5/3/59

Scripture: I Corinthians 3: 1-17

Text: I Corinthians 3: 11; "For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

We commonly speak of "occupying" a new home, when we see a family move into a new house. That is hardly accurate. For any house, old or new, large or small, can be a home; but just being a house is not the same as being a home. There are some houses, conveniently arranged, and ample in space, that are not properly called "home." And the same may be true of a shack. For a "home" is created, not with hammer and nails, but out of the way in which people live together in any house wherein they may be building their home.

Edgar A. Guest put it this way:

Home ain’t a place that gold can buy, Or get up in a moment.

Afore it’s home, there’s got to be A heap o’ livin’ in it.

It must be filled with faith and love From cellar up to dome;

It takes a heap o’ livin’ in a house To make it home.

And there is a considerable difference between a house resting on a secular foundation and a Christian home.

To begin with, a home is begun, in some sort of location (house, or apartment) when a groom and bride take each other for husband and wife, and take up their abode together. And there are differing ways to contract marriage. A couple can go to the nearest judge, or justice of the peace, for a legal pronouncement that they are henceforth husband and wife. And this procedure fulfills the requirement of the law.

Or they can go to a minister for a Christian ceremony in a home or in a church sanctuary. The minister is empowered, by the state, to perform the legal function required by law. But the couple who go to him should expect much more. For the minister does not in a spiritual sense, "marry" a couple. He only guides them in making their testimony before God and the witnesses present. The couple who go to the minister, and who stand in the sanctuary, for the moment when they are pronounced husband and wife, should recognize it as an occasion of Christian dedication --- an occasion for the open declaration that they are about to establish a Christian home. A church wedding is not for show. It is, rather, a witness. And that witness should be to Christian discipleship.

Christian marriage is the marriage of one Christian man and one Christian woman for life. There is nothing experimental or tentative about it. It is the unification of two lives into a common life that purposes to continue, so long as both shall live. It is mysterious and beautiful. But its beauty is not so much in the bridal dresses, flowers, music, or even in handsome and pretty faces, as it is in the decision and determination of two people to make their life together for better or for worse, in happiness and in sorrow, through storm and sunshine, in the spirit of Christ and by the guidance of God.

In Christian marriage, as in Christian personal living and social relation, "no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ." And a Christian marriage is to be followed by a Christian home and life within a Christian church. A home is Christian only when Christ is its spiritual center; and Christian consideration its daily practice.

Many "dos" and "don’ts" are suggested for the couple who are being married --- and for the couple who have been married for some time. Here is one code which is suggested by more than one author:

"Never stop courting. Marriage is your opportunity to court each other without interruption.

Never let romance wane. The benediction at the wedding does not end the romance. Much of it only begins then, with the opportunity to be permanently romantic.

Never allow both of you to get angry at the same time.

Never talk at one another, either alone or in company.

Never speak loudly to one another, unless the house is on fire.

Never find fault, unless it is perfectly certain that a fault has been committed, and always speak lovingly.

Never taunt with a mistake.

Never make a remark at the expense of each other - it is meanness.

Never part for a day without loving words to think of during absence.

Never meet without loving welcome.

Never let the sun go down upon any anger or grievance.

Never let any fault you have committed go by until you have frankly confessed it and asked for forgiveness.

Never forget the happy hours of early love.

Never sigh over what might have been, but make the best of what is."

And here is another brief and compact set of words which may bring into a house the rule of Christ. "The harvest of the spirit is love, joy, peace, good temper, kindliness, generosity, fidelity, gentleness, self-control." [Galatians 5: 22-23]. Here also are the words of Paul in his letter to the Colossians; words which can help to bring into a home the rule of Christ: "Compassion, kindness, lowliness (that is humility of mind), meekness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, love, peace, truth." [Colossians 3: 12-17].

But such fruits of the spirit do not grow of themselves. They must be planted, and disciplined by Christ’s spirit in an avowed Christian home --- a home where the Bible is owned, opened, and read, and meditated, and heeded; a home where there is prayer, especially a prayer of thanks at meals as well as the prayers of the individual members; a home where there are reminders in music and art and attitude, concerning Christian belief and practice.

It is urgent that the members of a family have a common church home. The family that can call one church their home, whose members worship there together, participate together in the work and fellowship, is the family that is the better nourished in ideals and standards. It is simpler then to arrive at agreed moral choices, accept the same judgment, bear the same kind of responsibility, participate in the final decisions. Even controversy and sharp differences of opinion can come under tolerant control in a home where there is a common appeal to Christ.

Four boys grew up in the Macartney home. They were to become a famous family. And they became involved in the bitter Modernist-Fundamentalist fight early in this century. That controversy was at its peak around 1925 when I was graduated from college, and entered seminary. One of the hottest spots was the Board at Princeton Seminary. The situation was explosive when the Presbyterian General Assembly met in 1926.

A former moderator, Dr. Clarence Macartney, made a report; the spirit was tense, the mood was critical. Then his brother, Dr. Albert Joseph Macartney, arose from his place among the commissioners, took the platform, and began to speak:

"Fathers and Brethren, and Brother Clarence, the trouble with Clarence is that he is unmarried. Were he married, he would have sufficient burdens to carry without the heavy burdens of other men’s theology. All of us prayed at the same mother’s knee, heard her sing the hymns of the church to us. For me, it was "Safe in the Arms of Jesus;" for Clarence, the favorite was "There is a fountain filled with Blood." Fathers and Brethren, just as there was room for us to pray at the same mother’s knee, so there is room for us both to pray and serve in the same Mother Church."

That was a turning point in the controversy. It entered people’s minds that even sharp differences of opinion can be respected when those who hold those opinions are part of the same Church of Christ. And the reason that Albert Joseph Macartney could speak as he did, was to be found in a Christian home wherein he and Clarence and the other brothers had been reared together.

Now it is the customary thing to observe that the home is the first line of defense of our civilization. And, together with others, I say it, too. Yet there is little reason to rejoice over this, unless the home be in a vigorous, well-trained state of readiness for the defense. Any realistic appraisal of our state of civilization indicates that its lines of defense have been pierced in many places. The forces of disintegration threaten to break through everywhere. There is too little regard for the experience summarized in the Commandments. There is too little reverence for the one high and holy God above all other objects of worship. There is lying, covetousness, cheating. There is lack of honor for parents. There is continual encroachment upon the Sabbath as a day of worship and rest. Business and other kinds of work encroach upon it. Conventions, parades and programs encroach upon the day not only in time but in absence from worship by those preparing for them. There is adultery and infidelity. There is stealing in high places and low to be reckoned with. All of these threaten our civilization and cause deep concern for thinking people.

So let us think yet further about the Christian home in this or any other similar time. For the home is where the commandments are best kept; where the light and the life of sound faith are best known. When the home remains intact, and sound, the values of the civilization are safest. This is known, not only to us, but to those whose nefarious plans seek to promote an evil way of life. It was no accident that Hitler’s Nazis degraded the home, defiled its sanctity, flaunted Christian standards of mating and advocated mass nurseries for the rearing of offspring. It is no accident that Communist China overturns homes and breaks up family. It is part of the whole evil plan. For when the home goes, all goes. We cannot have a healthy civilization based upon ailing or disintegrating or abolished homes.

If we want a democratic kind of civilization, we must have at its base homes that know the practices and the discipline and the responsibilities and the ideals of democracy. Integrity of life demands one set of ideals, held and practiced in both the home and the community. Homemakers, then, are civilization builders. And Christian homes are being staggered by the tremendous challenges hurled by the modern world. I dislike to shout alarms. But alarms must be given when there is fire abroad -- either smoldering or burning at large.

It was a dozen years ago that committees of the International Council of Religious Education made a careful examination of this area and came up with a study called: "The Church and Christian Education," which included this paragraph:

"The stern Puritan sense of duty has gradually given way to excessive freedom and lawlessness of mind. Young and old get around and observe what others do, and tend to join the uninhibited majority which has grown into a throng. The world of never-was is dramatically portrayed on the screen and over the radio, and is realistically described both in ‘good literature’ and in lurid pulp magazines. This fictional world is accepted by many as the world which is and ought to be. Controlling loyalties which are rooted in religion or social obligation or self-respect have weakened. Whether it concerns the observance of Sunday, the use of liquor, the relations between the sexes, the mutual responsibilities of members of a family, or attitudes toward one’s fellow men, there often seems to be little or no difference between the Christian and the non-professing person. Even church families, more than they realize, take their view of life more from Broadway, Hollywood, Wall Street, and the omniscient commentators of press and radio than from the New Testament and the pulpit. The world is much with us -- the bread and butter and cake world and the world of speed and thrills -- much more with us than the world of the Gospel and the Kingdom of God."

An actress was trying to get a Judge to set aside the obvious meaning of the law concerning divorces. This was her plea: "Judge, don’t you see, I want to be happy." Law did not matter -- she wanted to be happy. Earlier vows did not matter -- she wanted to be happy. Example to others, and influence over them, did not matter -- she wanted to be happy! And the concepts of usefulness of righteousness, of duty, of responsibility, of the shared life in which the good and the evil, the easy moments and the hard, the working hand-in-hand for Christian character and Christian integrity --- these had no part in her idea of happiness! The poor, bewildered creature had no workable notion of what happiness is, anyway.

There are a lot of folk like that! And most of us are affected by this narrow, secularist, non-Christian view of living. Building a Christian home involves a continuing struggle with these forces, and a constant effort to build it well! Our Christian ideals affect the way we talk at meals, the way we meet our neighbors, the way we accept our reverses or our little triumphs, as well as the way we approach the big decisions of life.

The Christian home is one in which the ideals for living, found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, are accepted, exalted, and exemplified. Life is not a privately achieved possession; it is a gift from God. Every other person is a fellow-creature of God. We are brothers in Christ, and we ought to so regard and treat each other. This means a sensitivity, almost beyond bearing, toward not only our friends, our race, our nation, our church; but toward others not our friends, other races and nations; those of other churches and of no church; to Russians as well as French and British folk; to Muslims as well as Methodists and Jews and others.

A Christian home teaches a standard of values, of right and wrong, of good and bad. Christ has something to say to us, through our homes, about the attitude of covetousness toward others’ possessions; about the passionate craving for fame or honor. These are disintegrative attitudes, and therefore evil. They make us dangerous to other people. They create in us the illusion that other people are primarily for our pleasure, or service or convenience.

The Christian home recognizes and combats the evil of hatred, and extols the virtue of considerate love. It teaches us the inter-dependence of people. And it teaches us to accept this inter-dependence as an open door to the greatest good.

It teaches us a willingness to share the best that we are and have without restraint or thought of reward. And it teaches us to be willing to have what we think is best refined in the testing fires of life. The Christian home teaches the supremacy, and the fatherhood, of God.

Rufus Jones used to tell the story of a boy who played on the sheltered decks of a ship that was being tossed in a bad storm. A terror-stricken passenger asked the boy if he were not afraid. "No," said the lad, "I am not afraid; my father is the captain of this ship."

We are trying to build homes based on creative love. There is no reason to be afraid when the creative source of love Himself is the captain of the ship.

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, May 3, 1959