A contract says you are making a commitment whether it for buying houses and cars or service contracts for our computers and copiers. We sign contracts for our rental agreements and our utilities. Contracts, both written and oral, are a basic part of our lives.
Every contract is an understood agreement that there will be a system of give and take among the contract parties. Part of the understanding is that the participants in the contract are prepared to meet the terms. This is no mystery, but with this general understanding, it is still amazing how many contracts are broken because someone was not prepared.
Lack of preparation can exist because a party is not committed to the contract in the first place, or because some scenarios are not foreseen. This leaves parties in the contract unable to meet their obligations even though they had entered the agreement in full faith they could fulfill their commitment. External factors such as health or national economics can be beyond an individual's control.
What of those other situations where a break in the contract could have been avoided simply by making a choice? That involves the marriage contract. There may be some cultures where a party in a marriage has no choice, but that situation does not exist in America, at least not in a legal sense. A marriage exists here because two individuals willingly put their name on a document recognized by our government signifying a commitment to each other for some reason. We would like to think love had something to do with it.
A pastor friend of mine and I recently communicated on the North Carolina constitutional amendment relating to the definition of a married couple. In our discussion we brought up the definition of marriage that Jesus used in Matthew 19.
We both recognized that the question of gay marriages was not the subject of the controversy between Jesus and the religious rulers confronting him. Rather it was the question of the permissibility of divorce. My pastor friend's final comment was that it was odd that we would make such a big deal over homosexuality and its interpersonal manifestation but say so little from our pulpits about divorce, a subject on which Jesus spoke with much emotion.
Divorce nullifies a contract uniting two consenting adults. Rarely do the two people agree to the contract expecting it to end at some point short of death. Promises are numerous and dreams are big. The future is bright with the hope of a shared journey facing life together. Two together can succeed where one might fail. It is a beautiful vision.
Then along come the disagreements, the arguments, the unresolved tensions, the irreconcilable differences, and (I love this one) the decision that they are no longer compatible. A contract meant to last a lifetime is broken because situations arose for which the two individuals were not prepared to come to some form of acceptable agreement that would save the marriage.
If the divine intent was from the beginning for a man and a woman to join together in an intimate relationship designed to last a lifetime, why do nearly fifty percent of marriages in America end in divorce, even among professing Christians? Where is the voice of the Church in supporting God's plan for marriage? It spoke loud enough keep gay and polygamous marriages from being recognized as legal unions in our state. Where is the effort to hold together the marriages we say are right?
We should never enter into a contract for which we are not prepared. Marriage is a contract that should represent the self-sacrificing commitment by each of two individuals to live together in an intimate relationship that results in each one making the full effort to support the other, build up the other, honor the other above self, and work to assist the other in fulfilling their full potential in the eyes of God. Nothing can accomplish this better than making the commitment to love each other without reserve and without regret. We still hear those traditional phrases of "for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health" in wedding ceremonies. Marriages last when we are prepared to make such phrases a part of our commitment. Life brings changes, but the committed love between a man and a woman sealed in marriage should not be lessened by them.
