God's Plan For Marriage Series

WELCOME & INTRODUCTION

A ROYAL PAIN-ENBAUM

How many of you are familiar with the Actor Gene Hackman? He has made a wonderful living in so many great movies. He was Lex Luthor in the Superman films with Christopher Reeve. He won an Oscar for his role as Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle in The French Connection. The other Oscar he won was for his portrayal of Little Bill Daggett the evil sheriff in Clint Eastwood’s Western “Unforgiven.” He was in Bonnie and Clyde, The Poseidon Adventure, and Mississippi Burning.

One of his lesser-known films was a comedy-drama in 2001 called The Royal Tenenbaums. It stars Danny Glover, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, and Luke and Owen Wilson.

Gene Hackman plays the title character, an abrasive patriarch who tries to win back his family’s love by telling them he’s dying. Critics called it one of Hackman’s greatest performances. But for year, the actor would rarely discuss making the film. And a decade later, we find out why.

Despite many rumors of friction on the set, Hackman’s costars avoided talking about him. They would use the typical, “It was an honor to work with him” line. But at the 10th anniversary screening attended by some of the stars, but not Hackman, they started to confess: “We were scared of him.” Anjelica Huston revealed that during one tense exchange, she was afraid for one of the director’s safety with him.

Bill Murray chimed in: “I’ll stick up for Gene. I’d hear these stories like, ‘Gene threatened to kill me today!’ He can’t kill you, you’re in a union. ‘Gene threatened to take all of us and set fire to us.’ It’s a union shoot, it’s New York, he can’t set fire to you!” Joking that Gene HAD threatened people but couldn’t really follow through as only Bill Murray could do it.

Gwyneth Paltrow was a little more diplomatic: “To be in his presence and watch him do his thing. It’s like—you know, you’re Gene Hackman, you can be in a bad mood.”

The Royal Tenenbaums wasn’t quite Hackman’s last movie—he did three more before retiring. When an interviewer asked him in 2011 if he’d ever consider taking on one more film, Hackman answered, “If I could do it in my own house, maybe, without them disturbing anything, and just one or two people.”

For Hackman, he might have been difficult to work with, but people didn’t want to be away from him. They admired his work. His work ethic. His acting performances. The professionalism of how quickly he could do a scene. For those around him, they did their best to keep up with him and were as gracious to him as they could be.

They weren’t married to Gene. But they did what they could to get along with him.

Today, we are going to talk about marriage and divorce. How do we take a relationship deeper and more meaningful than a mere working relationship. A mere acting relationship. What is God’s plan for marriage?

How do we define marriage? This question is at the heart of a moral revolution in our culture. For thousands of years, civilizations have defined marriage as an exclusive, permanent union between one man and one woman. Just two decades ago politicians in our country voted across party lines to defend this definition of marriage in what was called the Defense of Marriage Act. But in June 2013 the Supreme Court of the United States struck down key provisions of that Act, making way for the complete redefinition of marriage.

In the days that followed, states began officially defining marriage according to different terms, now allowing same-sex relationships to be classified as marriage. These state decisions were confirmed in 2015, when the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in all states.

Now holding up the previous definitions is seen as bigotry.

According to United States v. Windsor this aspect of marriage that “had been unquestioned in our society for most of its existence—indeed, had been unquestioned in virtually all societies for virtually all of human history.” Now, holding the traditional marriage view makes that person “enemies of the human race.”

This trend away from traditional marriage across our culture has taken place over many years and goes deeper than just same-sex marriage. Census figures project that nearly half of all first marriages will end in divorce. And that is if men and women even decide to marry. The number of couples living together before marriage has nearly quadrupled over the last thirty years as more and more singles postpone or even put aside marriage altogether.

Life-long marriage between a man and a woman is on the decline. Fewer than half of all American households today are made up of married couples. All of these realities need to cause us to look seriously at our society and what marriage means from a Godly perspective.