January 15, 2006
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Desperate
Housewives and their Spouses
Mark
10:1-12
Henry David Thoreau, the writer and naturalist, once said, “Most men
lead quiet lives of desperation.” If
you believe television, most housewives do as well.
In the show, Desperate Housewives,
Susan Mayer, Lynette Scavo , Bree Van De Kamp, Gabrielle Solis and Edie Britt
lead us through a dizzying series of events which explain why they are so
desperate. Newsweek (“Sex and the Suburbs,” November 29, 2004) summed up
the characters this way: “Susan is a divorced children’s book author and
major klutz. . . . Lynette gave up
her career to become the mother of four and is so overwhelmed she’s become
addicted to their ADD medicine. Bree
is the local Martha Stewart, a woman who brings homemade potpourri to the
marriage counselor even though it’s her perfectionism that’s driving her
husband away. Gabrielle is nouveau riche, miserable and having an affair with the teenage [boy]
who cuts her lawn. But don’t
confuse her with Edie, she’s just the neighborhood slut.”
It is no wonder they are desperate.
Their adulteries, addictions, dysfunctions, lies and inanities are not
kept under wraps any more than they are. One
of the ironies that Newsweek points out is that one of the homes used on the set is
originally from the old Leave it to Beaver
show, and was the home of Ward and June Cleaver.
Now there is contrast for you.
Wisteria Lane is an appropriate name for the street on which the
housewives live. Wisteria is a
vine. It can be beautiful with its
cascading blossoms. The twisting
vine, known for its ability to climb high, can also be very destructive if not
kept under control. It can actually
tear down brick walls or kill an oak tree, and at the same time produce
beautiful blossoms with a sweet fragrance.
Like the beautiful people who live on Wisteria Lane, you would not expect
something so beautiful could be so destructive.
It’s all about suburban motherhood in the post-modern, post-feminist
age. There is a great deal of
sickness and evil which exists behind the masks of these pretend-perfect people
who are in desperate pain. No one
on the program is really happy or satisfied with life, in spite of their
affluence. You could say they live
on Hysteria Lane. One thing you
have to ask is, “How did they get so messed up?”
The reason their lives are so awful is that they are based on all the
wrong things: materialism, self-fulfillment, pleasure seeking and pretense.
Even their occasional association with the church is formal and all about
making the right impression. Their
lives are desperate and their marriages dysfunctional for at least three
reasons, and the first is that they do not realize that marriage is built on: Self-giving,
rather than self-fulfillment. So
many people seek out a relationship for what it can do for them.
In our culture, even sex has lost its context of relationship.
It has become a mechanistic performance, rather than a mutual exchange of
love and pleasuring between two people who respect each other and want to put
the other first. It is the divorce
between sex and relationship that causes us to toss around terms like “hooking
up,” and “friends with benefits.” Our
culture has lost the concept of sacrifice and putting others first.
I love this passage from 1 Corinthians 13 in the Living Bible: “Love is
very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never
haughty or selfish or rude. Love
does not demand its own way. It is
not irritable or touchy. It does
not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong.
It is never glad about injustice, but rejoices whenever truth wins out.
If you love someone, you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost.
You will always believe in him, always expect the best of him, and always
stand your ground in defending him” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).
The only problem with that is that it doesn’t make for marketable TV. Can you imagine an evening soap opera with characters who
live on Corinthian Lane and whose lives and stories were modeled after these
verses?
The way of Christ is opposite the way of the world. It was Jesus himself who said, “Whoever wants to become
great among you must be your servant. . . just as the Son of Man did not come to
be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew
20:26-28). Jesus was the model for
the way of life he asks us to live. Marriage
is not a place where we expect a person to fulfill all that we find missing in
life. Marriage is not where we get
a person to serve us and meet our needs. Marriage is not where we look for what we can get, but a
place where we look for what we can give. The
one who wants to lead must be the one who learns to serve.
Believe it or not, there are those rare times when I will prepare a meal
and have it ready when Sue gets off work late, or I will sweep the carpet, empty
the dishwasher or straighten the house. I
always hope she will notice and shower some praise and thanks on me.
If she doesn’t say anything, or doesn’t seem to notice, I am tempted
to say, “Notice anything?” or “Did you see I put things away?”
But every time I am tempted to do that ,I realize that silence is the
better part of wisdom, because she picks up every day, loads and unloads the
dishwasher every day, prepares meals every day, and she never says, “Did you
see what I did?” Although she never has, I am always afraid she will say,
“Yeah, and did you see who did it the rest of the week, this month, this year,
these 39 years?” So I just
silently praise myself for how wonderful and sacrificial I’ve been, and let
that be good enough. Learning to
have a servant’s heart is an important part of marriage.
It’s not about what I can get out of it, but what I can give to the
marriage that matters. It is not
about self-fulfillment, but self-giving.
The second thing that successful marriages are built on is: Building each other up, rather than tearing each other down.
It always amazes me when I am around a couple that has gotten into the
habit of arguing. Somehow they developed a way of reacting to each other so
that when one person makes a point the other always makes a counterpoint.
Everything is about being right — winning and losing.
They are always keeping score. Likewise,
one or both people in the marriage get into a habit of criticizing each other.
I keep using the word habit, because it is not something that they set
out to do, it is just a way of responding to each other which they developed
over time. They never give the
other person a moment of peace. Something
is always wrong with them, or wrong with what they have done.
I think the worst thing you can say to another person is, “What is
wrong with you?” It is so
damaging, because now you are not only criticizing what they have done, but who
they are as a person. It is
implying that there is something seriously wrong inside them.
The Bible says, “Therefore encourage one another and build each other
up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).
Last year I read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The
Birthmark.” He lived and wrote in
Salem, Massachusetts in the 1800's. It
is the intriguing story of a quasi scientist/chemist named Aylmer. He marries a beautiful young woman named Georgiana.
Her beauty was spoken of far and wide.
But there was a single small blemish — a tiny birthmark on her cheek,
in the shape of a small hand. Those
who loved her said that it was the imprint of an angel’s hand at her birth.
But after their marriage, Aylmer asks his wife if it ever occurred to her
that her birthmark could be removed. She
is offended because she has considered it a beauty mark, and has been told by
many of her former male friends that it was charming.
But he says to her that she is so near perfection that it is a shame to
have something so small spoil her beauty. Aylmer
discovered that as time went on, when he looked at her all he could see was what
had now become to him a hideous birthmark.
No longer did he see her beauty, only her imperfection.
Her face now became a single physical flaw.
It was not long until Georgiana began to despise the birthmark as well,
and it became for her a source of shame, so that she now hated it more than her
husband. One day Aylmer told his
wife that, as a chemist, he could concoct a potion that would dissolve the
birthmark and leave her face perfect. Out
of a desire to please him, and be free from the thing he had caused her to hate,
she agreed to drink the scientist’s skillfully brewed chemical. As Aylmer watched, she drank from the crystal goblet, and the
tiny birthmark seemed to slowly, and even miraculously, disappear.
He was overwhelmed with joy at his success, and cried out in triumph over
his accomplishment. But as the last fading pink disappeared from Georgiana’s
cheek, her spirit slipped away along with it, and she breathed her last.
In his attempt to remove the imperfection from his wife, he killed the
one he loved.
Hawthorne’s tale of “The Birthmark” could be retold in countless
homes across our land, where one spouse has become obsessed with the
imperfections of the other. No
longer can they see beauty in the other, only the glaring imperfection.
They take on the perfecting of their partner as their life project,
slowly wearing away at it and delivering potions for them to consume.
Eventually, the imperfection not only becomes despised by the partner,
but by the person as well. Little
does the partner realize that in attempting to perfect the flaw in the other
person, they are killing them in the process.
Doesn’t the world do enough to tear us down and make us hate ourselves?
Are not the shows on television and other media constantly telling us
that our value as a person is measured in our sex appeal?
Don’t the commercials tell us that we are incomplete without this or
that. Don’t they constantly put
before our eyes the perfect bodies and personas which make us feel that we do
not measure up? Shouldn’t our
homes be the one place where we are built up rather than torn down?
Shouldn’t we be giving positive messages to our spouses and to our
children? Shouldn’t marriage be
the place where we are loved for who we are — birthmarks and bulges and all?
I had a friend who was facing a growing mountain of criticism, but he
would say to me, “It doesn’t matter, because I know that God loves me and
Karen loves me!” That is how it
should be with us.
The third thing that successful marriages are built on is: Continual growth, rather than taking each other for granted.
I am always stunned by people, who once the marriage ceremony is over,
don’t work at the relationship any more.
They spent a lot of time, effort and money in the courtship, and then
something inside their head shuts off when they get home from the honeymoon.
They no longer court their mate. Sometimes
they don’t even feel it is important to be nice to their spouse or do things
for them. How many of you still go
on dates? How often do you talk to
each other or spend time with each other? How
much effort are you investing in the relationship?
I remember one Saturday morning, in our men’s discipleship group, when
we were talking about the importance of continually working at our spiritual
lives. We talked about how
imperative it is to build holy habits, to build regular prayer and study of the
Word into our lives — to put effort into our relationship with God.
I looked over at Dr. Tom Mallory, who is a member here and a part of our
Saturday morning Bible study group. He
is now retired, but he is the founder of Joint Implant Surgeons in Columbus.
He performed the first total hip and knee replacements in Columbus, Ohio
, in 1971. His interest in
biomedical engineering led to the design of the Mallory/Head Total Hip System
which is used internationally. But
during our study I said to him, “Tom, what would have happened if, after
graduating from Ohio State and Harvard Medical Schools, you never read another
book or article in the area of medicine? After
all, you studied at the finest schools in the United States, and you were
probably tired of studying when you finally graduated after all those years.”
In spite of his tremendous achievements, he is a very humble person, and
he just kind of chuckled at my question. He
looked over his glasses and said, “The only thing that medical school does for
you is teach you how to study. After
you learn how to study, it is a lifelong process.”
My question to Dr. Mallory was intentionally absurd, and his response was
even better and more insightful than I was hoping.
The point was that if you stop growing and learning as a Christian, you
will fail as a Christian. And
certainly, what is true in our relationship with God is true in our marriage —
if you stop putting effort in your relationship, your relationship will fail.
Regardless of whether you have passed the courtship course and gotten
your marriage certificate, if you stop being a lifelong learner and lover, you
will fail the ultimate test. The
reason that affairs are so explosive is because of the tremendous amount of
effort people put into them. If the
same amount of effort was put into these people’s marriages, their marriages
would be different. There is no
point along the way that you can just stop.
You can’t take the relationship for granted and let it coast, or it
will die. You may still have
everything in place as far as outward appearances, but something inside will
have died. Don’t settle for
adjusting to your problems, fight for the growth and development of your
relationship, and let it begin with you.
Have you ever wondered if there is someone out there who could make you
happier than you currently are? Especially
in the middle of a disagreement, it is possible to think you might be more
compatible with someone else. I
recently read about Suleyman Guresci, of Izmir, Turkey, who divorced his wife
after 21 years of marriage. But
Turkey is not like the United States with its instant divorce laws.
Their divorce was a bitter six-year court battle.
Guresci was determined to find the ideal woman for his next marriage and
turned to a computer dating service, similar to eHarmony.com — the kind that
evaluates your written profile and suggests matches for you.
Out of over 2,000 prospective brides, the computer dating service
selected only one person for Guresci — his former wife.
Unknown to him, she had signed up for the same service.
So what did Guresci do? He
decided to remarry his wife just nine months after their divorce was settled in
court. He said, “I didn’t know
that my ex-wife had been the ideal counterpart for a marriage.
I decided to give it another try by being more tolerant toward her.”
Good thinking Guresci! The
same is true for many people. The
perfect person for them is living right next to them, and all that is lacking is
the ability to see the person with new eyes and investing the necessary effort
to take the relationship from where it is to where it could be. Very often, as Jesus said, it is the hardness of our hearts
that makes separation seem like a solution, but in the beginning it was not so.
What God has joined together, let not man separate.
Rodney
J. Buchanan
January
15, 2006
Mulberry
St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
Mulberry
Street United Methodist Church