Under the Rug

The phrase I wanted people to remember this week was this:

God helps us put others first.

This is a sound biblical phrase. It was one of Jesus' greatest commandments. Put others first. How noble! How valuable! How incredibly counter to what our culture truly believes.

I was driving behind a vehicle the other day that had a bumper sticker. It stated something to effect of vote for equality for all in marriage. Basically it was saying (command form) that homosexual couples should be allow to marry in the name of equality.

How does this play into Put Others First? Isn't that the goal of this bumper sticker? Aren't homosexual couples a part of the others?

I have been meaning to go back and find the first use of a couple getting married in history. I don't mean the way we categorize marriage as such that it is. Huge ceremony. Big dresses. Large bills. I mean the first marriage where a covenant was made.

The earliest one I can think of is the Genesis example of God (as priest) presenting the bride, which he had just created, to Adam the first groom.

And I have been thinking.

Marriage is not and has never been an equality issue. God didn't make it to be one. It wasn't created to be one. Marriage has always been about the covenant of relationship between husband, wife and God.  Here it is: God created marriage. He created covenant. He created husband and wife. No, this debate has never been about equality. This debate must be about the real issue. The issue of marriage as gift. By placing and belittling marriage to the role of an equality issue, we are stating and propagating the myth that marriage is a right. An inalienable right. Something everyone should have access. However. And this is a big however. Marriage is not a right. We do not own marriage.

Maybe we should make a bumper sticker that says that the IRS should get out of my marriage. Ahhh, I could see it now. Divorce the IRS out of marriage! And didn't we allow the IRS to dictate what the advantage of marriage is? It started out okay. But over time this has become the issue of our age. The definition of marriage has become tied to tax deductions and equal rights. But that is not what and how marriage was designed to be. God designed marriage as a gift of relationship between a man and a woman before God. God did not make it a right, but it was truly the first bridal shower. The covenant of relationship before a holy God. And this is just one area. There are many, many more!

And doesn't it really come down to the context? Take putting others first as an example in context. If we put everybody first, even before God, then this becomes a massive failure of initiative. It takes what was meant as a servant song and creates a chromatic nightmare. For Jesus said that we were to love God first. Put God first. And then out of that relationship we could then put others first. But that isn't what we are in danger of doing. The danger is putting others first before God and to the exclusion of God.

I was counseling a couple and I noted that they put a great many things before their relationship with each other, but as we talked longer and had more sessions, I realized that they were putting a great many things before God! They were upside down in their relationships!! They had swept/allowed/shoved their relationship with God under the rug. It had been relegated to the place of apathy and irrelevance in their lives. Powdered with dust and coated with neglect.

It is time to pull our relationships out from under the rug and set them in the proper place of worth and honor in our lives. God: first and foremost.