Essay 3:
Sacrament,
Wedding and Marriage

I once heard tell of a young woman who had gotten a long way down the road in terms of preparing for her wedding. The date was set, and the dress had already been purchased. One then expects to hear that the prospective groom was somewhat lukewarm, that he was not quite as much of a wedding enthusiast as his beloved, but in this particular story there was no prospective groom on the horizon at all! Getting a groom lined up was another item on the "to do" list kept by the bride-to-be.

Here we have a case of someone tending to equate "marriage" with "wedding." To say that she was excited about marriage meant that she was looking forward to her wedding. One might be inclined to suspect that her command of the English language was somewhat shaky, although her confusion was not limited to language matters. Even so, the tendency to use the terms "marriage" and "wedding" in place of one another is more widespread: young ladies paging through bridal magazines are not the only ones who fall into this error. It also occurs in church documents and liturgies.

Clear thinking is needed here. Men who play the role of groom are often thought to have comparatively little interest in the wedding as such, although marriage appeals to them because of the benefits it provides -- domestic, sexual, and so forth. I was an exception to this pattern when I married for the second time. I was very much looking forward to being married, but I also anticipated the wedding eagerly -- especially its liturgical aspects. I venture to say that I enjoyed the wedding service even more than the bride did (it was held in my church rather than hers).

One of the reasons why the terms "marriage" and 'wedding" get confused in people's minds is that we associate the notion of sacrament with both of them. An educated person is aware that marriage is a sacrament in some of the major Christian churches. Does this mean that a wedding, which initiates a marriage, is also a sacrament, on a level with communion and baptism? This is not a simple question to answer. And not all knowledgeable Christians would come up with the same answer.

To make progress with this question, we must recognize that the Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions part company on this score. The Protestant Reformation was -- among other things -- a time in which much excess baggage was tossed out. Such, at least, would be the Reformers' understanding of what went on. Roman Catholicism had grown ornate and had brought into Christian life and practice many things that are not commanded by Scripture. And so the sacraments were trimmed back from seven to just two (only communion and baptism survived). Marriage ceased to be a sacrament and became just a contract -- or perhaps a covenant, a word with more of a Biblical ring to it.

The Reformation represents, in part, a "no nonsense" approach to the Christian life. The sons and daughters of the Reformation are not all Zwinglians in their understanding of communion or the Lord's Supper, but the Zwinglian impulse is still alive and well in Protestant circles. Sacraments are basically just signs pointing to what God does. As for the bread and wine served at communion -- well, it's just the stuff you can buy in the supermarket.

When we contemplate the future of marriage and consider the proposition that in our time it can best be understood as an honorific estate, the notion that there is something sacramental about what happens between husband and wife, and that the initiation of the marriage state is also sacramental, deserves careful exploration. It is easy enough to prove -- by quoting documents -- that marriage is a sacrament for Roman Catholics, and there is also abundant textual evidence that many Anglicans think along sacramental lines when they discuss marriage, [NOTE anglicans] but we should go on to ask whether the sacramental notion has anything to do with everyday life apart from such Anglican and Roman Catholic emphases on formal liturgy. I believe it does. But to explain my conviction on this score, I need to make a detour into my personal life history.

I believe many Protestants are inclined to dismiss the idea of marriage itself as sacramental because it seems a bit sacrilegious to suppose that the sexual union between husband and wife somehow reflects the character and operations of the triune God. After all, we are not Mormons or Hindus or members of some such odd tradition. It's best to keep God out of the sexual union of husband and wife, regarding that union as essentially profane, earthly. Don't the old liturgical forms say something about every baby being "conceived and born in sin"? There you have it, then! Marriage is about procreation, which requires sex, and sex is inherently sinful! There's nothing sacramental about it.

I believe this line of thought is deeply flawed, but I will not take time to argue against it here. Instead I want to point to a very difficult chapter in my own life, which came at the end of my first marriage. That marriage, to my college sweetheart, named Mary Masselink, underwent an enormous upheaval when she suffered a massive brain injury that left her physically debilitated in a number of respects (she never recovered her power to walk or her power to make normal sounds with her voice box), robbed her of much of the content of her memory, left her unable to form new memories as her life continued for almost three more years, and ultimately left her not knowing who she was. In her final months, a limited sense of her own identity came and went, with some days being considerably better than others.

The challenge I had to cope with was so massive that I received counseling, during which I was told (by a counselor with experience in these things) that after such a brain injury, you need to fall in love with your spouse all over again, for your spouse is now a different person. I also learned that the vast majority of marriages in which one partner suffers such a brain injury collapse. Martin Luther would have understood the challenge I faced, whereas many other Christian leaders remain silent in the face of such a marital setback. In Luther's day, people with massive brain injuries would not live long, of course, but Luther did acknowledge that the physical wherewithal to carry out one's many marital obligations was not a matter to take lightly: his view of marriage could therefore be characterized as somewhat worldly or down-to-earth. Indeed, it was so down-to-earth that it lacked the sacramental dimension. [NOTE luther]

The love I now came to feel for Mary was indeed different (in some ways she was more like a daughter to me), and it had a kind of intensity and urgency that were not present before. She never spent a night at home again. My life became a weary round of teaching my classes, attending church, and visiting my wife -- social life disappeared. I visited her every day, sometimes twice a day, and even three times per day when I didn't have much on my agenda. Sympathetic friends thought I must be extremely disciplined to keep up such a schedule of visiting, but discipline didn't seem to come into it. I felt pulled to her each and every day, as if by a giant magnet. I wondered at that powerful pull.

I had a lot of time for reflection, for Mary could no longer speak, although she could communicate to some degree by pointing to the letters of the alphabet on a letter board, thereby spelling out words (she retained her knowledge of spelling while losing so much other remembered material). I often wondered just what was going on, and what was happening to me and to us. There was more involved in our situation, it seemed, than just the hopes and desires and agonies of a husband and wife.

The notion of my marriage as having a sacramental dimension came into new focus for me. It was as though something larger than earthly life had me in its grip, as though the very fierceness of my desire to be at her side was a manifestation and instantiation of a transcendent force. There were only three occasions when I left her side to make overnight trips away from home. One was to attend the wedding of our son Michael in Colorado. The other two were funerals in Michigan: first, for Mary's father, and then for a nephew of hers. Friends urged an away-from-home-base vacation on me, and I said I would think about it (I contemplated going to Scotland), but it never happened.

Throughout this experience, the notion that marriage has a sacramental dimension, as though husband and wife are priests ministering to one another, began to gain credibility in my mind. This was also the period of time in which I made a gradual transition from worshipping in a Christian Reformed setting to worshipping as an Anglican (for a time I belonged to both denominations). And so things came together for me in my own life and experience: I understood in my bones that marriage is a sacrament -- or perhaps, that it can be or become a sacrament. As a Christian I had always believed that God is a part of a Christian marriage relationship, but in my earlier life this thought seemed basically a theological proposition that one ought to affirm.

David Blankenhorn gives us an eloquent exposition of this extra dimension that can appear in a marriage, as he contrasts a theistic understanding with an utterly secular view that is oblivious to transcendent realities:

One way to understand marriage, then, is to believe that we ourselves are the creators and masters of our marriages. From the perspective of this faith, the marriage vow is not an external reality, or standard, but instead a subjective projection, deriving its meaning solely from the couple. In this way, the couple is bigger than the marriage; the two partners themselves become, in effect, the gods of their marriage. But for the people of the covenant -- for the sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah who seek, however weakly, to worship God and follow God's standard -- the marriage vow is always in some measure what Peter L. Berger calls a "signal of transcendence." The couple does not create the vow as much as the vow creates the couple. The marriage is bigger than the couple and also points to something beyond itself. Constantly reminding us that we find ourselves only through sincere self-giving, marriage encourages us to love one other person with a clarity that can give us a hint of what true love, God's love, might be. [NOTE blankenhorn]

And the true love (rooted in divine love) that makes a good marriage a beautiful thing to behold is not to be limited to the man and woman who enjoy the good fortune of being partners to the marriage. Lauren Winner, a fellow Anglican, explains:

... all the Christian sacraments eventually redirect us away from the sacramental moment itself and back to the church and the world. We don�t, for example, get baptized so that we can then just hang around with other baptized folk � we take the grace and transformation we�ve received and share it with the world. We don�t come to the Eucharistic table, receive the Eucharist, and then sit at the table, preening, with other communicants � we take our Eucharistic grace and go back to the world. Similarly, we do not come to marriage simply to hang out with our beloved, but to take whatever grace and transformation marriage may offer us and then offer it back to the world. [NOTE winner]

The differences between the Anglican and Reformed traditions when it comes to marriage are reflected in the liturgical forms used when weddings are conducted under church auspices. By the time I got remarried at age 55, I was reasonably well immersed in Anglican liturgy and longed for the service in the Book of Common Prayer, which begins with the memorable words: "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this Congregation, to join together this man and this woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, instituted of God in the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his Church." One of the prayers made available in the liturgy for marriage characterizes marriage as an "excellent mystery," thereby affirming that there is something about a (Christian) marriage that transcends all human understanding: "O God, who hast consecrated the state of Matrimony to such an excellent mystery, that in it is signified and represented the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his Church ...." [NOTE bcp]

I had tasted something of that "excellent mystery" during the last years of my first marriage and was now hungry for a sacramental connection with God on more than an occasional basis. As an Anglican I was taking communion at least once per week, as opposed to the once-in-three-months pattern with which I had grown up in Christian Reformed circles. But I also wanted to taste the sacramental connection with God in my love life.

It is not my intent in this essay to take issue with the theology of marriage to be found in the Dutch Reformed tradition, for a close reading of its liturgical forms indicates that it is not as far removed from a sacramental understanding of marriage as one might suppose. As I now observe the Dutch Reformed churches from a distance I see them being pulled in two opposite directions at once -- toward "low church" forms of worship in which there is little sacramental understanding left, but also toward "high church" and sacramental emphases. As evidence of the latter, I would point to fruitful borrowings which some ministers and professors make from Anglican and Roman Catholic sources when it comes to the renewal of corporate worship.

When I was a boy growing up in the Christian Reformed denomination, our hymnal (the 1934 Psalter Hymnal) included a liturgical section at the back. The last liturgical form was for the "solemnization of marriage." It began with a summary of Biblical teaching regarding marriage. The sentence that I particularly recall from my boyhood read as follows: "Our Lord Jesus honored marriage by His presence at the wedding in Cana ...." There you have it! Marriage is so special that even Jesus attended a wedding!

The form went on to talk in down-to-earth terms about the purpose of marriage and the benefits to be derived from it:

The purpose of marriage is the propagation of the human race, the furtherance of the kingdom of God, and the enrichment of the lives of those entering this state. This purpose calls for a loving devotion to each other, and a common responsibility for the nurture of the children the Lord may give them as His heritage and as parties to His covenant.

Then comes some stuff about how the man is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the Church, which entails that the wife needs to be subject to her husband "... in all things that are according to [God's] Word, showing him deference even as the Church to Christ."

Those who might expect some flowery, over-the-top stuff making marriage into a veritable sacrament would be disappointed: the stern Calvinists who drew up this liturgical form stuck with the Reformation. The closest we come to something flowery in such a vein is the following sentence, which comes just before the questioning of the bride and groom and the exchange of vows: "Marriage, then, is a divine ordinance intended to be a source of happiness to man, an institution of the highest significance to the human race, and a symbol of the union of Christ and His Church." [NOTE psalter] A Zwinglian concession is what I would call this sentence. Marriage is something utterly earthly, like the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper, and yet it symbolizes something higher, something that transcends human understanding!

While I have never been a member of a Canadian Reformed church, I do keep a copy of the Canadian Reformed hymnal (called Book of Praise) in my library, and I consult it with great interest when considering the old-fashioned Reformed approach to this or that. In my experience, the Canadian Reformed churches and people represent the simon-pure continuation of old Dutch Reformed heritage. One might expect the Canadian Reformed marriage liturgy to be basically identical to the one used in the Christian Reformed denomination before the 1944 split, but this is not the case. For one thing, it allows marriage to be a "profound mystery" (Zwinglians would not approve). We read: "The apostle Paul teaches us that the unity of husband and wife in marriage is a profound mystery, reflecting the relationship between Christ and His Church."

The sense that marriage does -- or can -- involve something much larger than anything earthly, which I had developed while sitting at my ailing wife's bedside for almost three years, is further encouraged in another sentence: "Although it is true, as the apostle says, that those who marry will face trouble in this state and because of sin will experience many difficulties and afflictions, yet they may also believe the promise of God that they, as heirs of the grace of life, will always receive his aid and protection, even when they least expect it." [NOTE book of praise] There were times when I felt I was at the end of my rope, and that I would not be able to continue any longer. But with God's "unexpected grace," I persevered. I often asked myself: Where does my energy come from? (I was also struggling with cancer while all of this was underway.) I had the blessed assurance that God was ministering to my dear wife's needs through me (and also through others, I hasten to add). In some important sacramental sense, her husband's love was divine love.

The Canadian Reformed form is considerably longer than its old Christian Reformed counterpart, and it contains much beauty that would commend it to one who listens with Anglican ears. Yet one finds just the one hint of something sacramental.

Now, it must be admitted that the sacramental dimension, which is regularly brought up in Anglican instructional materials prepared for those who are contemplating marriage, can also introduce an element of confusion in relation to marriage and the question of eligibility to be married. On the one hand, Anglicans are thought to be a fairly tolerant and broad-minded lot, but on the other hand they seem to be rather sticky about marriage after a divorce has taken place. Wasn't this the problem faced by Prince Charles? After his first wife, from whom he was divorced, died in an automobile accident, many expected that he would wish to marry Camilla Parker Bowles, but it appeared that he was not free to do so -- because of her divorce (her prior spouse was still alive). Another substantial complication was the fact that when he became king he would also be head of the Church of England.

The details of how a second marriage for Prince Charles eventually came about need not detain us here. What should be noted is that Anglican churches are not in the business of telling any of their members whether or not they may marry -- or marry again. The element of prescription has to do only with what sort of ceremony will be permitted in the church building and under church auspices. When I married for a second time, with my intended bride having been divorced, she and I needed to go through a process of seeking permission, a process that involved an interview with the priest who was to perform the ceremony. But there was no thought that marriage as such could or should be forbidden by the church.

This point is worth stressing because Christians in Protestant churches that have cut the tie between the notions of marriage and sacrament are inclined to misunderstand these things. The distinction I made above is relevant to the overall theme of this series of essays on marriage as an honorific estate. The popularity of Anglican churches as a possible venue for a wedding illustrates the problem. The Anglican tradition does not stand in the way of anyone who might wish to be married. In other words, it recognizes marriage in a minimalist fashion as performed by secular authorities or by clergy of all sorts of faith communities. But a full-blown Anglican service that would include the sacramental dimension is another matter: it might require special permission in case there is some impediment, such as a divorce on the part of either bride or groom. But marriage is entirely possible apart from any sacramental hocus-pocus.

Is it better to include the sacraments? Anglicans want to answer this question with a yes, but they usually formulate their yes in a gentle way. On his official website the Rt. Rev. James Cowan, who is Bishop of the Diocese of British Columbia, offers a letter of welcome to people who are seeking to be married under local Anglican auspices. He writes:

I am delighted that you are seeking to be married by the Anglican Church. ... I am especially pleased that you want to include the spiritual dimension of Christianity on your wedding day, and trust that you and your pastor will work together to include the sacramental aspect deliberately and with full understanding. [NOTE cowan]

I suspect that some reformational Calvinists would object to these words as embodying a "dualism," as though marriage in the Lord initiated by way of a wedding held in the presence of his congregation is something over and above marriage as such. This objection brings up the question whether marriage is for believers only, to which I will turn in a later essay in this series.

So what about it? Should we say that "history is history," whether it is taught in a Christian college or a secular university? Should we go on to affirm that "psychology is psychology" and that "philosophy is philosophy," and so forth? Should we also say that "marriage is marriage," whether it is performed by a justice of the peace in Niagara Falls or by a bishop in a beautiful Anglican cathedral, complete with the eucharist? Is there such a thing as Christian marriage? What about Christian philosophy and Christian psychology?

In my own life and experience, marriage was an honorific to which I aspired. I wanted to be married to Janet in the fullest possible way. And so we had a sacramental service. The first thing we did after getting married was to receive communion with our wedding guests. It was a day to remember, a day to be proud of. [END]

NOTES

NOTE anglicans
In Article 25 of the Thirty-Nine Articles, we read: "There are two sacraments instituted by Christ our Lord in the Gospel -- Baptism and the Lord�s Supper. The five that are commonly called sacraments (confirmation, penance, ordination, marriage, and extreme unction) are not to be regarded as Gospel sacraments. This is because they are either a corruption of apostolic practice or states of life as allowed in the Scriptures. They are not of same nature as the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord�s Supper since they do not have any visible sign or ceremony instituted by God." But within a century or two, some Anglican thinkers developed a theology of marriage that is indeed sacramental in nature. In a discussion of the understanding of marriage to be found in the thinker Jeremy Taylor (1613-77), Edmund Newey admits the vacillation in Anglican circles on the subject of marriage: "In recent years the Church of England has appeared to lose confidence in its teaching on the nature of specifically Christian marriage. An appreciation of the pre-Christian origins of marriage and a proper concern with subjects of contemporary urgency, such as divorce and remarriage, have to some extent obscured the orthodox understanding of matrimony as a calling, a school of holiness, and a sacramental sharing in God's union with the church in Christ." See "Jeremy Taylor and the Theology of Marriage," published in Anglican Theological Review, Spring 2002. Online findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3818/is_200204/ai_n9069722

NOTE bcp
I am quoting from the current 1962 edition of the Book of Common Prayer used in the Canadian branch of the Anglican communion: see pp. 564 and 570.

NOTE blankenhorn
David Blankenhorn, �Is Marriage Made in Heaven?� published in Christianity Today, August 9, 1999, and available online at http://www.propositionsonline.com/html/is_marriage_made_in_heaven.html

NOTE book of praise
See Book of Praise: Anglo-Genevan Psalter, revised edition (Winnipeg: Premier Printing, 1987), pp. 634ff.

NOTE cowan
This letter is available online at www.bc.anglican.ca/Marriage%20Intro%20Letter%20from%20Bishop.pdf

NOTE luther
This is not to say that Luther had a low view of marital obligation, or of the potential spiritual benefits to be gained through faithfulness in marriage. In "The Estate of Marriage" (1522) he wrote: "What about a situation where one's wife is an invalid and has therefore become incapable of fulfilling the conjugal duty? May he not take another to wife? By no means. Let him serve the Lord in the person of the invalid and await His good pleasure. Consider that in this invalid God has provided your household with a healing balm by which you are to gain heaven. Blessed and twice blessed are you when you recognise such a gift of grace and therefore serve your invalid wife for God's sake. But you may say: I am unable to remain continent. That is a lie. If you will earnestly serve your invalid wife, recognise that God has placed this burden upon you, and give thanks to him, then you may leave matters in his care. He will surely grant you grace, that you will not have to bear more than you are able." Translation by Walther I. Brandt. Online www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/History/teaching/protref/women/WR0913.htm

NOTE psalter
See Psalter Hymnal: Doctrinal Standards and Liturgy of the Christian Reformed Church (Grand Rapids: Publication Committee of the Christian Reformed Church, 1934), pp. 112-113.

NOTE winner
"An Interview with Lauren Winner," conducted by April Folkertsma. Online www.theotherjournal.net/print.php?id=127

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Essay 3: Sacrament, Wedding and Marriage

NOTES

Essay 3:
Sacrament,
Wedding and Marriage