I Went to a Garden Party
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

We are all guilty, at times, if this is not an oversimplification, of oversimplifying things. It has been my habit of late, when teaching on the subject of marriage, to remind people that there is a reason why, or better yet, a task for which God made Eve. God said that it was not good that man should be alone, His first words of malediction. Pop psychologists give us all kinds of reasons why it was not good for man to be alone. But the One who spoke the malediction, the one who solved the problem, knows what the problem was. And so Eve was made a helper suitable for him. Helper for what? I always ask. The answer is rather simple —to help exercise dominion over the creation. And such is true as far as it goes. But there is something missing.

Evangelicals have a tendency to skip lightly over the dominion mandate. Those, like me, who are happy to highlight it, however, often make a similar mistake. We tend to see the exercise of dominion in strictly economic terms. We want to see Adam turn the creation into a thriving operation. Such he surely would have done, had there been no fall. But such is not all that he would have done.

Adam's task, and that for which Eve was to help, was not to erect some sort of factory but to "gardenize" the rest of the creation. Just as the Spirit of God brooded over the creation when it was formless and void, and gave it shape and beauty, so Adam and Eve were called to do the same. Gardenizing, as I am only beginning to learn from my own precious Eve, doesn't merely mean making that which is chaotic and unproductive productive. I want to plant beans. She wants to plant flowers. Her desire is not a frivolous distraction, but true to our calling. We have to make the jungle no longer chaotic. It means not only filling a void, but giving form to that which has no form. It means reflecting not only the power of God in speaking the universe into existence, but reflecting the beauty of God, in making the creation dance the dance of the glory of God.

This, however, is not only what families are to do, but is what families are to be. We are a single economic unit. As I have argued before, it's not as if I work, and Denise does some other thing. We are both working, laboring in that enterprise that is the one body, Sproul incorporated, which being translated means, Sproul embodied. But we are likewise, as a single covenant unit, a single garden, or portrait of the beauty of God. We are, as a family, the marrying together of complexity into a harmony.

It is a cliche to note of the family that husbands, wives, and children all bring something different to the table. Men, after all, in some sense are indeed from Mars, and women from Venus. Instead, however, of seeing these differences as counterbalances that must be kept in perfect harmony for the sake of running the machinery smoothly, we need to see these as counterpoints that must be played off each other for the sake of the music.

I know, I know, you want me to get practical. But that is part and parcel of the error. C.S. Lewis recounts a conversation during a dance. The woman, who obviously was not from Venus, complains of the inefficiency of the whole thing. "Wouldn't it be more efficient," she argued, "for all of us to sit down to have a conversation?" "Certainly," the man replied, "it would be much more efficient, but much less like a ball." The practical lesson here is akin to learning how to listen to a bluegrass band. I'm not arguing that we need to change anything, so much as arguing that we need to enjoy what we have been given. We need to rejoice in, revel in the marrying of harmony and complexity. We need to see our marriages as a garden dance.

It should not surprise us, however, to find that when we lose our efficiency, we find it. For beauty is an adjunct of peace, and peace the very soil in which our productivity grows. Beauty is part of the same chord as joy, and joy is what moves the music forward. Or to put it another way, nothing invites us to labor diligently in our garden than the beauty of the garden.

This theme is not only a repetition of the beauty of God as God, but the repetition of the theme of the beauty of the triune God. The three are one, in one sense, in the same sense that the c note, the e note and the g note are one. The three are one in the same sense that our families are one. And even their labor in making manifest their glory, even their labor in the fulfillment of the covenant of redemption, includes submission of the Son to the Father, the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. It includes fulfilling different callings, all together fulfilling one calling. And they do this not for the sake of efficiency, but for the sake of the dance.

Remember that there is still a third level of this great garden dance. The triune God dances. Our families dance. And we together, covenant families bound together as the church, dance with the Lord of the Dance. He calls us, because He is the Lord of the Dance, to dance, dance, wherever we may be. And so we have dances within dances, which is precisely how a dance is supposed to work. We marry the harmony with the complexity, and show forth the beauty of our God. In showing forth that beauty we have the unspeakable joy of living in the midst of that beauty. In living in the midst of that beauty we bow before the Lord, and thank Him for the dance, worshipping Him, which is the most practical thing of all.