Wednesday, 09 May 2012
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This Year, Don’t Just Attend Weddings
By Sharon at SheWorships
Well I am back from North Carolina (so sad!) and upon my arrival yesterday, Illinois greeted me with a rainy, dreary day. Luckily, my spirits couldn’t be dampened after an amazing week and a half spent with family and friends. I attended two weddings and was honored with two baby showers, and my heart has been full all week. I continually give thanks to God for the ways He has blessed me with great friends and family. It is one of the best aspects of my life here on earth!
As I just mentioned, while I was home I attended two different weddings for long-time friends. Both weddings were a total joy and I had a blast. I am SO incredibly happy for both couples! However, weddings are also a sobering occasion for me. I know that sounds a bit Debbie Downer-ish, but here’s what I mean:
Although our culture treats weddings like a major social event (I mean, how many people are extremely disappointed when they show up to a dry reception?), the Christian faith believes that a wedding is much more. Certain Christian traditions believe marriage is a sacrament–ie. a means of God’s grace in our lives–and most Christians believe it is a sacred moment that depicts the holy union between Christ and his bride, the Church.
For Christians, a wedding ceremony is a very serious occasion in which two people commit to love one another in a way that testifies to God’s unconditional, unending love. However, that is not the only commitment that takes place on a wedding day. Of arguably equal importance is the commitment of their surrounding community to help them persevere in their vows, to live out the marriage covenant faithfully, even when it is difficult.
Evangelicals place a tremendous emphasis on the former commitment. We put couples through pre-marital counseling and inundate them with books to help them navigate the oft-rough waters of marriage. What evangelicals fail to emphasize as strongly is the communal commitment to support the couple, even though that commitment is critical.
No couple really understands what they are agreeing to on their wedding day, and if left to their own devices they will be vulnerable to a whole host of obstacles. That’s why the attendees are there–not only to share in the couple’s joy, but to participate in the marital commitment.
Theologian Stanley Hauerwas is one Christian who puts an adequate emphasis on the community role in a marriage. He argues that most couples marry for lust, not love, and while I personally think that’s a bit of an overstatement, I also get what he’s saying. For many of us, the wedding belongs to the honeymoon period when both the man and woman are young, healthy, childless, and doting. For many, though not all, the dating, engagement, and wedding represent the easiest (though perhaps less deep) phase of the relationship. It is only when a couple starts doing life together and encounters the hardships of marriage that they begin to understand what they have committed to. And it is then that a couple needs support.
It is for this reason that Hauerwas emphasizes the role of the community in helping a couple live into their vows. As the rose-colored glasses come off and a couple gets into the nitty-gritty stuff of marriage, they need a church body that will push them to be godly spouses, and exhort them to fight for their marriage.
That is why I take wedding attendance very seriously. If I stand behind a couple on their wedding day, my presence is a commitment to help them live out their vows. I take this so seriously that, if a marriage begins to falter and I do nothing, I consider that a personal failing on my part. In such an instance, I have not borne up my end of the deal. I have not been the Body of Christ to them, and there is a stain on my hands.
Now, I am not legalistic about this. There are times when you attend a wedding as someone’s date and you don’t know the couple at all, and I don’t think you should be faulted for your subsequent lack of involvement in the couple’s life. But I also wonder if this common circumstance should challenge our thinking about weddings as social events. When a close friend gets married and you don’t have a date, is it appropriate to bring someone who does not know the couple, simply to avoid being dateless? Christian weddings are not, after all, like prom.
There is certainly room for more discussion on this aspect of weddings. In the mean time, as the wedding season goes into full swing this year, think carefully about the weddings you attend and what you commit to with your presence. A wedding is more than a lovely formality, but is instead a holy occasion in which a couple, and their community, embark on a journey together.
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About the Author
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- From: sheworships
- Name: Sharon
- About Me: Sharon Hodde Miller is a North Carolina girl, born and raised! She is originally from Charlotte, NC, and she received her undergraduate degree and Masters of Divinity from Duke University. Sharon has worked for Proverbs 31 Ministries where she was a contributing writer to the ministry’s daily devotions and radio broadcasts. She has written for Relevant Magazine’s online articles, Lifeway’s Collegiate Magazine, Ungrind Webzine, and she continues to write and minister to women all over the world about being a Christian woman in an ever-changing culture. Sharon currently lives in Durham, North Carolina with her husband, who is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity at Duke Divinity School. If you would like to contact her regarding a speaking or writing opportunity, if you have any questions, or would like to submit a blog topic, please e-mail her at sharon(at)sheworships(dot)com.
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Comments (3)
Sorry for potentially derailing the conversation, but... what poor timing for a piece about the community's role in weddings! (Especially when "North Carolina" appears in the very first sentence.)
So far, the way that my community has participated in my wedding is to tell me that I can't have one. Apparently all this "one man, one woman" and "procreation" bullshit only applies to me and my partner. When it comes to you and yours, though, marriage is suddenly about "community," "commitment," and "unending love."
Honestly, #@$% that.
Now, a question about your post: How do you suggest that a community might support a couple's vow to procreate? Oh, they don't make that vow? How curious!
@jim_the_american@xanga - You are kind of on track with what I was going to ask the OP.
To the OP: You seem like a very intelligent woman who can make a case for her beliefs. Could you write a piece explaining the evangelical stance against gay marriage? Not all churches frown upon it, but a lot do. I'd really like somebody on revelife to write this out or point me to a piece where this is well-written.
Many Thanks.
Firstly, the amount of money people spend to get married is stupid, considering they have a 50/50 shot at staying married. Second, evangelicals have very little scripture to pull from, mainly Genesis 19:1-29, and the parallel story of the rape of the Levite's concubine in Judges 19:1-30. In both stories a host invites traveling men into his house. Later, an angry mob of townspeople surround the house and demand that the host turn his guests over to them. Foreigners are clearly not welcome, and the implication is that they will be raped or killed. Daniel Helminiak, professor of psychology at the State University of WEst Georgia points out that in the ancient world homosexual rape was a traditional way for victors to accentuate the subjection of captive enemies and foes. In that culture, the most humiliating experience for a man was to be treated like a woman, and raping a man was the most violent such treatment. To be penetrated was to be inferior because women were inferior. It is an expression of the ancient horror or the feminine. Because of the male superiority over women, the host attempts to placate the gangs by offering women of his household. As Old Testament scholar Marti Nissinen of the University of Helsinki notes, the critical issue in the ancient Near East was not sexuality, but gender, and it was important that the superior position of men over women be maintained The best available scholarship shows that these texts have nothing to do with homosexuality as such. C.L. Seow, professor of Old Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, points out that the sin of Sodom is mentioned several times elsewhere in the Bible, but never in connection with homosexual acts. In Old Testament references to Sodom, the sins of the city are variously described as greed, injustice, inhospitality, excess wealth, indifference too the poor (note the frequency of this with our current political Christian stance),and general wickedness. In the New Testament when Jesus referred to the sin of Sodom as recorded in Luke 10:12, and Matthew 10:15, he was passing judgement on cities that refused hospitality to his traveling disciples.