It is one of the most exciting days in your life. The ones you love and care about all come to experience it with you. The lights are set just perfect, the music is playing, the parents are crying and all the single people are secretly hating you because it is not them. You pray that someone drugged grandma so she wont say anything rude or offensive, but when it comes down to it, nothing matters. It is just you and that person. No one else seems to even be in the room. All focus is on what is about to happen…
One of my really good friends just recently got married. This is his second marriage. His first one was to his college sweet heart. They dated all four years, were the good Christian couple we could all look up to but after 8 years things came to an end. And it was a very ugly ending. No one knew why it happened but them two. He was mad at her for leaving, and said some not so great things about her. She was staying quiet. Was not saying a bad word about him or the marriage. She only said, “There are two sides to every story.” Of course our Christian friends all had an opinion. Not all of them had bad things to say, but you know how it is when things like this happens. Sadly the bad things blast out the good and that’s what they heard. Judgment from us. Sadly all of us.
His new marriage explains the two sides to every story. He is now married to one of their best friends while they were married. However this time he married another man. And yes, the scandal and two-sided talk started right away. There was apparently no affair while he was married to his wife, but now that they were no longer married what was to stop him?
This is one of the hardest things for me to grasp in the Church. At a church I use to attend something happened that really made me question our motives as Christians. Now remember, I am no deep theologian, but what makes sense to me makes sense. And this did not. There was a couple attending the church. Clearly madly in love. He was so respectful to her, you could tell they were crazy about each other. He would not go anywhere with another girl, never give another female a ride without his girlfriend. When asked about it, he said he respected his lady too much to be seen alone with another female. Men should not put themselves in that situation. They bought a really nice house together in a nice little neighborhood. The church had just one issue…they were not married.
Now they never once claimed to be “followers” of Christ. They were attending church because that is what good families do. They just had no intention of actually getting married. They had seen it fail to many times. And they said it is a commitment to God and each other. If they were not true “Christians” why should they make that commitment to God. They wanted to keep seeking and seeing if it was right for them. The Church did not agree.
The pastor who was a wonderful man kept pushing for it. Started out teasing but eventually you could tell that he was not kidding. So did other friends in the church. They had valid points, and I agree with most of everything. I believe you should be married if you are going to share a bed. I agree with that much.
Ok so now my friend who just married his partner. This church did NOT agree with this marriage. And I am going to be honest, I struggle hard with this as well. You can’t just shake your growing up teachings overnight. So know right now, I am NOT giving my opinion on anything in this area of what is right and what is sinful. I am just going to share where I think as a church we are once again idiots.
The guy made a valid point, “It is a commitment between God and each other.” So here two people who are NOT Christians (they admit to that) were being bugged and finally felt forced to get married. And they did. They got married, they had the church and the commitment to God. After it they both talked about how they only did it for their parents and the church. Nothing else changed, but they have the paper to show it.
How can we say marriage is right or wrong for anyone when we are not consistent? We are ok with two people who openly admit they are not Christians, but not two people of the same-sex. Neither are what the bible says is a marriage. If we go by what we are telling one, shouldn’t it be the same for the other?
Again, I don’t know where I am on all this. I just know that if we are not consistent, we should not have an opinion. Black and white is what I was taught.
recoveringyouthpastor 