MARRIED OR SINGLE -- What's God got to do with it?
I’m working on bible study guide on
the topic of marriage. I’ve already
posted one piece dealing with the story of Laban, Jacob, Leah, and Rachel. I noted there that definitions of marriage
and family evolve over time. They are
cultural/social constructs that reflect their context. Before I move into the
conversation about marriage, it would be helpful to recognize that not everyone
gets married. Not everyone wants to be
married. There are issues of sexual
propriety, which itself is evolving.
Where does sexual intimacy belong?
That’s a question that I’m going to leave for a different time and
place.
Instead I want to ask the question
of whether one can live a fulfilled human life, experience companionship, but
not experience embodied sexual intimacy?
Can one be single in all its forms and be fulfilled? We don’t use the terms anymore – but back in
the day, at least with women, women who weren’t married were considered Old
Maids. As for men, well there was always
some suspicious about them – maybe they enjoyed bachelorhood too much.
As
we think about this question it is good to remember that the gospels seem to suggest
that Jesus was single. Did he
contemplate intimacy as his Last Temptation, as the Nikos Kazantzakis novel and Martin Scorsese film suggest? The Gospels don’t speak of this, but if Jesus
was truly human, then wouldn’t the concept of human intimacy be something he
dealt with? After all, in first century Jewish life, marriage was expected for
most men (and women).
Paul
deals with this question more directly.
In the seventh chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul deals with marriage and
sexual intimacy. I’ll deal with this
passage in more depth when we come to the question of mutuality in marriage,
but in this passage, which some have taken as a negative portrayal of human
intimacy. An earlier version of the NewInternational Version, translated verse 1 as:
“Now for the matters you wrote about:
It is good for a man not to marry.” In the more recent version, the translators
have brought the translation into line with current thinking – the message
about refraining from sexual relations or marriage wasn’t Paul’s idea, it was
that of a certain group of Corinthians. Since then, the translators have added the
necessary quote marks.
That
said, in verse 7, Paul does seem to suggest that his embrace of the idea of
marriage is a concession to human lust.
Paul seems to imply that he would prefer that everyone would be like him
– single and celibate. But if you can’t,
get married. In context, Paul is writing
from a rather apocalyptic perspective.
He’s assuming that Christ will return soon to bring an end to this age,
and thus the need to be married and have children gets in the way of the
mission. Living as we do some two
thousand years later, it would seem that Paul was incorrect in his
calculations. So, maybe it’s okay to get
married, have a family, and live with some sense of normalcy. That is, it would seem to be the final
message of The Last Temptation of Christ (at
least the movie version as I’ve not read the novel).
But
there is something interesting about this statement that Paul makes about
celibacy. He sees it as a charism, a spiritual gift. Paul seems to suggest that this is a higher charism, than giving in to the need for
sexual intimacy. That is probably the
way Paul saw it, and it has influenced ascetic and monastic movements from that
day to the present. While Paul may have
thought this way, perhaps we can read this somewhat differently, and recognize
that whether single or married, we can live in relationship with God, and be
blessed by that relationship, and we can out that relationship in a variety of
ways. It could involve marriage. It might not.
Either way, we live in blessed communion with God and with
neighbor. Singleness and marriage – are
these not two charisms, two different
ways, in which we live in the Spirit?
Either way, we can be a blessing to the community in which we live.
It
seems to me, that for Paul singleness was to be valued because it gave greater
opportunity for undistracted work for God.
One who is married must take into consideration the needs, desires, and
welfare of his or her spouse before embarking on a work, but the single person
will not have this distraction (I Cor. 7:32-35). This does not make marriage bad and celibacy
good, Paul simply recognizes that there are benefits to the single life. In an age when an unmarried person was
frowned upon, this passage gives great freedom.
Not everyone must be married or have children if they are to please
God. By the same token, one can serve God
and be married. If one chooses to be
married, then this relationship should be fully sexual. One need not prove one's spirituality by
practicing sexual abstinence in marriage. So, whatever condition one finds oneself, let
us be available to God.
Of
course, I write this as one who has been married for thirty-one years. I write this as one who has shared in
numerous weddings and I’ve pronounced blessings on these marriages. I’ve looked to Genesis 2 as a word of wisdom
about the need for community. But, it is
also clear that community takes many forms.
So, whether married or single, one can be used by God.
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