By John Berecz
A Commentary on the Sabbath School Lesson for July 17–23, 2004, "Marriage Is Not Out-of-Date."
Remember those science courses that included labs as well as lectures? Where you actually got some hands-on experience mixing up (or blowing up) chemicals or dissecting formaldehyded frogs? I think of marriage as the "forgiveness lab" for Life 101. To live successfully with someone—anyone—in that most intimate of all human relationships known as marriage requires a continual attitude of forgiveness on the part of both participants.
"For better or for worse" frequently gets "worse." That’s not an indictment of marriage; it’s simply an acknowledgment that after a near-perfect wedding ceremony complete with classical music, coiffured hairstyles, elegant tuxedos, and stirring words, one encounters the everyday world of morning breath, sleep-depriving work schedules, and Asian flu.
Marriage is a relationship in which "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us" forms the most personal leg of a tripod of opportunities. A good marriage is a forgiving marriage. It’s one where we can make mistakes—as we all do—and continue to travel together another day. It’s a journey where we forgive differences, negotiate compromises, and continue to relish the trip.
The erotic "chemistry" of dating and engagement undergoes a loss of heat in the marriage lab. Here mistakes intermingle with the peculiarities of partners’ personalities, career challenges, troubled childhoods or troubled children—or both—extended-family dynamics, and a host of other daily disappointments that inevitably bring about a "cooling" that can either end up as a lifetime of shared "warmth" or continue toward the "big chill" of divorce. The crucial catalyst is forgiveness.
Elsewhere I have suggested that forgiveness occurs in two major styles: disjunctive and conjunctive.1 Disjunctive forgiveness means letting go and moving on. It is valid in situations where, for example, there has been sexual abuse or some other egregious behavior. It is often psychologically necessary in such situations to forgive, shake the dust off one’s feet, and move on without further contact with the perpetrator (Matt.10:14).
Forgiveness within marriage (conjunctive forgiveness) is the hardest kind to dispense because it must include reconciliation or else the relationship will dissolve. Marriage doesn’t permit new beginnings untethered to the past. Within marriage forgiveness and reconciliation become synonyms. Perhaps that’s why Jesus used marriage as a metaphor of God’s relationship to his people. God forgives and reconciles us to him-or-herself.
Marriage offers partners the opportunity to engage in safe sex. Here I’m not referring to the use of condoms or other practices designed to avert sexually-transmitted diseases, I’m referring to psychologically safe sex. When you’re married, your sexual interaction doesn’t have to be performance, scrutinized under the microscope of the one night encounter. In a marriage your motives matter as much as your moves.
When you’re in a long-term, loving relationship the failure to achieve an orgasm or maintain an erection doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Marriage was designed by our Creator as an antidote to anxiety and the other problems that interfere with a relaxed, playful attitude toward the most intimate of human encounters.
Sadly, here is where I think conservative churches (our own included) have sometimes failed their parishioners. By continuing to emphasize an Old-Testament patriarchal blueprint as the "right" way to configure a family system, we have facilitated a dominance-submission model. This mirrors the Old-Testament image of God as the "Big Boss in the Sky" or the Lightning-bolt-dispensing Yahweh of Sinai. The New Testament presents a much more "user-friendly" portrait. Here we see God in human form, tenderly forgiving the adulteress while sending the male perpetrators shamefully scurrying for cover.
Marriage offers co-equal partners the opportunity to genuinely negotiate, compromise, and bargain on equal footing. A brief consideration of anatomy and physiology might provide some insight regarding God’s intentions for equality in sexual relations. We might note that the clitoris was apparently created by God only to provide pleasure. This anatomical analogy addresses issues of equality of women and pleasures of sexuality. Whereas the penis functions both as an excretory organ and a pleasure center, the only known function for the clitoris is to provide pleasure-for the woman. Patriarchalists, go figure!
Sadly, some denominations have put celibacy on a theological pedestal, suggesting that really devout Christians forgo sexual pleasures as a sign of their solidarity with God (to whom we have "attributed" all sorts of attitudes and character traits except sexuality).
More subtle, more muted, but perhaps equally pernicious is conservative Protestantism’s virulent reaction to contemporary society’s "fetishization" of sexuality. Here I use the word "fetish" in it’s technically precise sense: focusing on a sexually-arousing object or body part.
What’s wrong with Hollywood’s portrayal of sex is not that it’s exciting, delightful, fun, or arousing. In place of a whole person, the camera pans to breasts; in place of communication, we see curves; erotic urgency replaces authentic intimacy as portrayed by groping of body parts.
In reaction, churches (both Catholic and Protestant) have offered equally piecemeal antidotes in the form of an array of specific prohibitions targeted at pornography, premarital sex, masturbation, extra-marital sex, and gay or lesbian sex. Listening to church-based discussions about sexuality, one hardly hears the word "pleasure."
A more appropriate focus for "Focus on the Family" would be to replace James Dobson’s rants against abortion, gay marriages, and pornography, with advice on how to make marriage more joyful and sex more pleasurable. In the end, if your marriage isn’t pleasurable—most of the time—it’s not what God intended. Since our Creator designed us for holistic, relationship-based pleasures, marriage provides the best twenty-first century vehicle for this experience.
Bottom line: in the twenty-first century, as in the previous sixty or so, marriage offers the best this life has to bestow in human relationships. Children, forgiveness, sexuality, gender equality, and holistic pleasures are but a sampling of the cornucopia of growth experiences, blessings, and pleasures God intended for this relationship. Little wonder that it serves as the primary biblical metaphor for the Creator’s relationship to his people.
1. J. M. Berecz. "All that Glitters Is Not Gold: Bad Forgiveness in Counseling and Preaching," Pastoral Psychology, 49 (2001): 253–75.
J. M. Berecz. Sexual Styles: A Psychologist’s Guide to Understanding Your Lover’s Personality. Atlanta, Ga.: Humanics, 1998.
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE
|
