Pastor Mike Sares of Scum of the Earth Church

Mike Sares spoke about Marriage at Celebration this Sunday.

As the pastor of a church composed primarily of young adults, Mike gets to officiate at lots of weddings. It is always fun at weddings because everyone is so hopeful and optimistic. There is such good feeling of anticipating good feelings and everyone seems happy. In fact he’s come to suspect that the people he’s marrying are in love more with the feelings of happiness and anticipation and optimism than each other because in around two years, he begins to see these marriages crumble and then he’s counseling people in their divorces.

He pointed out that English has one word to express a feeling and a concept that the Greeks use four words to explain. He focussed on two of those Greek words: Agape – selfless, unconditional love purhaps best illustrated in a marriage relationship where one spouse has Alzheimers and the other stops being lover and becomes caregiver, nurturer and diaper changer and Eros – sexual, passionate and immediate – probably what a lot of us yearn for when we think about love. He pointed us to 1 Corinthians 13 for a look at what the Bible says about love. Then he pointed us to the Song of Songs to see what the Bible says about love. Mike urged us to consider that Eros was a feeling that was wonderful when it was right, it was awful when it goes wrong. The Romans had identified a demigod, named Cupid, who went around shooting arrows into people and caused them to fall in love with the wrong people. He challenged us to decide for ourselves whether we were going to idolize a Greek demigod or serve God by expressing our love by using Agape to drive our erotic expressions.

He expessed a deep issue with Disney Films by acknowledging that he had four children and had seen at least a whole generation of Princess movies with little conflicts in the life of a beautiful princess until she met, fell in love with and married the male lead and in every case lived ‘happily ever after’. All of those movies shaped his kids expectations of what good love and what marriage was like. The only Disney movie that even remotely matched his own experience was “Beauty and the Beast” where the beautiful, intelligent, strong willed female lead met and battled the brutish, stubborn, self absorbed male lead until she uncovered the aspects she could love. They worked it out.

In his own life, Mike met his wife while he was working as a lifeguard. One day he looked across the pool and saw a beautiful mermaid. He didn’t claim to Agape her immediately, but he did claim to try and describe his feelings as love at first sight. He described their relationship as tempestuous. They fell in love and out of love, then in love again and out of love again, and then in and out of love again, and then they fell in love and got married. Then they fell out of love again and it was awful and back in love and the make up sex was great. After a few more cycles of falling in love and out of love, they realized that they weren’t basing their relationship on the right love. As near as Mike could describe it, our heavenly Father finally seemed to take a bit of his heart and place it in the hearts of Mike and his wife so they could begin to love each other the way God wanted them to.

1 Corinthians 13

1 If I speak in the tonguest of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,t but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.