Faithfulness

O.K., I never do Facebook surveys, games, “Which invertebrate larger than a breadbox are you?”-type nonsense. But my dear wife just answered the “What kind of old person will you be?” survey and came out as the “Elder-in-love,” a person who celebrates his/her 50th anniversary and shares much joy with a beloved spouse. You might be happy to know my results came out the same, although I wouldn’t have been surprised to wind up in a “Grumpy old fart” category.

(That’s not us in the picture, by the way, for anyone reading this who doesn’t know us. And we’re celebrating our 35th anniversary this year in June.)

In any case, that goofy little quiz made a point much better expressed in Proverbs 5, the joy and delight of faithfulness in marriage. As I mentioned in passing in last week’s sermon, the first nine chapters of Proverbs bounce back and forth between a metaphorical depiction of wisdom and folly as a good woman and an evil woman, respectively, and a literal admonition to avoid an evil, “loose” woman and the sin of adultery. This week we are going to sit down in chapter 5 and take seriously that literal warning.

Once again, of course, we must recognize that Proverbs originally addressed young men, but it is simple enough to transform the warning here into female terms and hear a caution for young women to avoid the attractions of sweet-talking “bad boys.”

These days of “safe” sex might make the warning in verses 3 and 4 that “the lips of a loose woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword,” seem a bit quaint. But I would challenge us to consider whether anyone, male or female, who has had a series of casual relationships has much in the way of true and lasting happiness out of those experiences. My guess is that the reality is more like much sorrow and pain.

Yet this text is a bit unique in that, while full of warning, it also offers beautiful images of the joys of faithfulness in marriage in verses 15-19. Verse 18, “rejoice in the [spouse] of your youth,” is a sweet command when it is faithfully carried out. Verse 19 is reminiscent of the language of the Song of Songs in its joyful celebration of human physical intimacy in sacred context of marriage.

The end of the text in verses 21-23 invites us to make the metaphorical leap and see one’s faithfulness to a human spouse as an image of faithfulness to God, as well as of the pursuit of wisdom rather than folly. My conviction is that the literal and metaphorical work together so well because that was God’s design in human life. To be male and female is to be created in the image of God’s own triune life of unity in difference.

God thus uses the image of husband and wife here in Proverbs and the Song of Songs,  in the prophets, Ephesians 5 and the closing chapters of Revelation as a picture of our relationship with Him, so that faithfulness in marriage is closely connected with faithfulness to God. I would go so far as to say that one loses one side of that connection with severe peril to the other side, and that maintaining one side of the connection aids and supports the other side.

Of course, human life and marriage is fraught with failure, disappointment and pain. Many who would like to experience the joy of a long, faithful marriage are prevented by failure, whether of their own or of a spouse, or by early death, or by the simple misfortune of finding no spouse, or by other sorts of circumstances which conspire against the human happiness pictured in verses 18-19. And of course we must recall that our relationship with God is the primary thing, so that a number of us are called to good and whole lives of singleness, which is no less a way to be a good and faithful human being.

In it all we must constantly affirm what II Timothy 2:13 teaches, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful.” It is the faithfulness of God which undergirds and makes possible all human faithfulness, and God’s faithfulness which remains even when our faithfulness falters and fails.