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Junkie
Location: In the land of ice and snow.
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A newsletter from a pastor i know(names edited):
Quote:
Dear friends,
As many of you are already aware, two members of our church, ----- and ----- were legally married in Provincetown, Massachusetts on May 17th. Having officiated at more than thirty marriages over the years, I've been thinking about and studying about and praying over the issue of marriage for quite some time.
I'm going to use this column to share some of my thoughts with you. In doing so, I'm not hoping, nor am I claiming to speak about gay marriage with the voice or wisdom of God. Just as is the case with all others who attempt to lead God's people, I can only speak with my own voice; the voice of -----.
Within our congregation, there is no requirement that you agree with me. Indeed, one of the unique and wonderful features of our congregation is our ability to patiently, joyfully, lovingly and sometimes noisily disagree with each other. I only ask that you consider what you're about to read. With the length of this letter, you may want to read it one section at a time. I have no doubt God will continue to bless all of us as our discussions continue.
On the History of Marriage
It starts in any one of a hundred ways. Two people meet and instantly they're drawn to each other, "Some enchanted evening you may see a stranger... across a crowded room." Love at first sight. Or perhaps a friendship deepens into something more. "Tale as Old as time, true as it can be. Barely even friends, then somebody bends unexpectedly."
However it happens, people reach the point where they believe they're "right" for each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together. Most who reach that point eventually take the "leap" and get married (although it can take some of them a good, long time). In the Western world, marriage is based almost exclusively on romantic love.
Such has not always been the case. In times past, marriage was often arranged by parents. Marriage has also been used for strictly political purposes, to unite tribes and kingdoms. Marriage has served economic purposes and required the exchange of a dowry. Wives were regarded as property to be exchanged between their fathers and their husbands-to-be through much of history.
The Church didn't establish a firm tradition for marriage until over fifteen hundred years after the resurrection of Jesus, at the Council of Trent in 1563 (the presence of a priest and two witnesses was specified).
All of the above is just to say that, although many of us think of our most recent traditions of marriage and family as "normal" and "timeless," they have, in fact, only existed in their present form for a few decades. Most came into being immediately following W.W.II.
On the "Biblical Image" of Marriage
Some of the folks who are deeply attached to the current form of marriage have dubbed it an unchangeable "Biblical image" of marriage. It is not. The Bible does not contain one, single image of marriage. It contains a whole host of images.
In ancient, times, with Abram, for instance, it was considered completely acceptable for a man to father a child with a servant in his household if his wife was unable to bear children (thus came Ishmael). After an angelic visit, Abraham then fathered Isaac with his wife Sarah. Completely normal and acceptable in the eyes of the Bible.
Jacob, Abraham's grandson, worked seven years to gain the hand of his first wife, Rachel, only to discover he'd married Leah, her older sister instead. He then worked seven more years for Rachel. Having two wives was not seen as a problem at that time.
Generations later, during the years Israel was a great kingdom, David and his son, Solomon, had multiple wives and multiple concubines, which, again, were seen as completely acceptable.
From the above examples, it's clear the Bible supports a wide variety of "images" of marriage. But it also discourages marriage. The Apostle Paul, in writing to the churches he founded, advised his followers not to marry unless they were too inflamed with passion to resist sexual involvement.
The Biblical "images" of marriage are all over the map, so to speak, changing as the societies and circumstances of our ancestors changed.
"Therefore a man leaves his father and mother..."
But what of the passage from the second chapter of Genesis, used as a springboard from which to talk about marriage in so many weddings: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh"?
The original intent of the Adam and Eve story from which that passage is taken seems to have been to explain why certain things are the way they are: why we tend to be embarrassed when we're naked, why women have pain in childbirth, why snakes crawl on the ground, why men have to work to grow crops, why we humans don't live in paradise and, with the "Eve was created from Adam's rib" section, why men and women are attracted to each other (even after women have gone through childbirth). In other words, this story seems to have been intended simply to say that God is the reason these things are the way they are.
In the past, this section of the Bible has been used to argue several interesting things. For instance, when they were first developed, it was argued that women should not be allowed to use anesthetics during childbirth because the Bible said women were supposed to have pain.
I suppose we could argue that farmers should not be allowed to have air conditioned tractor cabs because the Bible says they're supposed grow food "by the sweat of [their] brow[s]."
The translation of the original Greek word "sarx" as "flesh,' as in "the two become one flesh" has often led people to believe the passage had something to do with sexual union and procreation - the "one flesh" referring to the children to be created when the "two become one." Some have even extrapolated from that translation to argue that the purpose of marriage is the production and raising of children. The word "flesh," however, is not a good translation of the Greek word "sarx."
A Deeper Meaning
The word "sarx" actually has a much broader, deeper meaning. It refers to everything that makes a person human: mind, heart, imagination, intuition AND physical body. In my sense of things, it is only our SPIRITS that are able to connect and encompass all those elements - all of who and what we are.
When I officiate at a marriage, the bond I am celebrating, therefore, is not the more youthful, ROMANTIC/SEXUAL bond but the more timeless SPIRITUAL bond. This bond becomes clearer as couples grow in their relationship even as their romantic/sexual feelings subside a bit.
Couples who have been married for multiple decades (and there are a quite a few in our congregation and community) often come to sense that what they share goes beyond words or physical reality. Long lasting, healthy marriages are, indeed, spiritual relationships. They can even seem to last after one partner has moved on to the next life (by choice, not requirement).
Marriage, despite its ups and downs, is a wonderful way of living. If it had been my choice, I myself, would still be married. Without marriage it can often seem we move from one primary relationship to another. Although healthy adolescents, sometimes move through many relationships, the grief which arrives at the end of each relationship makes this more and more difficult as we grow to maturity. Unless we learn to live without a primary relationship (which can be done in healthy ways with some considerable effort), the lack of marriage and the stabilizing of relationships it brings can leave us living very difficult lives.
None of us are meant to live in this kind of continuous transition from one relationship to another. The grief involved can leave us cynical and calloused; inaccessible to warmth and caring. Still, straight people have always had the possibility and opportunity to find Mr. or Ms. "right" with whom they could move into married life.
With our society's attitudes regarding gay and lesbian people and their relationships, however, we have denied them this possibility. In fact, we've done everything in our power to force them into living exactly this most difficult kind of life. We have denied gay and lesbian people the vehicle most straight people use to settle into stable adulthood, while many among us have loudly blamed them for their lack of stability.
This has been unkind and unfortunate to say the least. And it has been unnecessary. It has long seemed to me that the unity of Spirits involved in "two becoming one" has no gender limit. In my heart and soul it is clear any two people, regardless of gender are able to form such a spiritual bond and make promises based on that bond.
In my sense of things, whenever two people, within the bounds of honesty, openness, fidelity and choices freely and maturely made are willing to make such promises and pledge a lifetime to each other, I find those pledges and that relationship to be worthy of blessing.
"Gay" Marriage?
Are the pledges gay and lesbian people are now publicly making to each other properly called "marriage?." I believe they are, but in the final analysis, it is not up to me to decide. In presiding over a marriage, it has never been what I said that "married" a couple. It is what they, themselves have said, the promises they have made to each other before God - their own vows that "married" them. I have only facilitated those promises, asked God's blessing upon those seeking to keep them and witnessed that the promises were made.
Created By and Beloved of God
Perhaps you're wondering where all the sound and fury regarding gay marriage is coming from. A portion comes from the general refusal of some of our friends and neighbors to acknowledge that God chooses to create, for God's own good reasons, a wide variety of different kinds of people to populate this earth.
Based on the life and ministry of Jesus, I have come to believe that all of us, no matter to which others our own age we are most naturally attracted, are God's beloved children. Each of us is meant to live in harmony with the way God chose to create us in the healthiest, most functional ways we can manage.
There are Scripture passages which might appear to disagree but, suffice it to say that, unless you and I follow to the letter the kosher rules for food preparation, always wear clothing made from only one type of fiber, sacrifice animals on an altar in a copy of the great temple that once existed in Jerusalem, demand that women keep silence in church while keeping their hair long and their heads covered, and that men keep their hair short; unless you and I do everything in our power to be sure that our society takes excellent care of the widows and orphans in our midst, we are demonstrating that we have already cast aside the sections of the scriptures which could be interpreted to speak against people who are gay or lesbian.
"Wives, submit yourselves..."
Another portion of the sound and fury surrounding gay marriage is coming from those whose model of straight marriage is most unwieldy and unworkable in our current day. This model, which expects all women to be married and wives to "submit themselves to their husbands," is sorely challenged in our current lives.
The area commonly referred to as the "Bible belt" has the highest divorce rate in the country. The requirement that husbands be unchallenged heads of their households with no regard for the differences in the relationships between couples ignores everything we know about the variety God has created in the couples we, ourselves, already know.
Our more conservative friends have reason to be concerned about marriage (as do we all). Yet, their concerns cause them to cling even more tightly to things that are not working - their belief that the solution to current problems is to force all men and women to fit rigidly defined gender roles and all straight marriages to function according to their rigid model.
Marriage Will Continue
Straight people will not cease to be attracted to each other nor will they give up wanting to create their own families in the healthiest ways possible simply because gay and lesbian people are allowed to do so. Indeed, to listen to the rhetoric of the Christian right, one would think the only reason straight men and women ever became couples and married was because there were no other options.
But let's step back from this whole debate for just a moment. Is not the purpose of marriage that of moving its participants out of the adolescent dating phase of life into the time when we settle into adulthood with a permanent partner to build a life and raise children (if we choose to do so)?
Does marriage not lend stability to our entire society and help ensure that children are raised in homes with adequate resources where they are surrounded with the love and nurture they need to grow to their best potential?
Numerous reputable studies have shown no differences in health and well being between children raised by gay parents and straight parents, nor have they shown that children raised by gay parents are more likely to grow up gay themselves.
Straight marriage and gay marriage serve exactly the same purposes. Gay marriage and straight marriage offer the same benefits to the people who chose to marry and to society in general. Indeed, gay marriage is very likely to lend a new and much healthier level of stability to a segment of society which has widely been criticized for its lack of stability.
Opportunities for Inspired Action
As someone who knows and ministers to gay and straight people alike, it is my firm conviction that the "crisis" being caused by the possibility of gay marriage offers all of us multiple opportunities: First, those of us who sense inspiration to do so can take this opportunity to pray that God will guide people on both sides of this issue as we work to find common ground and just, compassionate Christian solutions.
Second, those of us who sense inspiration to do so can take this opportunity to offer compassion to people whom our society has routinely rejected, just as Jesus, himself offered compassion to the tax collectors and sinners of his own day.
Third, those of us who sense inspiration to do so can take this as an opportunity to lift up and celebrate the wonderful and amazing power of the marriage covenant itself and our own marriages. After, all, if thousands of gay and lesbian people are fighting to be allowed to enter into that same covenant, perhaps marriage itself is worth a bit more than our society has lately recognized.
Shalom
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'nuff said. |