Leithart
Ephesians 5:1-2, 25
Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you, and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma . . . . Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.
The Word of the Lord. Amen.
Let us pray.
Almighty God, who out of Your great love for the world gave Your only-begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him might have eternal life in the Spirit, illumine our hearts we pray, that we might know You and become imitators of Your ways, as Your beloved children; through Jesus our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and with the Spirit, ever one God, unto ages of ages. Amen.
Marriage customs vary widely and wildly throughout the world. According to van Gennep?s catalogue, the separation of a man and woman from their families that takes place in marriage can be symbolized by ?changing clothes; emptying a pot of milk and bursting three berries; cutting, breaking, or throwing away something connected with childhood or bachelorhood; releasing the hair; cutting or shaving the hair or the beard; . . . removing jewelry; consecrating one?s toys, such as dolls, one?s jewelry, and one?s childhood dress to a deity . . . baring the waist; changing food habits and being subject to temporary dietary taboos;?Eand so on.
The formation of a new home is symbolized by binding the bride and groom with a single cord; wrapping them in a single piece of clothing or a veil; sitting them in the same seat; by the bride and groom massaging, rubbing and anointing each other; washing each other; even drinking each other?s blood. Among some peoples, the bride?s relatives abduct and hide her shortly before the wedding until the groom can find her and take her back to his own home; among others, the groom has to fight to take his bride from her family in a mock battle that sometimes results in serious injuries.
For good or for ill, battles and abductions, cuttings and breakings, vampirism and massages are not normally part of our marriage customs. But at the center of most Western wedding ceremonies is a custom that is nearly universal: an exchange of gifts. Our particular custom goes back to the middle ages. During the Christian middle ages, as John Bossy says, ?the central rite of spousal consisted of an exchange in which the father or ?friends?Eof the bride gave her to the groom in exchange for a symbolic counter-gift, known . . . in England as the WED,?Ethe word from which we derive our word ?wedding.?E A ?wedding?Eis, etymologically, a ceremonial exchange of gifts. Despite many changes during the course of the middle ages, ?the structure of gift and counter-gift, making alliance by exchange, remained in place underneath.?E And of course it survives today, in weddings where the exchange of vows is followed by an exchange of rings.
This is perfectly suitable from a biblical point of view, for in Scripture covenants are often sealed by an exchange of gifts. When they came to the temple to renew covenant by sacrifice, the Israelites were not to appear before the Lord empty-handed. They were to come near to present presents. When a new king took his throne, his people brought gifts to express submission to him, and kings often offered gifts to their people at the time of accession. When a covenant was made between a king and his servants, the king offered land and the vassal offered service, and kings entered alliances with other kings by exchanging gifts. When Yahweh took up His throne in the tabernacle, the chiefs of all the tribes of Israel brought treasures to acknowledge Yahweh as their liege.
As a covenant-ceremony, a wedding is also, biblically speaking, involved with gift-giving. The laws of Exodus simply assume that the husband will pay a dowry for his bride: ?If a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged, and lies with her, he must pay a dowry for her to be his wife. If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he shall pay money equal to the dowry for virgins?E(Ex 22:14-15). Whatever the practical benefits of this system, and they are considerable, the symbolic dimension was equally important. A man entered into a covenant-relationship with a woman by giving gifts.
In the context of marriage, exchanging gifts is an expression of love, since every particular gift expresses the self-gift of the man to his bride and of the bride to her husband. As Paul says in Ephesians 5, we are imitators of God and we are His children, when we imitate the love of Jesus, His Eternal Son, whose love was manifested in giving Himself as a sacrifice to make a fragrant aroma. Paul begins his exhortation to husbands on the same note, telling them to ?love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.?E As a ceremony declaring and formalizing love, it is appropriate that a wedding should put gift-giving at the center. And reflecting on the character of gifts will clarify the kind of love you are pledging to one another today.
What makes a gift a gift? For many moderns, Christian and non-Christian, a gift is only a gift if the giver renounces any desire for a return gift. A true giver must not even expect or desire a thank-you, because desiring a ?thank-you?Eturns the gift into a purchase. You are buying gratitude. And this understanding of what it means to give a gift is closely related to a particular understanding of love. To love truly is to love without any desire to be loved. True giving is disinterested giving, because true love is disinterested love.
Some appeal to Jesus?Eteaching to support this view of gifts and gift-giving, and they are partly right. Jesus did say that we should give without expectation of return, and that is an essential biblical teaching about gift-giving. Husbands, if you give to your wives only when you believe she can pay you back in full, your marriage will be full of disappointment. Your love will dissolve into cost-benefit analysis, and besides, she will never be able to give you as much as you think you deserve. And, wives , if you withhold yourself from your husband until you know he can pay you back, you are going to be frustrated in marriage as well.
?Do good,?EJesus says, ?and lend, expecting nothing in return.?E That is an evangelical imperative, and an essential component of a healthy marriage.
But this is only part of the story. After Jesus issues that evangelical imperative, he gives an evangelical promise: ?Do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return,?Ebut then Jesus adds, ?and your reward in heaven will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High?E(Lk 6:35). So we should desire and expect a return on our gifts after all. In fact, we can expect a return that?s far greater than what we have given, for Jesus promises that our reward will be ?great.?E When we give in order to receive something from another human being, the problem is not that we are desiring and expecting too much. Quite the contrary: We are aiming too low, expecting and desiring too little.
This evangelical promise too is essential for a healthy marriage. Many wives become embittered against their husbands. They cook dinner every night, clean house, wash clothes, take care of children, and never receive so much as a thank you from their husbands. Husbands, for their part, become deeply hostile to their wives because they work six days a week, and turn over every cent of their paycheck to their wives to spend. Husband and wife share the same resentments: Nothing but giving and giving, they both think, without any appreciation or thanks, with nothing to show for all my time and effort. Bitterness and resentment of this sort arise from a single, simple mistake: The mistake of seeking a reward from the wrong direction. Bitterness takes root when we seek a reward on earth instead of trusting that God will give a better, a heavenly reward; hatred boils up when we seek return fr
om men, and not from God. Troubles arise in marriage when husbands and wives are looking for measly rewards from each other rather than ?great rewards?Efrom God.
Paul calls us at the beginning of Ephesians 5 to be imitators of God. We do that by imitating Jesus in His self-giving, but in imitating Jesus we are imitating God, the God revealed in Jesus, the God who is Father, Son and Spirit. This is true because the life of the Trinity is all about giving gifts, about self-giving in love, and about expecting and desiring a return. The Father gives Himself to the Son expecting a return from the Son, and the Son gives Himself back to the Father, with interest. The Father?s loving gift and giving love is met by the Son?s gift in the Love of the Spirit, so that the Father?s gift is returned in the double gift of the Son and the Spirit. This responsiveness, this desire for response, is the delight and life of the Trinity, and in this way, the Triune life is love. God is love because God is the giving God. The love of the Trinity is, as David Hart says, ?a love always of recognition and delight, desiring all and giving all at once, giving to receive and receiving to give, generous not in thoughtless squandering of itself, but in truly wanting the other.?E
If you want to have a healthy and joyous marriage, you must obey the evangelical imperative, and embrace in faith the evangelical promise. Not one nor the other alone, but both together. Give to each other without expecting anything in return; but give to each other confident that you will receive a return, trusting that you will receive a ?great reward?Ein heaven. Then you will be imitators of God, the Triune God whose life is giving and receiving and giving again, whose eternal joy is the eternal round of giving that is simultaneously and eternally reception and return.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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