Contract or Covenant?

I guess Ghana is not a goner. The US is out of the World Cup. I should have gotten my slogan out quicker and broader. Maybe it's for the better. Uruguay won, so I couldn't use my "We've got more Soul than Korea" slogan. And we were a long way from being able to introduce my Brazil slogan, "Brazilch". Can you imagine the Brazilian players being called Brazilch by the US team? They would've been demoralized. The game would have been a mere formality. I guess I will have to wait four more years. Hopefully, that will give me some time to come up with a cool slogan for Uruguay.

On to other things.

I once again direct our gaze to a Nobel Peace Prize winner. This man also won an academy award, was Vice President of the United States for eight years, and served as Dan Rather's President of the United States for about ten minutes. It is none other than the master of the dangling chad, Al Gore.

He is in the news for separating from his wife Tipper after 40 years of marriage. The picture to the right was taken at the Democratic National Convention that nominated Mr. Gore as their presidential candidate. Al chose the moment to plant one on Tipper supposedly to show the dynamic and deep love they have for each other.

The Gores' public statements on the matter included,  "After a great deal of thought and discussion we have decided to separate," and "This is very much a mutual and mutually supportive decision we have made together." Wow! What a thoughtful, caring divorce. I only have one question. How can a separation of a marriage be mutually supportive?  Only a marriage can be mutually supportive. A divorce is choosing to no longer support each other the way your marriage vows said you would.

I don't want to dance on the grave of another failed marriage that parted before death. I also don't want to pick on another fallen, frail politician. I use celebrities to illustrate issues that are a part of all our lives. Celebrities are merely caricatures of ourselves. They do in public what we do in private. Because we've chosen them to be celebrities, they are representatives of who we want to be and so say something important about the lives we all live.

The Gores' split is very sad. I use them only to illustrate three errors true of most of us at different times: language of deceit, incoherent worldviews, and mistaking covenants for contracts.

Language of Deceit: The Gores' statements about their separation are deceiving and meaningless. They make it sound as if they are so caring of one another that they must split up. My experience reveals a similar deceit in many areas of our lives, but particularly around our marriages. We lie, equivocate, gloss over and deceive when we are unhappy. The talk coming from unhappy couples is either angry victimization or a deceitful gloss-over like the Gores. We often make the dissolving of our marriages sound virtuous, loving or like it is the only sensible thing to do. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our language is powerful. The lie precedes the act.

Incoherent Worldview: Al wants us to save the earth, but he can't save his marriage. Many would think that these things aren't related. The biblical worldview understands that they are. Our bodies and marriages not only connect with our creator but also with the creation. I am not insinuating a pantheistic or existential worldview where there is no transcendence and all is god or the entire universe connects in some unidentifiable "spirit". A biblical worldview is quite different.

The biblical worldview understands that the universe was created by the one, true, living God as a place for Him to live in relationship with the prize of His creation....us. Our role is to build His Kingdom through marriages of fidelity and truth that produce ongoing generations who do likewise. To do this God made us for marriage. Our marriages aren't our own. They are not primarily for our pleasure, they are for God's and for being part of His plan. In a way, marriage is an office. To be married is to hold an office of responsibility.

We also hold an office of responsibility as stewards of creation. We are to care for, protect, and wisely cultivate and utilize the created order. Once we understand God's purpose for this world and for us, we see how our marriages and interactions with the environment connect with each other. They are part of the same ultimate plan.

Unfortunately, most of us are like Al. He doesn't see the incoherence of loving the environment but not loving the wife he vowed before God to cherish until death parted them. The biblical narrative tells a story of how these offices weave together in God's story. We are to make that story our story. To do otherwise is to abandon the offices we are made for.

Contract vs. Covenant: Our marriages have suffered greatly because we no longer understand the concept of covenant. We have replaced the idea of covenant as the foundation of our marriages with the ideas of contract and convenience.

What's the difference? A marriage covenant is a promise not just made with each other, but also with God.  If our marriages are just contracts and convenience, then when our partner is no longer pleasing or hasn't lived up to their side of the contract we feel justified in ending the marriage or at least disengaging from them in many different ways.

With a covenant our partner's shortcomings are dwarfed by our own shortcomings in the face of the perfect life lived by Jesus Christ. The hardship we endure from the perceived injustice of our spouse is infinitely smaller than the injustice Jesus endured for us on the cross. Covenant binds us where convenience and contract do not. Acknowledging God as a third party in our relational covenants gives us a much deeper sense of gratitude and responsibility. We must reclaim this mentality in our lives and the lives around us if the church of Jesus Christ is to make a legitimate claim to truth.

Let us remember our covenants with our spouses and speak truthfully, so our lives tell a coherent story of life in Christ.