Ruth 1:1‑18
Ephesians 4:25‑32

Much ado is made about this day in many places, especially in card shops, jewelry stores, and candy companies perhaps because they have the most to gain by making much ado about Valentine's Day.  A combination of Roman mythology and Christianity has given significance to this day.  In Roman mythology, Cupid is the god of love, the son of Venus.  Usually Cupid is represented as a winged boy with a bow and arrow.  Cupid became one of the symbols of Valentine's Day.  Valentine was a third century Christian who was martyred in Rome on February 14 and later was designated a saint in the Roman Catholic Church.  A Christian martyr was one who loved Christ so much that he was willing to be killed rather than denounce his love and loyalty to Christ.  Thus a bow, an arrow, and a heart are the symbols of this day.  What a strange collection! 
           

The romantic emphasis of Valentine's Day has created problems for us.  A subtle and often not so subtle message conveyed today is that everyone is to have a romantic relationship.  The person without a romantic relationship is perceived as unusual, odd, and even strange.  With this approach we were sold a bill of goods that implied if you had a romantic relationship, you would be complete as a person and the relationship with that “valentine” would be bliss.  What a bill of goods that was!
           

Since this is Valentine’s Day, let’s spend some time focusing on relationships.  All of us relate to other human beings on a variety of levels.  What can we do to demonstrate that we care about another person with whom we relate? There are some essential characteristics in a relationship in order for people to continue relating to each other.  These characteristics of relating are present in the most intimate and the most casual relationships; they are present in marriage, in friendships, and in parent‑child relationships.  They are so obvious that we may tend to overlook them and miss them completely.  Gracho Marx enjoyed telling about entering a Gracho Marx Look‑Alike Contest in Chicago.  He came in third.  The obvious winner was right in front of them, but the judges couldn't see him. 
           

The three essential ingredients in a relationship are communication, conflict, and commitment.  They are so obvious that you may be disappointed.  I suspect that together as we consider these three characteristics we can discover some value that is obvious but we had overlooked in each of these ingredients in a relationship. If we spend some time working on these three characteristics, we’ll jazz up our relationships.
           

Communication involves both the sending and receiving of messages.  If a message is sent, but not received, communication has not occurred.  We communicate with words, tones, voice inflection, and body language.  Often the message received is not the one sent.  We've played the Gossip game where one person tells something to the person next to him.  That person repeats what he heard to next person and so on until everyone has received the message.  Most of the time the message received by the last person has no resemblance whatsoever to the message that began with the first person.  Everyone has a good laugh about it and moves on.  More often than any of us like to admit, this same approach happens in relationships that are vital to us.  But we cannot laugh off such miscommunication in a vital relationship.  Another way that miscommunication happens is that a confused, conflicting message is sent and the message received is not clear and clean.  For example, to say, "I'm not angry!" is a double message.  The words make a statement that my tone contradicted. 
           

Here is a two step approach that will enhance our communication with anyone, spouse, friend, enemy, child, parent, and even congregational meetings.  Before I express any reaction or response to you, I must repeat what you have said to me and check with you to be sure I understood you.  How many arguments would have been avoided in our lives if this had been our approach?  The second step is intricately related.  Spend ten minutes each day communicating with spouse, friend, child, or parent.  This is not problem solving time, nor argument time. This is ten minutes of listening and being listened to. What a difference that would make in our lives!  To be listened to is to be taken seriously, to be respected, and to be treated by another as a person of worth. 
           

When a relationship is in trouble we will try every gadget that money will buy.  But what is needed is communication, to listen and to be listened to. 
           

Here is what Grady Nutt had to say about this:
     

Too many marriages are in trouble because couples try to patch them up with gadgets‑‑simple solutions to complex problems.

I have been happily married for eleven years
And unhappily married for five years before that. .

All to the same woman‑‑Eleanor!

Emotionally and actually we bought every gadget that promised harmony, bliss, peace, togetherness, and were miserable!

The main problem we had‑‑to quote Eleanor‑‑was that we couldn't agree on who loved me most!

She was my reflection, my possession, my support force, my child‑raiser‑in‑residence and we nearly lost it.
    

She wisely sought help, thankfully found it . . .
     the restoration process began and has continued.
    

What we discovered finally was what Kahlil Gibran describes beautifully in The Prophet:  to paraphrase he says that marriage is not two islands becoming one land mass. . .it is rather two islands remaining distinct whose shores are washed by the mutual waters of love!
    

The light we finally saw more clearly came to us in the form of a basic truth:  when she is she and when I am I we please each other most!

Two people living only to please each other, to limit each other, to bargain with each other, to endure each other are living what I call MATRIMONOTONY...the deadly art of living together without loving together...a relationship that is what my friend Herb Barks calls:  "a rut, not a groove..."

Eleanor and I have tried to learn from Tarzan and Jane...you will swing best and go farthest on the strong vines and you must turn loose of one to grab the next...hence, progress, change, learning, growth, joy, togetherness. 

MATRIMONOTONY dreading time alone ("What will we say?"  "What will we do?"  "I'm tired of TV!") failing to be inventive with autumn walks, Saturday brunch, hamburgers at midnight.

MATRIMONOTONY the tragedy of missing what could have been because you failed together to work at what could only be done together!

One way to jazz up a relationship is the use of  Lovey-dovey language — even your own. It may seem really corny, but researchers have found that it might actually serve a purpose: Pet names and code phrases pave the way to a playful, resilient, and satisfying relationship. One study on couples' "insider language" published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships reported that the more goofy names, made-up terms, and covert requests a couple used, the higher their relationship satisfaction tended to be.
           

Relationship therapist, Jamie Turndorf, suggests that the quantity of sweet or silly nothings you utter on any given day may be even more important than the quality. Studies have found that couples who maintain a five-to-one ratio of positive to negative communications are far more likely to remain happy. A five-to-one ratio of positive to negative communications will jazz up any relationship. "Using nicknames and made-up language is an easy way to inject positive communication into everyday life," Turndorf says. In fact, it's probably the single easiest thing you can do to keep your relationship going strong.
           

Whether it's baby talk or coded conversation ("It's getting chilly." Translation: "Let's leave now."), the overall message is: The two of you are tight. "You are saying, symbolically, that you care enough about the other person and the relationship to develop your own way of speaking," says Carol Bruess, Ph.D., the director of family studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and a co-author of Belly Button Fuzz and Bare-Chested Hugs: What Happy Couples Do. "You've got your own private world, your own mini culture."
           

Communication is the key that unlocks the monotony in any relationship.  To listen and to be listened to is of tremendous importance. Communication is the first C of any relationship.
           

What is the enduring quality in any relationship that has lasted through the exhilaration of accomplishment and the valley of loss?  Commitment.  Commitment is the second essential C of a relationship.  Many of the couples who come to me to talk about getting married are in their mid to late twenties.  Given the current age expectancy, they have an excellent chance of being married to each other for fifty years.  With the pressures and difficulties that people experience today, how can a couple possibly remain married to each other for fifty years?  Commitment.  Peggy and I are still together in marriage, not because we love each other, and we do love each other, but we are still together in relationship because we are committed to each other. There have been plenty of times during the past forty years when, in the midst of disagreement and argument closeness and love were not what we felt or expressed.  What kept us together was that we committed ourselves to each other that no matter what happened to us, when the good times roll and the bad times rise, we would experience and face them together, whether we were rich beyond measure or poor as church mice we would face those situations together, whether sick or well we would travel the health and disease roads together. 
           

While the marriage vows serve as a public statement of the commitment two people make to each other in marriage, other relationships call for the same kind of tenacity to commitment, but we seldom express those commitments in a formal declaration of commitment.  Who of us does not have a friend who has been present to us and for us in some unbelievable circumstances and on whom we would call at a moment’s notice?  Why?  Commitment. 
           

Our Hebrew Scripture text for today told about the circumstances of Naomi, Orpah, and Ruth.  Their husbands had died in Moab, homeland of Orpah and Ruth.  Naomi decided she would fair better in her homeland where she had relatives but she insisted that her daughters‑in‑law remain in their native land.  Orpah finally consented, but Ruth insisted in what for me is one of the clearest statements of commitment anywhere.  "Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live.  Your people will be my people, and you God will be my God.  Wherever you die, I will die, and that is where I will be buried.  May the Lord's worst punishment come upon me if I let anything but death separate me from you!" (Ruth 1:16‑17).  That is commitment. 
           

Any relationship that has any worth at all will have a healthy amount of conflict.  I am not suggesting that the worth of a relationship can be measured by the amount of conflict that it has, but conflict is a natural, significant part of any relationship.  Conflict suggests there is tension, friction, differences of opinion, or more than one view being expressed, more than one approach being suggested.  Because people in a relationship do not think or act in unison, they rub their differences together, conflict erupts and anger is stirred.  Anger is part of our emotional survival kit, and it becomes aroused when we feel threatened.  Underneath our anger usually are one or more needs that are not being met:  being accepted, fulfilled, needed, and loved. 
           

Anger is a natural response to feeling threatened.  There is nothing wrong with getting angry.  What we do when we are angry may be right or wrong. Having conflict is not the problem.  How we deal with conflict is the issue.  We deal with conflict best when we admit it is present, identify our anger, and seek to dissolve our anger.  To dissolve our anger requires that we deal with it as it comes up rather than stockpiling it.  Our New Testament lesson instructs us to simmer down before sundown.  We need to let the day of our anger be the day of our reconciliation.  Never put off until tomorrow the healing that can begin today.  The sooner we admit our anger, search for the cause, and deal appropriately with our anger, the less likely we are to permit our anger to lead us to sin or to permit our conflict to degenerate into destructive measures.  Conflict is the third C, the third essential ingredient, in any relationship, and we must search for creative, constructive, and innovative ways of dealing with our conflicts.  To accomplish this task we must communicate and be committed to maintaining the relationship.  If we are committed to a relationship and communicate with the persons to whom we are relating, conflict will arise, but the conflict can be resolved. 
           

Any day is an appropriate day to give some specific attention to our relationships and how we can strengthen them.  Perhaps today, Valentine’s Day, when we may be a bit more aware of important relationships, we can concentrate on the Cs in our relationships.  If we will focus on our commitment in our relationships, using healthy communication skills in relating with others, and strive to resolve conflicts in our relationships, we’ll experience our relationships growing deeper and stronger. I can’t think of a better way to jazz up our relationships than to make them deeper and stronger.  We’ll discover our lives to be more enjoyable and healthier as well.  Have a Happy Valentine’s Day as you strive to make Cs in your relationships.