NAME THE KEY INGREDIENT 

FOR A GREAT MARRIAGE

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 27 Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is, “Name The Key Ingredient for a Great Marriage.”

Today’s readings beg for a homily on Marriage.

The last time I preached on these readings I preached on divorce - so today I decided to preach on marriage.

Today’s first reading has a great folk tale. It's great literature. As you hear it, you can hear it being acted out in Jewish synagogues and circles for thousands of years and thousands of times.

You can hear a character up front playing God and saying, “It’s not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.”

Silence!  The audience waits to see who will be the suitable partner.

You can see Adam standing there as well - waiting for God’s answer and God’s gift of a partner. Next you start to see God going off to the side - making out he’s sculpting something out of the ground - just as he had made Adam out of the earth.

Drum roll: and God presents Adam with a goat and everyone laughs. Next comes a monkey, then a dog, then a cat and then a bird - and everyone laughs as Adam gives thumbs down or gives a frown to every one of these creations of God.

In his rejections Adam gives each animal a name as well.

It’s a great story - but Adam still has no suitable partner.

So the storyteller of Genesis has God casting Adam into a deep sleep. Then God reaches into Adam’s chest and dramatically pulls out a rib - and then you see God creating out of Adam’s rib a woman.

When the audience sees her - when the audience sees Adam’s face radiate in seeing the woman - the suitable partner - I’m sure they clapped and shouted - if the play was done well.

Then Adam bursts into his closing speech. Pointing to the woman, he says, “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called ‘woman,’ for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”

Then the narrator of the play closes with the very familiar words, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh.”

I think Bill Cosby does this skit the best when he has Adam saying when he sees Eve,  “Wow Man!” - the last great naming!

WELL: NAME THE KEY INGREDIENT FOR A GREAT MARRIAGE.

The title of my homily is, “Name the Key Ingredient for a Great Marriage.’

In the story,  Adam named the animals - but none proved a suitable partner. Then God gave him a partner: woman.

As I pictured today’s first reading I wondered what would it be like to have a play with God creating all kinds of ingredients to make a marriage work - and Adam is asked to name the most important ingredients and then  the  key ingredient for a great marriage.

If I polled all the married folks here, what answer would you give? What would be the key ingredient that would make you a suitable partner: love, respect, caring, communication, trust, making time, listening, children, working on making it work?

I would say that 66% of the marriages that I’ve been the priest for, couples pick for one of their readings, the love is this and love is that text from First Corinthians 12:31 to 13:8. Paul tells us that love is the greatest gift - the greatest ingredient. He spells out what it is and what it isn’t. It’s not rude, it’s not crude, it’s not pushy or pompous. Nope. It’s patience. It’s acts of kindness. It’s trust and hope. All these ingredients and more are what love is all about.

When heard, when done well, that would get a lot of Amen’s.

If we asked the divorced, "What happened?", we would get some of the same answers. They might say the negatives ran the show and the positives had disappeared and failed to show up. Those are ingredients for a disaster - an actual disaster or a silent divorce where a couple are still together - but where two are two and not one.

MY ANSWER

I’m not married - so I’m a bit hesitant to give my take on what it would take to make a great marriage.

As I thought about this, I wondered how Protestant ministers or Eastern Rite priests and now various former Anglican priests who are or were married would preach on marriage. Would they be much more practical and down to earth than a celibate?

Would there then be pressure to make sure they practiced what they preached?  Would they feel under the microscope in their marriage? What happens when a minister or a rabbi and his or her spouse break up and divorce?

As I thought about all this yesterday - after coming back from doing a wedding at the Naval Academy, I wondered if I could present an ingredient - that if it was made key - in a marriage - it would it be so convincing that married folks upon hearing it - would decide to work at putting that ingredient into their marriage - if they haven’t already - and married life for them would be great this coming week - and any week or day they put that ingredient into practice.

Then it hit me - that ingredient - would also make a great priest - a great boss - a great teacher - a great person to spend a lunch break with - a great person to spend one’s life with.

STEPHEN COVEY

As I was thinking about all this - trying to come up with the key ingredient - I remember listening to a tape of Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He died recently, but his stuff is still good.  Habit # 5 was to “Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood.” What I heard with this habit was the message to forget self and take the side of the customer - or the other. Instead of giving the sales pitch, find out what the buyer feels fears about  - what the buyer is wondering about - what his or her questions are.

In other words - to shut up - and find out what the other is thinking, feeling, wondering about - and then the buyer or the other might ask, “What are you selling?”

JESUS CHRIST

As I remembered that, I realized that is a key idea about Christ. “For a little while” as today’s second reading puts it - the Second Person in the Mystery of God - was made “lower than the angels”.  That’s what we Christians believe - when we believe in the Trinity. We believe that God did just that in becoming one of us. Jesus Christ started as a baby. He came into our skin - into our flesh.

The theological word used is “Incarnation” - but the specialists tell us - not to use such words in a sermon.

Still, whatever word is used, there it is: Christianity. There it is:  Marriage. There it is: the secret of life and love.

The key ingredient to a happy marriage and a happy life - is become like Jesus - who said, “Everyone wants to be served, but here I am in your midst as one who serves.” There’s the key ingredient: to die to self - so the other can rise.

So the couple who are there for the other - who listen, who ask, who is concerned what’s going on inside the other - incarnation - it is they who understand sex - understand life - understand Christ - understand partnership.

It is they who understand the Mass - and every meal. It’s all about serving the other. It’s all about letting the other person eat us up - because we’re willing to be consumed by the other - and if we’re blessed by children - to give our lives for them as well. Listen carefully to the prayer at the end of Mass today. It basically says what one woman told me after the 7:30 Mass. She said, "It says, 'We become what we eat!'" We become Christ. We become the other. We become one!

CONCLUSION

So the key ingredient for a great marriage is: you before me. 

It's to serve rather than wanting to be served.  It's to let the other eat us up - to be Eucharist - Christ - for the other. St. Thomas Aquinas said it this way when he described what love is: Love is wanting and working for the well being of the other. 

OOOOOOOOOO

Painting on top: The Arnolfini Marriage by Jan van Eyck [1434] - National Gallery London. The wedding took place in Brugge in 1434 between Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami.