Not surprisingly, John Vest’s contribution last week to the Fourth Church class on the marriage and the church was excellent and not long enough. For the first time, someone has explained for me, fairly simply even, what exactly the point of Christian marriage is and how it relates to God. The class two Sundays ago went through a whirlwind tour of bible passages that make reference to marriage and relationships, both good and bad passages to a present day progressive’s eye.
Two key lessons from the class:
- The Bible has crazy things to say about marriage. As such, the concept that conservatives like to throw around of “biblical marriage” is ridiculous and means essentially nothing. Unless, of course, by biblical marriage, they mean marriage where wives are treated as property, where multiple wives are allowed, where adulters are stoned to death, where widows get the privilege of marrying their dead spouse’s brother, or where you’re locked in because you can’t have a divorce. I’m sure that’s exactly what they’re thinking of…
- Marriage as a reflection of God, in the sense that God actually is relational (Trinity). This is the one that pretty much blew my mind. Said in another way, marriage is a recognition of the need for and value of community and it’s that relationship that is a reflection of what God is.
So, John didn’t exactly expound on this second point (in fact, he kind of backpedaled on it when someone in the class asked a question that took it in a different direction), but my boyfriend and I spent a lot of time discussing and dissecting it afterwards. I’m not talking about the whole “marriage is a reflection of the vertical covenant that God has with us” thing. I’m talking about the horizontal relationship between two people is a reflection of the relationship of God. Considering God is three entities in one, you can’t really get any closer than that. There’s no way, really, that people can be as close to each other as God-Jesus-Holy Spirit are to each other (since they’re one). So, marriage in the Christian (rather than legal) sense and the bonds of love that tie people together (including emotional and sexual) are the closest we can get. And then my boyfriend pointed this out in Genesis:
26 Then God said, “ Let us make humanity in our image to resemble us so that they may take charge of the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, all the earth, and all the crawling things on earth. ”
27 God created humanity
in God’s own image,
in the divine image God created them,b
male and female God created them. – Genesis 1: 26-27
I think we all usually read that as God talking in the “royal we.” But, what if “us” meant he was talking inclusively about all aspects of the trinity? So then, the us is the trinity, but also, when it says “Let us make humanity in our image,” the us is again the trinity and the people are in the image of a community. I don’t know…kinda out there, but also kinda blew my mind and made me excited. My value system is very community-oriented and to think that marriage could be a reflection of ideal community via the trinity is pretty awesome. Of course, I am no expert and none of this is grounded in any theological study, but it answers my question, and I suppose that’s good enough for me.
I’ll leave you with a lovely song about Christmas and the Trinity:
ohthatswhatitsays 