Some Sadducees tried to trip Jesus up. They posed a question about a woman who married seven brothers one right after the other and was widowed by each. Whose wife, they asked, will she be in the resurrection? We know they were attempting to cause Jesus to say something damaging because the Sadducees did not even believe in a resurrection. Jesus ™ answer was that there is no marriage in heaven. Technically marriage connotes a physical relationship. Heaven is not a physical place. Therefore there is no marriage in heaven. But there is a resurrection and there is a heaven. How do we know? Jesus says, "Because God is the God of the living and not of the dead." The text is a strong affirmation of life after death. However, I would like to depart from the text this morning and rather than asking if there is any marriage in heaven, I would ask if there is any heaven in marriage.
A newly married couple resolved never to have an argument. Their plan was that if their discussions started getting out of hand, one of them would go out for a walk around the block to cool down. At their silver wedding anniversary, the man claimed success. "You all know about our commitment not to argue," he told the assembled guests. "Well, we ™ve kept that vow. We ™ve been married 25 years. I ™ve had pneumonia 38 times, and I ™ve worn out 49 pairs of shoes, but we ™ve never had a fight."
The great English war hero Field Marshal Montgomery once said to his young troops: "Gentlemen, don ™t even think about marriage until you have mastered the art of warfare!" I ™m not certain whether he was saying that they should discharge their military obligation before marrying or that there are lessons to be learned in warfare that will be helpful in marriage. Whatever the aim, many marriages do resemble warfare more than the blissful state we all hope for. Many marriages are coming apart at the seams. Many others are held to be unrewarding and unfulfilling. We need help.
FOR YOU SEE, A SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE IS A FULL-TIME MAINTENANCE JOB. No wonder the Bible uses the marriage relationship so often as an analogy of life in the Spirit. Marriage is the most intimate of relationships besides our relationship with God. In the Bible the verb "to know" when applied to our knowledge of God is often the same word that is used when we read that Adam knew Eve and she conceived and bore a son, or Mary ™s stunned reply to Gabriel ™s announcement that she would bear a son, "How can this be since I have not known a man?"
The marriage relationship in many ways parallels our relationship with God. When you came into fellowship with Christ and this church, that was not the end but the beginning of your spiritual pilgrimage. Suppose you were baptized and joined the church and that was it. You never gave another thought to God or the Kingdom again. (I feel like I am describing someone you or I may know.) What kind of commitment would that be? So also in marriage, the wedding ceremony is not the end of your courtship of your spouse but it is only the beginning.
I read somewhere that the Golden Gate Bridge is continually in the process of being repainted. An army of painters never stops painting. They start at one end, and continue until they reach the other end. Then they start over again. This has continued since the bridge ™s conception. If they would stop their work, the salty ocean air would cause harmful corrosion. In a very short time the bridge would become unsafe as well as unattractive.
Allen Loy McGinnis in his book, THE ROMANCE FACTOR, compares it to maintenance on a house. "I have owned homes for twenty-five years," he writes, "and I am still amazed at how much one must do to keep a house from falling down. The forces of nature, things like gravity and the sun cause the house to revert to its natural state. It will crumble if you let it. Put off for a few months a one hour repair job on the gutters and you ™ll find yourself with a weekend of work to replace the rotted boards. The longer you postpone maintenance, the faster the rate of deterioration. I see that principle in families every day. Many couples, who have come to my office with a marriage in shreds, did not start fighting about unsolvable problems. Their marriages were not suffering from major malfunctions but merely from a series of small deteriorations that a little adjusting and tightening would have corrected. But people have lost interest and turned their attention to other things...The destruction had accelerated and when they came to my office, their lives and marriages were in shambles." Every wise person recognizes this. A successful marriage is not something that happens of its own accord. Marriage is something we work at constantly. It is an adventure-a game-a growing delight. But it is also hard work. That is the first step in putting heaven in our marriages the recognition that a good marriage requires maintenance.
THE SECOND STEP IS THE RECOGNITION THAT A SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE REQUIRES MUTUAL SHARING. By definition, marriage consists of more than one person. If there is to be a genuine relationship there must be conversation, communication, sharing, dialogue. So many husbands miss the opportunity to add to their marriage right at this point.
A delightful Jewish story tells about a small dealer in wheat in Russia named Itzik who went to a distant town to sell his grain. Before leaving, he faithfully promised his wife to send her a telegram if he succeeded in making a profitable transaction. Having made his deal, he went to the telegraph office and sat down to compose his telegram. He wrote: "Sold wheat profitably. Return tomorrow. Embrace lovingly. Itzik"
As he was about to hand the text to the clerk he hesitated. "Now why do I have to write `profitably ™? Certainly, my wife knows that I am no dummy. Would I sell my wheat at a loss?" So he crossed out the word "profitably."
Then he went over the telegram more carefully. "Tsk-ask! What have I done? Doesn ™t my wife know already that I went to town to sell my wheat? So why the devil do I write the words `sold wheat ™?" He crossed out "sold wheat."
Made doubly cautious now by his errors, he reread the telegram. "Heavenly day! What am I jabbering about? What makes me write `return tomorrow ™? When then should I return next month? My wife will suppose I ™ve gone out of my mind and imagine that I have money to burn." Without hesitation he crossed out "return tomorrow." Then with an eagle eye he went over the telegram once more.
"What a fool I am! Why do I have to write `embrace lovingly ™? How else do I embrace my wife? And why should I embrace her today of all days? Is it her birthday or something?" He crossed out "embrace lovingly."
Looking down at the telegram, he noticed that there was only one word left now his name, "Itzik." "Why do I have to sign `Itzik ™? Who else would be sending my wife a telegram?" And he crossed out the word "Itzik."
Now he scanned the telegram, and, finding that he had crossed out every word, a light dawned on him. "Do I really have to send this telegram? Money doesn ™t grow on trees! So he tore up the telegram and went away rejoicing that by his cleverness he had saved himself fifty kopecks. (1)
Why, he was just being practical, wasn ™t he, men? He was also, however, missing a golden opportunity to let his wife know that he cared. And that ™s sad. Sometimes it is the husband who needs that kind of reassurance, but a wife will almost always appreciate it.
Professor H.W. Jurgen, a West German sociologist, claims that couples chat with each other for seventy minutes a day in their first year of marriage, dropping to thirty minutes a day in their second year and then to only fifteen minutes in the fourth. His research shows that by the eighth year a husband and wife share hardly any small talk and become nearly silent with each other. That ™s deadly. There must be maintenance and there must be mutual sharing.
AND THERE MUST BE MUTUAL RESPECT AND ADMIRATION. Garrison Kellor on "Prairie Home Companion" tells about a couple in his fictitious hometown of Lake Wobegon named Florian and Myrtle Krebsbach. The Krebsbachs are so predictable that every Friday night of their married life, Myrtle has served the same meal: breaded fish fillets. But every Friday, Florian takes the first bite, savors it, and says, "Ah, that ™s the best you ever did." And he finds something different to compliment, something he hadn ™t noticed about her breaded fish fillets over the past forty-seven years, which comes to almost twenty-five hundred servings of breaded fish fillets. He admires his wife and it is important to him to express his admiration. (2)
This fact was impressed on me when I read something out of Lee Iacocca ™s autobiography. He wrote some touching words. He says, "All through my career at Ford and later at Chrysler, my wife, Mary, was my greatest fan and cheerleader. We were very close, and she was always at my side." It took enormous courage on her part to be there, he said, because she had diabetes, and her condition was aggravated by stress.
When Iacocca was fired from the presidency of Ford, and was offered the job of saving Chrysler, his wife ™s reaction was, "I love you, and know you can do anything you set your mind to." She ignored the toll it would take on her. Iacocca noted that on each of the occasions when her health failed her, it was following a period of great stress at Ford or at Chrysler.
He continues: "One evening two weeks before her death, Mary called me in Toronto to tell me how proud she was of me...." This encouragement meant a lot to Iococca. Later he would say, "Mary sustained me." But he also makes this sad confession: "Yet during those last few difficult years, I never once told her how proud I was of her." Here was one of the most successful men of our time confessing his failure to thank the person who held his life together during his greatest crisis. (3) That happens sometimes in a marriage, does it not? Marriage requires constant maintenance, mutual sharing, mutual respect. But one thing more.
A SUCCESSFUL MARRIAGE REQUIRES A LIFELONG COMMITMENT. For many of us that is the primary source of stability in our lives. R. W. Dale, a shy, sensitive man was among the greatest preachers of his own or any time. Yet he found himself the target of bitter hostility, hated for saying what he believed. And one day somebody asked him how he managed to survive. Dale replied very simply, "I am happy at home."
It is said that when Thomas Hardy died, his heart was removed from his body. His body was buried with honors in Westminster Abbey, but his heart rests beneath his parish churchyard next to his wife.
Many marriages today are in trouble. Many are coming apart. The only course that can see a couple through the vicissitudes of marriage is the absolute determination that there is no alternative.
A female voice came over the telephone: "Is this the Fidelity Insurance Company?" "Yes, Ma ™am," the receptionist replied. "Can I help you?" The caller continued, "I want to talk with someone about having my husband ™s fidelity insured." Unfortunately there is no such insurance except a firm commitment on the part of both partners that this marriage is forever.
Is there marriage in heaven? No, but there can be heaven in marriage when there is constant maintenance, mutual sharing and respect and a firm commitment that this really is ˜til death us do part.
1. Nathan Ausubel, A TREASURY OF JEWISH HUMOR, (New York: M. Evansand Company, 1951).
2. Harold Hazelip and Ken Durham, JESUS OUR MENTOR AND MODEL,(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1987).
3. Mark Hunter, THE PASSIONS OF MEN, (New York: G.P. Putnam ™s Sons, 1988).