Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, November 15, 2020  (today’s lectionary)
A faithful wife, who can find?
My wife’s value is far beyond pearls. She brings me good all the days of her life. She reaches out her hands to the poor and extends her arms to the needy.
Margaret both creates and discovers pearls of wisdom, and then she shares them. With me, and with so many. She is a spiritual director, and I think her spiritual direction pleases God very much, and he makes sure everyone knows it.
What is Margaret’s love language? Besides touch, you mean? Our courtship began innocently enough at a New Year’s Eve party at her friend Cindy’s house, when I asked who wanted a foot massage. Margaret not only didn’t cringe, like everyone else, she about melted. After that, it was only a matter of time. We were married in August.
The woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Margaret was in Lincoln to study at Lincoln Christian Seminary, one of only two women in 1974.  When I returned to my hometown in 1978 and asked if she would help me vet Rev. Moon’s teachings, she agreed. We sat on her couch in the mobile home she owned (careful and efficient with her finances!), and she listened. We talked. She didn’t try to dissuade me, exactly, but she wasn’t convinced by what I thought was convincing. And gradually I began to see the Bible more as I saw it myself, rather than as Rev. Moon saw it. She introduced me to her friend and philosophy professor James Strauss, who jumped at the chance to listen to Unification Church theology talks. Actually, she introduced me to lots of church people, and I was surprised at how much we had in common.
Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine, your children like olive plants around your table. Thus is the man blessed who fears the Lord.
Margaret drove 10 miles twice on Sunday, to Mt. Pulaski Christian Church, morning and evening. Sometimes we led worship on Sunday nights, with my guitar and her sweet soprano voice. We wrote a medley of choruses that we still sing. Al and Pat Morehead already were her mentors, and Al became one of mine, joining my dad’s friend Al Schmidt to help guide me through my spiritual life (which covers all the rest of life too, of course).
I was re-baptized on Easter, and when Margaret asked him for his thoughts about her marrying a twice-divorced man, he surprised her. Al spoke slowly, sometimes with a bit of a drawl. “Well, I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with you two getting married.” Al officiated our wedding on Sunday morning after church. Our friend Alice made us a beautiful cake, and we had a church basement potluck that afternoon.
Her three bouts with bearing babies were each unique. She birthed Chris with great difficulty, Marc via an emergency C-section, and Andi gracefully and easily on a springtime Sunday afternoon. Fruitful vine, olive plants, and me. Around the table first in Lincoln, then in Waynesville, then Urbana … and heading for Austin in December.
You, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness. You are children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the night or of darkness. So let us stay alert and sober. Remain in me as I remain in you, says the Lord. And you will bear much fruit.
Always, she has been a fruitful vine. I have not always been alert or sober, but Margaret’s patience has helped me embrace myself as a “child of the day.” I learn so much from her, often after I’ve told her she’s wrong and I’m right. Mostly the exact opposite is true, and in time (usually not too long) I try to say so.
Jesus gets on us about the “talent” thing. Nowadays, talent means skill or gift; then it meant money. But either way, Jesus is on our case. Use what you’ve been given, don’t waste the gifts of God. Created one, do your work for your Creator. But it’s funny how the German Protestant work ethic engrained in my lifestyle only goes so far. God also means for me to “BE.”
Say it this way: God wants me to really be his child before I can safely be his servant. It’s only then that he can say …
Well done, my good and faithful servant. Since you were faithful in small matters, I will show you greater things. Come and share your Master’s joy.
And this is where Margaret has shined so much light into my life. Early in our marriage she said she wanted me to be her teammate, not her coach. There are plenty of critics; she wants me to praise and edify her, no matter what. When I fail, and criticize, I remember what she said. She is absolutely right.
And then when our kids were born, she felt torn between housework and kid-work, and always chose the kids. You can tell that now: their love and respect for her is rich and deep and wide.
Our lives go on. Each of us is learning still. Polishing the pearls of the Kingdom.
(Proverbs 31, Psalm 128, 1 Thessalonians 5, John 15, Matthew 25)
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