Part 1
Part 2
Now that I have briefly discussed some of the passages in the
Old and New Testaments that deal with marriage and sexuality, I will tackle the
deeper issue of what marriage signifies in the biblical text. Here I go back to Genesis, Chapter 1, which
bears looking at in some detail.
How it was meant to
be
Genesis 1:26-28 26 Then God said, "Let us
make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the
cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing
that creeps upon the earth." 27
So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. 28
God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and
fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and
over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the
earth."
God makes humankind (literally adam)
in God’s image; male and female together are in God’s image. Now one way to read this is simply to say that both
men and women are made in the image of God, and I certainly agree with
that. We are all image-bearers in that
sense. However, I think a part of the sense of this is that both men and women
are necessary to encompass the full
image of God. We see that affirmed in
the New Testament as well: both men and women are necessary for the body of
Christ to be complete. I would argue that the text suggests that we take this
even further: that man and woman in relationship are reflective of the creative,
generative, and governing aspects of God. We can only bring life into existence
together; we can only be fruitful together; we can only appropriately care for
the creation together. The first of
those statements is obvious to all – we need a sperm and an egg to make a new
human being. But the last two statements
are just as important. In order to be truly fruitful in all ways, women and men
must work together. In order to rule
creation wisely, men and women have to rule together. This is the basis of the covenant of marriage
– the fulfillment of the image of God.
Does that mean that single people cannot be fully in the image of God?
No! Every person carries the image of
God. But we are created for relationship
and the relationship that is expressed in
the marriage covenant is a sign of God’s covenant with God’s
people. Ideally, it reveals to the world
how God cares for the world.
In Genesis 2 we see another way of understanding the relationship between
male and female. Here the adam (the
Hebrew word for human, either male or female) is made from the adamah (the Hebrew word for “earth”). When the breath of God turns this little “earthperson”
into a nephesh, or a being full of
passions and desires and “selfhood,” God looks at the person and realizes that
there is a problem: the person is alone.
God says for the first time, “it is not good.” What God is wanting for
the person is an ezer kenegdo—a fit
helper. In the King James version of the
Bible this was translated as a “help meet” which conjured images of one who was
subordinate. However, the word ezer (whether as a noun or an adjective) is most
often referring to God, as in Psalm 30:10
Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me! O LORD, be my helper!” A helper is one who
encourages, protects and saves. A helper is life-giving.
When the story tells us that God took
the person and used the rib or side of the person to make (or build, as the
Hebrew says) a woman, the words now used are that God built an ishah (Hebrew forwoman) out of the ish (Hebrew for man). I think what we are to learn from this story
is that men and women have a special relationship in the created order.
Unfortunately, in the next chapter the
woman fails in her job as helper when she gives the apple to the man who is standing
with her. The man fails in his job as
helper by failing to speak up in her conversation with the snake. But the failure in the story should not blind
us to the intent in creation.
Marriage as a
sign of God’s love for God’s people
The image of marriage as a fundamental sign of God’s love for God’s people
is found throughout the Old and New Testaments.
One way in which we are shown in the Old Testament the sacredness of
marriage is that it is used as a metaphor for the relationship between God and
Israel.
Jeremiah 2:1-2 The word of the LORD came to me, saying: 2 Go and proclaim in the hearing
of Jerusalem, Thus says the LORD: I remember the devotion of your youth, your
love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.
Isaiah 61:10 10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my whole being shall
exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has
covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a
garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
Isaiah 62:4-5
4 You shall no more be termed
Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be
called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in
you, and your land shall be married. 5
For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and
as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.
The analogy
becomes even more forceful when used to speak about the unfaithfulness of
Israel. The people of God are called
adulterous; they are named whores when they follow after other gods. This is
offensive language. I think it is
intended to be offensive to give an indication of the offensiveness of seeking
other gods.
Malachi 2:11 11 Judah has been faithless, and
abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has
profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loves, and has married the
daughter of a foreign god.
Jeremiah 3:1-3 NRS
Jeremiah 3:1 If a man divorces his wife and she goes from him and
becomes another man's wife, will he return to her? Would not such a land be
greatly polluted? You have played the whore with many lovers; and would you
return to me? says the LORD. 2
Look up to the bare heights, and see! Where have you not been lain with? By the
waysides you have sat waiting for lovers, like a nomad in the wilderness. You
have polluted the land with your whoring and wickedness. 3 Therefore the showers have been
withheld, and the spring rain has not come; yet you have the forehead of a
whore, you refuse to be ashamed.
If you want
more see Ezekiel 16:23-49 and the whole book of Hosea.
When
we get to the New Testament, we in the Gospel of John that Jesus is seen as the
bridegroom explicitly:
John 3:26-29 26 They came to John and said to him, "Rabbi, the one
who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you testified, here he is
baptizing, and all are going to him."
27 John answered, "No one can receive anything except
what has been given from heaven. 28
You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, 'I am not the Messiah, but I have
been sent ahead of him.' 29
He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who
stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. For this
reason my joy has been fulfilled.
Jesus also uses this metaphor for himself:
Matthew 9:14-15 14 Then the disciples of John came
to him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your
disciples do not fast?" 15
And Jesus said to them, "The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the
bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is
taken away from them, and then they will fast.
In addition, Jesus uses the image of marriage in some of his parables to
describe the kingdom:
Matthew 25:1-13 NRS
Matthew 25:1 "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten
bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and
five were wise. 3 When the
foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4 but the wise took flasks of oil
with their lamps. 5 As the
bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a
shout, 'Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' 7 Then all those bridesmaids got
up and trimmed their lamps. 8
The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are
going out.' 9 But the wise
replied, 'No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to
the dealers and buy some for yourselves.'
10 And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and
those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was
shut. 11 Later the other
bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' 12 But he replied, 'Truly I tell
you, I do not know you.' 13
Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Finally,
Revelation has extensive references to the bridegroom (Jesus) and the bride
(the church). See for example:
Revelation 19:7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the
Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready;
Revelation 21:2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from
God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Now let’s
look at that passage in Ephesians 5 that Baptists seem to love and United
Methodists seem to hate:
Ephesians
5:21 - 6:1 21 Be subject to one another out of reverence for
Christ. 22 Wives, be subject
to your husbands as you are to the Lord.
23 For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is
the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. 24 Just as the church is subject
to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands. 25 Husbands, love your wives, just
as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, 26 in order to make her holy by
cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, 27 so as to present the church to
himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind-- yes,
so that she may be holy and without blemish.
28 In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they
do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hates his own
body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the
church, 30 because we are
members of his body. 31
"For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to
his wife, and the two will become one flesh." 32 This is a great mystery, and I
am applying it to Christ and the church.
33 Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and
a wife should respect her husband.
First off,
it is important to start reading in verse 21 where it says to be subject to one
another. So what follows can be understood as a fuller explanation of
how to be subject to one another, not how the woman should be subject to the
man. This is often read as saying that
the woman should be “subordinate” to the man. But that would contradict both
Genesis 1 and 2 and the rest of this passage. The job of the man, after all is to sacrifice
himself for the woman and to encourage her sanctification. [Full disclosure: I am blessed to be in a
marriage where my husband has made a lot of sacrifices to enable me to be a
pastor because he believes that is allowing me to be all that God made me to
be. He is fulfilling the role that Paul
lays out here.] In fact, I would argue that the focus in this passage is on the
relationship between Christ and the church.
The marriage, the relationship between the man and the woman is a sign
of the much more important relationship.
So why does
only a male-female marital relationship reveal the relationship between Christ
and the church? Why wouldn’t any marital
relationship—male/male, female/female or male/female—do this equally well? I can understand how it possible to argue that they can, as a matter of
fact. But I think a stronger argument is that only in the male/female
relationship is there a relationship between those who are significantly “other.” We’ve all heard lots of jokes about the
difficulties in men and women understanding each other. Most of those jokes are just silly; but there
is some truth to them. I will never
completely understand the male perspective, because I am not male. Some of you don’t think that matters; I do.
One of the
things that bothers me about Gay and Lesbian relationships has to do with the
issue of leaving out the “other.” I don’t see relationships between two men or two women as a full expression of the
relationship that God intended. While two
women or two men can love each other dearly and intimately, they can never be “one
flesh.” They can’t reflect the
relationship between Creator and created who are very different but meant for
one another.
In Closing – A personal plea
This is a
very brief overview of how I understand marriage on the basis of the Bible. I
know this will not “convince” many people to change their stance. But I deeply dislike simplistic views of
scripture from both camps and I am trying to be faithful to a reasoned and
faithful view of scripture.
In all
honesty, I would rather hold a different view of gay and lesbian
relationships. It would be simpler and
people would not hate and ridicule me. I could go along and get along. I could affirm the love that I know
is very real in GL relationships without having a problem with certain aspects
of those relationships, and therefore would not be in conflict with some
wonderful people. I could present myself as modern and relevant and it would be
a lot easier to reach out to the “nones.” However, because I read the Bible as I do, and
because I understand it to be authoritative for my life (see Excursus in Part1), it would be hypocritical of me to present myself as totally accepting of
open marriage (and ordination) and I don’t think that would appeal to the “nones”
either. I maintain that I can love
people with whom I disagree and I will keep trying to do that. I hope that those who know me will try to
love me back.
