All Saints Wellington, 10.30am 21 September 2008
1 Corinthians 7: 7-9, 28b-35; Luke 8: 1-3
We are in the middle of a sermon series on relationships. We began by looking at the lost art of friendship; last week we focused on marriage, under the title ‘Why bother?’. If you missed either of those sermons, do ask for a free tape from the tape desk in the hall after the service – they are both well worth listening to.
As some of you know, Gill and I have come a bit later to marriage than most, I was 40 when I got engaged, so for the majority of my adult life I have been single. This was mostly not a problem for me, but it was for my well-meaning friends, several of whom seemed to feel it their special calling to solve my problem for me…
Of course there’s lots of pressure these days to be in a relationship…
Facebook, the social networking site, gives a fascinating insight into relationships today. Once you decide to join, and have plucked up courage to email all the people you know and ask, ‘Will you be my friend?’, the next thing you have to do is fill in your profile, with the key question, ‘What is your relationship status?’…
However many of my well-meaning friends shd have known better, as they are Christians, and shd have known their bibles…
The Bible commends and honours two possible states of life for Christians, marriage and singleness. Both are commended in Scripture, and neither is more or less valued than the other – there is no second class status. Today we are thinking about being both single and fulfilled.
There are lots of examples of fulfilled single people in the New Testament, in the midst of a society where marriage was undoubtedly the norm. In Luke 8 we read of a community of people travelling with Jesus, including the 12 disciples, and a significant number of women, often forgotten and rarely pictured in the pictures of Jesus and his disciples. Yet some of these women had received significant healings, and many of them were supporting Jesus and the disciples out of their own means.
What is interesting for us today is that most of the people listed here were single: of the 12 disciples, only Peter so far as we know was married at this time (though others it seems married later – see 1 Cor. 9.4). He had a mother in law according to Mark 1.30. Of the women listed in Luke 8.2-3 only Joanna is described as being married… These women were clearly independent and means of their own which enabled them to support the disciples. In a world where women were generally ignored by the Pharisees and expected to stay at home, Jesus includes single women in his company, and is willing to be dependent upon them.
Jesus himself is a fully human being, with all the human hormones and feelings, yet he gives us a supreme example of being both single and fulfilled. He enjoys close friendships with men and women – think of the Apostle John, who described himself as the disciple Jesus loved, and who reclined on his breast at the last supper, and think of the woman with an immoral past, whom Jesus allows to cover his feet with kisses whilst he is at the home of Simon the Pharisee, or think of Mary Magdalene, who in her joy at the resurrection tries to cling on to Jesus…
Jesus gives us a wonderful example of being both single and fulfilled, enjoying warm personal friendships with both men and women, and yet single-minded in his devotion to his special calling from God.
But what about St. Paul?
Let’s turn to 1 Corinthians 7 – page 1084
Paul, as we meet him in 1 Corinthians, is unmarried – see v8. He may have been a widower, or his wife may have left him when he became a Christian, or he may simply have never married – we just don’t know.
Paul is also very positive about the advantages of being single – see verse 7 – and he encourages those who are single to remain so – verse 8.
When I was with our Bishop’s Certificate group on Thursday, I realised that some people have a bit of a downer on Paul and his attitudes to relationships. So let’s have a look at what Paul actually says about marriage and singleness and why…
The first thing to note about the context here, as in many of Paul’s letters, is that he is answering questions from the young church at Corinth, and we don’t have their letter to him, so it is always a bit like listening to one side of a phone conversation…
Paul quotes from their letter in v1, and it seems that they are asking whether if you want to be really spiritual you shd refrain from sex. Paul doesn’t think this is right at all – as he says in v2, husbands and wives shd enjoy sex together regularly, otherwise they lay their relationship open to all sorts of temptations.
Then Paul goes on, if you are unmarried, it is good to stay that way, as he does. However, he acknowledges that each person has a different gift or calling from God, and that singleness is not for everyone. So he says in verse 9 if you don’t think you can manage without sex then you should get married.
Being single and celibate isn’t easy, whether as a teenager or an adult, and requires one to recognise situations of temptation and run from them…
Paul goes on to warn those who are contemplating marriage that there are costs as well as benefits – v28 ‘those who marry will face many troubles in this life…’ Marriage has huge benefits in terms of companionship, sexual intimacy and the gift and care of children, but it also comes with a cost. A single person has only themselves to please, and I know it is quite easy to become selfish when you have only got yourself to think of. However a married person must always think of his or her partner, a lesson married people forget at their peril! How often have I heard someone say, when a relationship breaks up, ‘he just took me for granted’. Paul goes on to spell this out in vv 32-36…
I think Paul here is particularly speaking about the divided loyalties of a Christian man who has an unbelieving wife, and who is constantly being pulled in two directions. This for me underlines the wonderful value of marrying a Christian who shares your faith and primary allegiance to Christ. Then, instead of pulling constantly in different directions, marriage actually becomes a means of God’s grace, as we discover what it is to be loved unconditionally, and what it is to serve Christ together, daily encouraging and praying for one another.
The second thing to note about the context of Paul’s remarks is that he is writing in a time of crisis – in v29 he says the time is short, and in v31 that the world in its present form is passing away. Paul is writing around AD 54 when there was a severe shortage of grain, the most basic foodstuff, around the Greek world, a famine we know about from several ancient sources. Paul seems to take the current crisis as a sign of the coming return of Christ, on the last day. That’s why Paul is cautious about encouraging people to take on a long-term commitment when he believes the end of the world may be imminent.
People are single today for all sorts of reasons, not usually because we think the end of the world is about to happen!
- Many have been married, but have lost a partner through bereavement or divorce. Learning to start again after the loss of a partner or a failed relationship is a particularly hard thing to do, and we are going to think about that in a separate talk in this series.
- Others have felt called to stay single, either temporarily or permanently. Sometimes this is for family reasons – I have a cousin who always stayed at home and cared for her mother, and although her mother has now died is unlikely to get the chance to marry. Such self-sacrifice deserves honour.
- Others have felt called to stay single for the sake of the Gospel. Notwithstanding the tradition of celibate monks, nuns and priests in the RC church, I think this is an exceptional calling, though for those called to serve overseas as missionaries, this is sometimes still part of the cost today…
- Others would love to be married, but the right person hasn’t come along (yet). This can be a really hard place to be in, especially when as a Christian you really want to find someone who shares your faith, as well of course as being totally gorgeous. Sometimes there is a temptation to go for any port in a storm, which can be disastrous. Far better to learn to accept the state we are in, and focus on the benefits, and ask God if there is any special work you can do for him whilst single. Then get out and concentrate on having lots of different friends instead of being consumed by the search for one particular friend.
But what if I feel I haven’t got any friends?
Everybody who is single goes through times of loneliness, and there can be temptations to sit at home alone sometimes and wallow in self-pity, sometimes with a supply of comfort food, when you feel everyone else has someone except you. Over the years I found a great antidote to self-pity. Whenever I began to feel sorry for myself, I resolutely got up and went out to find someone who I knew was more lonely, maybe an elderly or housebound person, or someone at school who has few friends, and decided to go and make their day and make them feel really special. It worked every time – they received a huge boost, and I came home feeling much better, and with a new-found friend.
Application
As a church we have a wonderful opportunity to be a safe space and an inclusive community, where people who are single are able to experience close and warm friendships, without everyone trying to pair them off. Those of us who have homes and families can invite single friends to meals, to join in activities, to be godparents… Church activities like Luncheon Sunday, walking group, Christmas party and special meals…
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