you have legitimate reason to disagree with them. Now we are discovering a new dimension in honoring father and mother with the rise of assisted living facilities, dementia, and heart-rending end of life decisions. And the first Boomers just turned 65.

English has a beautiful and apt word for all this. We know the word, but it has a secondary meaning that we have forgotten. I want you to know that secondary meaning, because it lends gravity to the Fifth Commandment. It is the word piety. It means the dutiful respect for parents. We use this word only in its religious sense of devotion to God, and that’s the point. Honoring father and mother is akin to honoring God. And why not! God created life, but your father and mother mediated that life to you in every sense of the word and at great cost to them. Honor is justice rendered to them.

Verse 14 gives us our fourth building block. “You shall not commit adultery.” The act of marriage unites husband and wife spiritually, physically, psychologically and in the birth and care of children. Don’t introduce a third person into the act of marriage. The third person can destroy all that unites a husband and wife.

This is a good place to introduce an idea that may surprise you. I have heard through the years the accusation that Christians believe sexual sins are the worst sins. You should know that the Church has never taught that. It has reserved first place among all sins for pride. But the Church’s intuition about sexual sins has wisdom in it. We can’t shake the feeling that unrestrained sexual behavior will destroy people’s lives. AIDS, the looming social disaster of boys without father, and smart phone sexting do nothing to shake that feeling. This climate of unrestraint has made adultery much more common.

Crafting the Symphony
There you go: Let a man and a woman marry for life, and don’t commit adultery! Let them have babies, and honor your father and your mother! Those four divine commandments are not optional. We cannot imagine human existence without them any more than we can imagine a piano keyboard without g, e flat, f, and d. God planted them in human nature. We all think it’s right to marry and be faithful. We all think it’s right to have children and honor your parents.

We will build up human life or tear it down according to how we “play those divine notes on the human keyboard.” That’s why it is breath-taking how many people despair of marriage as a good thing and how often adultery finds a sympathetic home in the arts and in life. It is breath-taking how many people refuse to bear children and how many parents live out their days ignored by their children.

When I was a boy, a Sunday afternoon television show caught my fancy. I remember nothing about the content of a single episode, but I remember a sentence that captured the purpose of every episode. “It’s better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”

It’s easy to curse the darkness; there are many targets. It’s easy to lament the loss of the good old days; they really were good, and they really are lost. So, let’s move on. I love the good sense of Philippians 2:14-16: Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.

So, my dear congregation, whom I love and long for, let’s stop complaining about how bad the world is; let’s shine. Let’s “demonstrate the remarkable and admittedly unusual character of (our) . . . citizenship” in heaven by the way we enter into and preserve marriage, and by the way we bear and nurture children, and by the way we honor our parents as long as they live on the earth.

Sexual immorality, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, and selfish ambition are putting great pressure on marriage and family life, (See Galatians 5:19-21.) Keeping in step with the culture around us will encourage that destructive behavior. Social networking, Jerry Springer, and CSI offer a credible vision of the world that is radically different from what the Holy Spirit is at work to grow in the Church. You may have 500 channels on your TV set; you’ll be lucky to find five that challenge that secular vision of life. We can’t keep taking that stuff in unchallenged. “Garbage in garbage out” applies to people as well as computers.

We are in a spiritual war. The powers of darkness are out to dull our minds and shackle our wills. They must not prevail. They will. Jesus already said of His death on the cross: “Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out” – John 12:31. Revelation 12:12 says: But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.

The challenge to the Church is to overcome the devil’s onslaught. It won’t last long, but it will last long enough to place the Church in grave peril. The great question to the Church at the present hour is this: “Can you be men and women of moral integrity in a world where you can do anything you can get away with?”

No, sexual sins are not the worst sins, but they serve well as the canary in the coal mine to tell us if we have refused God. The canary is in poor health. We have to make a concentrated effort together to keep in step with what the Holy Spirit is at work to grow in the life of the Church. Love, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control relieve pressure on marriage and family life. (See Galatians 5:22-23.) Keeping in step with the Spirit offers a credible vision of what the Spirit grows in the Church.

So, let’s expose ourselves to those events where the Spirit is known to be at work: prayer, reading and obeying scripture, public worship, Christian music, small groups, serious Bible teaching, missionaries, and mission trips to various parts of the globe. Don’t be tepid about the culture of the Church. Embrace it. Learn from it. Advocate it. Pray for it! Weep for it! Reform it! Extend it. Rejoice over it.

And out of that Holy Spirit matrix let us build and heal marriages, partner with parents in rearing children and teenagers, and provide help for people who care for aging parents. Let’s glorify God and offer people what they need to flourish as human beings.

Loose Ends
You may say to me, “That’s nice, but I’ve made a hash out of what God commanded.” I say to you, and I would say to every person whose marriage has failed, who has committed sexual sins, and who is alienated from parents: You can come to this church and not be condemned. But we will call you to repentance. Repentance means turning back to God. Turning back to God is not a once-for-all event. Every time we turn away from God we need to turn back to Him.

Stop digging your heels in and defending yourself! Acknowledge your failure to God. God is merciful. Why not do it right here, right now? Don’t worry about saying the right words. Just tell God what you’ve done and that you’re sorry and that you believe that Christ died for your sins. That turn-around makes possible a new beginning

Let’s not build this church on condemnation and cursing the darkness. Let’s build it on repentance, forgiveness, and the hope that come from new beginnings in Christ.