Romans – The Play Part 3

Okay, now, back to the story. This woman got married to this man. Very happy bride. So, after the wedding and the honeymoon, they move into their house. He says:

“Sweetheart, I want breakfast every morning at 6:30 a.m.” She’s so in love with him, and she says, “Yes, dear,” while she’s thinking, “I’ve never been up at 6:30 in the morning in my life.”

“I want two eggs. One sunny side up, one well done. I want some biscuits and gravy.” She thinks, “How do you make sunny side up? And how do you make one hard? Biscuits? How do I do that?”

“I want some fresh milk, fresh cow’s milk, oh, goat’s milk, fresh goat’s milk. I want it served on time, at 6:30 tomorrow morning, so that when I leave, I will have my breakfast. Darling, before I leave. I would like to know that our house is in perfectly clean order.”

So, the first morning, she gets up at 5:00 a.m. and tries to straighten up what she can. She goes into the kitchen, and she burns the eggs. She burns the toast, the biscuit, and she drops one on her foot and breaks her toe. The gravy is an absolute gooey mess. He comes in, he sits down, and he sees what has happened. There is the goat out there baaing because it hasn’t been milked. He sees what’s going on. He says:

“That’s all right, honey. You learn today, while I’m gone, and when I come back, when I get up in the morning, I’m sure you’ll have it done. By the way, tonight I want pot roast and potatoes. I want a really nice, lavish dinner when I come home. And of course, I want the house cleaned.”

And so, she tries to clean up the house, and she does fairly well at it. That night, she has burned roast. The potatoes are as hard as rock. The gravy is as bad as it was that morning. The bread didn’t have any yeast in it. It didn’t rise. It’s terrible. He is patient with her, and he says, “That’s all right, honey. I’m sure you’ll do better tomorrow.” The next morning, she wakes up – it is 6:15. She makes a mad dash to the kitchen. At 7:00 o’clock, she’s still making it. He is patiently waiting. He says:

“Sweetheart, I’m going to have to go. I’ve got to eat it.” She serves it to him, and it’s worse than yesterday’s. She cannot live up to his standard. This goes on for weeks and months. And then she notices someone living across the street. This old boy drives a jalopy that hasn’t been washed in a year. He hasn’t mowed his lawn in months. He wears blue jeans, and he sits around the house and reads books. His house is as big a mess as the house she used to live in. She thinks, “I wish I’d have married a man like that.”

Things, in the meantime, at home, are getting worse and worse. She is beginning to hate getting up in the morning. She despises gravy and biscuits, and she loathes goats. She has not yet successfully fixed a single meal. Things are getting worse. She’s getting haggard. The house is a mess. She is a nervous wreck. One morning, when her husband walks out the door and gets in the car, she whispers to herself: I wish you were dead. And she just plain flat begins to lust and desire to be married to that other man, so much so, she’s almost willing to risk the stigma, the stigma of adultery: leave her husband and go live with the other man, or divorce her husband and go marry that other man.

Her husband is in excellent health. In fact, you know what? He shall live until the consummation of the ages. The sun may pass away. The earth may dissolve. Creation itself may cease to be. That man is here to stay. In her desperation, she dies. And he takes her out and buries her, puts the dirt over her grave, and: “Here lies Mary. She’s dead.” And Mary is dead. And I want you to know something: She is free from the law!

Oh, happy condition! For the first time ever, she is free from the law.

Paul of Tarsus is giving his autobiography here. His own freedom, before, he knew the law so perfectly. The more he knew it, the worse his relationship was to it. And he found the law to die, or did it?