As I read the reports I had this wonderful sense of relaxation. This is not my fight. This is the state’s problem not mine.
What I mean by this is simple. I can argue over what is a Christian marriage. Every church I have ever served has a booklet or a policy defining Christian marriage, and whom we will and whom we will not marry. Some will let anyone who will pay the rather large price have their wedding there, others require both to be practicing members of that congregation with a willingness to undergo a long period of counseling and discussion, and others in between.
But the fact remains; there will be no marriage if there is no piece of paper from an agent of the state who authorizes that wedding. No certificate, no marriage. Marriage in our Church is a civil act, not a sacrament. We often, but not necessarily, are asked to bless the marriage.
I remember long ago, in sympathy with my widowed mother and others like her, suggesting to my theological mentor and friend that we could have church weddings with no license so that the couple could live together in the eyes of the Church, but not lose their Social security and pension benefits. He rebuked me strongly. Marriage, he reminded me, is a public act of the state, not a sacrament in the Church.
So one thing I don’t have to argue about any more is the union of same sex couples, or any other combination. The state has that problem. I, or any other pastor, or session, can pray for anyone, we can bless anything we want. Bill Pindar used to have a blessing service for animals, I have even been asked to bless a new TV set in a village in Egypt. But no matter how much praying, no matter if everyone comes down the aisle in expensive dresses, no matter the cakes or the bouquets, unless there is the piece of paper it is not a marriage.
Not surprisingly, that is exactly the position the GAPJC took in the Hudson River case some years ago. Since one state, for a while, will give a license to same-sex couples, that decision is useful for us. It defines clearly where the Constitution of our Church stands now on the matter. While marriage in the Church is for those of opposite sex, ”Christians may and should pray for each other and call God’s blessings on one another, but none of us may marry without the permission of the State.” In the old wedding service the words at the end were, “as a minister of the Word of God, and by the authority of the State of (which ever), I now declare you husband and wife.
So I will go back to worrying about how we can help the world understand the saving grace of Jesus Christ, and how we can get our Church to understand the holiness of God and the need for true and reformed worship, and how we can turn words like missional into acts that proclaim and redeem, and how we can make governing body meetings interesting, (a vain hope, I fear) and leave to the state the need to worry about same sex unions.
Charles A. Hammond is honorably retired and a member of San Diego (Calif.) Presbytery.
