MARRIAGE: COVENANT OR BREAKING FAITH

Malachi 2

A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

Embedded in the text we looked at on Sunday, Malachi chapter 2, are at least two key references that are each repeated several times. They were:
1. Covenant: vs. 4, 5, 5, 8, 10, 14
2. Breaking faith: vs. 10, 11, 14, 15, 16
In other words this is all about an evaluation of how God’s covenant people, are living up to their commitments to a covenant-keeping God. The faithfulness of God is exposing the faithlessness of God’s people. So…how are we doing when it comes to what we have covenanted to be and do for God? How faithful are we? How are we keeping our part of the covenant we made? If you are a Christian and a reader of scripture you will be more than familiar with the meaning and significance of covenant. To quote one OT scholar, (Dryness) “It is at the heart of the biblical notion of history…it is the core of the Hebrew understanding of their relationship with God.” Confirming this, another OT scholar (Harrison) writes that the Hebrews were unique in the way that they interpreted “the whole of their national existence in terms of a solemn covenantal agreement” with God. But it is also the fundamental nature of our understanding as NT Christians of the work of Jesus and our relationship with Jesus, who inaugurated a new covenant in his blood. The ultimate consummation of this covenant is presented as the marriage supper of the lamb. All spiritual relationship, all relationship with God, all of God’s relationship with us, is about a covenant.

So what is a covenant? It has been defined as agreement between two parties based on a promise. It includes at least these four elements:

ο an undertaking of committed faithfulness made by one party to another
ο the acceptance of that undertaking by the other party
ο public knowledge of such an undertaking and its acceptance
ο the growth of a personal relationship based on and expressive of such a commitment.

In scripture this is best summarized in the oft-repeated formulation: “You will be my people and I will be your God.” (Jer.30:22) In Malachi, there is specific mention of the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. Equally, God presents his relationship with men and women as a marriage covenant. Throughout scripture there is an interplay between these two covenant marriages as one irradiates and informs the other. This similarity is seen in the common constituent elements they share, and has been well summarized by someone (Dunstan) like this:

1. An initiative of love creates the relationship and invites a response
2. The covenant is made sure by an oath, a vow that guards against the fickleness or fitfulness of just a temporary emotional bond
3. The covenant requires faithfulness to certain obligations
4. Blessing is promised as a fruit or reward of faithfulness to these covenant obligations
5. Sacrifice is involved as the covenant demands of the parties a willingness, determination and commitment to pay the price for its perpetuity and success.

Nowhere is this more graphically expressed than in Ezekiel 16:8 where God says to Israel, “I passed by and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the border of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you a solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the sovereign Lord, and you became mine…I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you.”

From Genesis to Revelation, God expresses his relationship with his creation in covenantal terms. When it comes to covenant, God makes it, remembers it, establishes it, keeps it, is ever mindful of it, commands it, confirms it. Sadly, in opposition to all those positive verbs, man is constantly breaking it, forgetting it, forsaking it, transgressing it. Malachi is an illustration of all of this. Chapter two is:

ο An investigation of the state of the people’s covenant commitment;
ο An indictment of covenant breaking in their personal and national life;
ο An invitation to respond to God before the curses of the covenant are enacted.

It’s not enough to talk vaguely and generally about one’s relationship with God. We can all airbrush it sufficiently to come out sounding reasonably OK. Was this not exactly what Israel was doing in Malachi’s time? Attending the temple? Sure. But attendance at worship did not mean the same as attentiveness to God. Giving offerings? Sure. But God saw that what was being given was the left-overs, not the first-fruits. Hanging out with the others? Sure. But God comments on their broken relationships. Coming to the altar and weeping? Sure. But God says that their tears were for self not for sin. How does God throw a light on the true nature of their covenant relationship with Him? By putting the spotlight on some other subordinate covenant relationships. Someone has wisely said, “You test the reality of your commitment to live in covenant with God by evaluating the level of commitment to the lesser covenants of your life.” This goes along with what John wrote in his first epistle, 4:20 – Anyone who does not love his brother who he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

This is exactly what Malachi does. He looks at covenantal commitments in three areas of relationships: with the priests, with the people, and with partners in marriage. You will have to get the tape/CD to get the details as space is running out here. In summary:

Priests: they are not loyal to God, not committed to God, not fulfilling their ministry obligations. Clearly this is a charge against spiritual leadership, particularly those who bear the public face of pastoral ministry, yet in Malachi’s words, fail on two counts: they fail to listen to God and therefore fail to speak for God. Their original call, to example a godly life, and to exhort the people through their teaching, had long since been abandoned. They were meant to be marked by: reverence, revelation and righteousness. And lest you feel too comfortable and say that it’s all the leaders’ fault, let me remind you of the NT’s presentation of the priesthood – the priesthood of all believers – so it is not enough anymore for the ministrations that God requires, to be expressed by a few but by all. So how are all of us, as NT priests, fulfilling the covenant? What is the example of your life? What is the state of the word in you, and your capacity to exhort others in the ways of God? What is the state of your devotion, your study, your sacrifice, your sexual purity? Someone commenting on this chapter has said that it is a terrifying picture of how a church can do more harm than good: when there is a failure of its members to personally listen to the Lord, when there is no presentation of biblical truth, when people do not seek instruction, or get weary of it, where there is no personal engagement with the ministry of Jesus to others. In Malachi, the breaking of the covenant, the breaking of faith, is seen in the dereliction of priestly duty and service.

People: they are not loyal to each other, to the responsibilities of the spiritual family, to fellowship. When it comes to the worship service, they’ll show up to worship but they’re not into service. Malachi talks about the “covenant of the fathers.” Their covenant was with THE Father. “Have we not all one Father? Did not one God create us?” If they have a common father then they should have a common DNA of commitment. So why then is there such a lack of unity and consistency, such variations of passion and commitment, such a range of involvement? How can people who claim the same father bear so little family resemblance when it comes to spiritual commitment? How can a common covenant produce this situation where some are sold out but most are part-timers. How did the covenant ever become about what was convenient. Are they really related to the Father? Malachi is clear, almost in a NT sense, of the way that those who fail to live covenantally, fail the whole covenant community, sin against the entire fellowship. They think that spiritual life is solo, without responsibilities, without obligations, and without consequences, and don’t realize that such attitudes and behaviors actually put the community at risk. No, the covenant has obligations! But Malachi also makes another serious charge against the people, in his reference to their mixed marriages. They were marrying outside their faith – “marrying the daughter of a foreign God.” Admixture was the beginning of a process of backsliding. It is about a call to holiness. It is not about being exclusive but about being clean. It is not about being a social separatist but about being spiritually separated from what God has clearly said you should not carry on with. Again, Malachi points out that personal sin is viewed by God as “desecrating the sanctuary the Lord loves.” The breaking of faith, the breaking of covenant is seen in the way that personal sin, personal lack of wholeheartedness for God, admixture, has affected the effectiveness of the community and spoiled fellowship and brotherly relationship.

Partners: marital partners are not loyal to their spouses, not committed to their covenantal marital vows and obligations. The zoom lens has moved from priests, to people to what is going on behind closed doors in marriages. Once again, it is the strength of divine communication here that is so gripping and confrontational. The breakdown of the marriage covenant among God’s people is presented as the final straw – the ultimate factor that explains why God is not responding to the nation. The focus seems to be very much on the men, as no less than four times they are addressed: the wife of your youth (v.14); your partner (v.14); the wife of your marriage covenant (v.14); the wife of your youth (v.15) The situation is that men are abandoning their wives for younger women, and mostly non-Jews at that. These are divorces that are happening in the second or maybe even the third decade of marriage. God’s attitude to divorce, and His revelation about the nature and effects of it, are blunt and radical. So many points are made in this passage. Marriage is a one-flesh creation (in keeping with Genesis text) God only gave “one” spouse. It was not that he ran out of “breath” in creation! The Hebrew text here implies the idea of a residue of spirit, as if God could have made another woman but did not. The point is that “one-man / one-woman” is divinely ordained. God had a desire for godly marital relationship because he was also committed to the generations and longed for “godly offspring.” This text alone conveys the holocaust of pain and suffering that is reaped by a generation that is born into marital breakdown and anarchy – where the kindness and goodness and faithfulness of God is no longer reflected and exampled and exhorted in the relationship of the marriage. (What is your marital relationship teaching your children?) God is opposed to divorce and expresses his feelings about it in the strongest emotional language ever associated with divine feelings. All attempts to rationalize, familiarize, marginalize scriptural teaching about marriage or divorce, have to do so with an accountability to these divine responses, and to God’s description of the violations and violence that it causes. We learn that despite the number of reasons given for divorce, (and I’ll deal with these and scriptural “exceptions” later) the root issue is a matter of the spirit, not the spouse. If something is amiss in the relationship, regardless of how it is being expressed, the spiritual nature of the problem needs to be addressed. “Guard your spirit… and do not break faith.” Failure to guard the inner life is an invitation to be vulnerable to break faith, first with the Lord, then with your partner.

As I shared at the end of the teaching, thank God that he is a covenant-keeping God, and that in and through the new covenant with us in Jesus’ sacrifice, covenant-breakers can once again be covenant-makers! May the Lord encourage our covenant relationships this week and may they especially be a source of much thanksgiving to God. Happy Thanksgiving!


Pastorally yours,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)

For Prayer

Fastina Calderone, our dear nursery “grandma”, has died. Please pray for comfort for her family and all the children she cared for who loved and miss her.

Announcements

You are invited to Corrie Remembers, Monday, December 3, 7:30pm at COSC. An offering will be taken. This moving and inspirational one-woman drama will be performed by Susan Sandager. She portrays Corrie ten Boom, a Christian woman who hid Jews in her home in Nazi occupied Holland during the Holocaust. Listen as Corrie relates the story of her extraordinary family and their allegiance to the Jewish people.

Silent Auction for Costa Rica Trip: The COSC Youth are organizing a silent auction to raise funds for the 2008 mission trip to Costa Rica. If you are interested in supporting the event by donating auction items or helping to organize it, contact John Stofer (johnfstofer@yahoo.com; 202-834-2311) or Scott Herbert (scottherbert5@yahoo.com; 202-550-3299). The auction will be at COSC on December 15, from 7:00pm—9:00pm.

Ladies — You’re invited to a Women of the Word Advent Evening Tea - 7:00pm - Monday, December 10, 2007 Bring an ornament to exchange.

You are invited to a Peace Bazaar Saturday, Dec 1 from 9am-3pm at COSC. You can help support organizations that are improving the quality of lives at home and internationally by purchasing handicrafts — great for gifts!

Turkey and All the Trimmings: For those in town this Thanksgiving holiday, we would like to invite you over for Turkey Dinner with all the trimmings! Thursday, November 22, 5:30PM. We will provide the Turkey and cranberry sauce. We would love it if you could come with a favorite side dish to share (hot, cold or dessert). Drop in for desert or stay all afternoon with us watching some of our favorite classic movies. Come eat until you are stuffed. (314 15th Street NE, Washington DC) Happy Thanksgiving! - Karen, Melissa and Emmanuel RSVP: 202-547-8807 or Karen@kidsave.org

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FOR RENT-CAPITOL HILL: Two guys are looking for a third to fill out their two bedroom, two bathroom apartment at 700 F Street NE (corner of 7th and F St). The renter gets their own bedroom and bathroom in this second story apartment located roughly 6 blocks east of Union Station metro. Apartment gets good light and has washer/dryer. No dishwasher (darn!) but brand new sink garbage disposal (nice!). $700/ month plus utils. Water is included. Luke, lukearmerding@gmail.com or Brett, brett.swearingen@mail.house.gov

Invite an IJM intern to your home: International Justice Mission is a Christian law firm that offers free legal services for the poor who live in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Each semester, IJM chooses some of the most qualified college students and recent graduates in the nation and world to serve at IJM’s headquarters or at one of our field offices. IJM seeks families and individuals who can support the overall mission by providing these non-paid interns free or reduced rent during their spring semester, or during a one week training session in January. Please email volunteer@ijm.org if you are interested in this or future opportunities.

International student looking for housing while interning in Falls Church January 4 through February 26, 2008. Bridget Tanyi will be interning at: Legal Services of Northern Virginia, 6066 Leesburg Pike, Suite 500, Falls Church, VA 22041. Bridget, bmanyi@justice.com

CARE COMPANY SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES:
Righteous Renovations needs workers Dec 1-15: evenings, weekends, daytime, whenever you can!
Little Lights Christmas: buy a child a gift for their Christmas party. (Drop off at COSC on Dec 9)

If you are interested in helping with either of these upcoming ministry opportunities, please contact Monique at the Care Company at (202) 544-8312 or carefordc@yahoo.com

Memorial Service for Brenda Lockard Saturday, December 8 at 11:00am Forcey Memorial Church, 2130 East Randolph Road, Silver Spring, MD 20904