Page 5 - Moravian Messenger July 2020

One Plus One
(A United Reformed Church Publication)
The seventh article on understanding marriage in 21st Century:
Brothers and Sisters in Christ
The ground of the Unity of the Moravian Church states that 'the Church of Christ, despite all the distinctions between male and female, poor and rich and people of different ethnic origin, is one in the Lord. The Unitas Fratrum recognises no distinction between those who are one in the Lord Jesus . We oppose any discrimination in our midst because of ethnic origin, sex or social standing, and we regard it as a commandment of the Lord to bear public witness to this and to demonstrate by word and deed that we are brothers and sisters in Christ.' This is a radical statement because it implies that every aspect of our lives should point towards the love of God made known in Jesus, and that includes the witness of married life. Many Christian denominations have used the Bible to support the notion that men are superior to women and women are subservient to men.
Over the past 150 years, social and legal understandings of marriage have moved a very long way. This is largely because the status of women has shifted from being the goods and chattels of a man's possession towards equal partners in relationship, work, in the control of property and wealth and in the home and family. Although it is 50 years since laws were passed in the United Kingdom requiring women to be paid an equal rate to men for equal work, this has still not been fully enacted. Women are only just beginning to receive the benefits of justice where cases of rape, coercive control and sexual abuse within marriage and the work place are concerned. Over the last fifty years or so it has become increasingly acceptable for couples to choose to live together without getting married. In 1967, two thirds of marriages took place in places of worship. Fifty years later that had dropped to one quarter. In those fifty years, while the population rose by over ten million, the annual number of marriages dropped by 132,000.
One aspect of marriage that we cannot avoid is its relationship to power, wealth and domination. The idea of marriage being based around romantic love, fidelity, companionship and mutual support is relatively modern. In biblical times, marriage was more about securing alliances between families and sometimes nations, and ensuring the inheritance of the land and property originally given by God to the Children of Israel. It has to be acknowledged that the Bible is not that interested in the roles and rights of women: in the Old Testament, 1315 men are named and only 111 women, (go on, check it out!) In the New Testament, 248 men are named and just 26 women. So often the Word of God reflects the patriarchal and, at times, misogynistic cultures in which it is set.
In Mark's gospel there is a story of
some Pharisees trying to catch Jesus
out with the question, 'Is it lawful for
a man to divorce his wife?' This has
been used by some church authorities
for generations to pile guilt onto
women trapped within abusive
relationships, and divorcees who remarry, for Jesus seems to be condemning divorce. When we look closely at the context of the story, it happens in the place where John the Baptist was baptising. John was imprisoned, and later executed, for condemning the divorce which enabled King Herod to marry his half-brother's ex-wife. The Pharisees inquiry was a politically loaded trick question. What Jesus does in sidestepping their trap is to highlight how easy it had become for a man to divorce his wife, and how impossible for a wife to divorce her husband. He calls people back to God's creative intentions outlined in the book of Genesis, that 'for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' In other words, marriage as a covenant relationship is intended to reflect the life of the Holy Trinity, that self-giving love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; and God's relationship with us, those whom he has called to be his children.
Another 'text of terror' comes from the letter to the Ephesians: 'Wives obey your husbands for the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church.' This was even incorporated into the marriage promises. The following verse is less often referred to, 'Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy . In the same way husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies.' Marriage in God's image and likeness is about negotiated mutuality of respect, each partner being ready to lay down their lives for the other.
Has the enforced social distancing of the covid-19 lockdown sharpened our awareness of how important it is to be part of a caring community looking out for each other? Can God use this experience to challenge the church to find fresh ways to big up, encourage and model faithful and committed relationships that build community and nourish souls?
Brn Martin Smith & Philip Cooper Ministers at Royton, Salem and Fairfield Congregations
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