Already and not yet
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:date: 2016-10-19T11:00:00
:category: faith
:tags: theology, priesthood, sin
Reading about the Synod of the Bishops of the Catholic church,
and instead of thinking about the important matters of the
remarriage, divorce, and ordination of women, what comes to my
mind is what came through my mind when listening to the past
dialog about the so called “gay marriages” (no, I don’t
believe there is such a thing).
It seems to me one of the roots of some Christians accepting the
idea of the marriage between two persons of the same sex is the
pain of looking at all those people who are living outside of the
boundaries of what is right. Listening to the arguments against
gay marriages claiming that it is unnatural and against the God’s
ordination what comes through my mind is thinking about all those
millions of marriages which were divorced. From the point of view
of the traditional understanding of marriage is a single-parent
family same nonsense as a marriage between two men or two women.
And yet, we Protestants (but I am afraid most Catholics are in
the same boat, they just don’t want to admit it) looking over the
complicated broken marriages just cannot throw them away and
calling them only sinners and ignoring all complexities of their
particular relationships. We all know stories of people who got
divorced, and these are stories perhaps of sin, but mainly of
pain, lost hope, and suffering for everybody involved (of course,
including children). A sin is supposed to bring pain, so perhaps
it is not so surprising?
And in order at least to alleviate the pain we try to create some
theory how to ignore this incredible number of people who failed
in one of the most important tasks in their life.
Also, we can see that for some the second marriage is a way more
holy and complete than the first one, created by too young people
without real understanding of what marriage consists of (no, I am
not talking about the reasons serious enough to allow the
annulment of the marriage, just young stupidity and
irresponsibility). I am thinking about my pastor, but also about
the famous cases of people like Johnny Cash and June Carter,
whose second marriage was (or is) a way more happy and truly sign
pointing towards the Paradise.
I don’t think there are many children in the age of my children
who would be dreaming about broken marriage, about leaving their
own children, about failing miserably. We all know somewhere deep
in our hearts what is the ideal for which we long for. And yet so
many of us fail in this endeavor. How to live in this pain of
disappointment?
I am thinking about the situation of the Unity of the Church as
well. How completely impossible it is to imagine than in our life
we would do at least so small and seemingly obvious step as being
able to share openly a Communion together. How is it possible
that followers of Jesus Christ cannot agree on something so
obvious as that they should follow the command of their Lord and
share the communion together? And yet we most likely (pending
some miracle) won’t see the Church repent and follow the Christ
in our lives. How to live with this pain?
I am thinking how to live in this pain of already knowing where
we should go and yet not being there.
We all try to avoid pain. We are willing to do anything when the
pain is too strong. We are able to lie, to hurt those whom we
love most, to pretend we are somebody else than we are, anything
possible legal or illegal, moral or immoral just to avoid the
pain.
So, obviously, one way how to avoid a pain is to tear down the
standards. I do not actually care about marriage, when mine fell
apart. Goal is actually not the united church, but current state
of thirty thousand plus denominations is sign of the God’s
creativity and plurality.
Or, we can go from the other side, and to deny the reality. `My
marriage is just fine, my wife has been for long time in Venice`_
Or, of course, there are no Russian soldiers in Crimea and
Novorussia. Or, the Church is actually not divided, but unified
in The Holy Spirit (except, I cannot go to the Catholic church to
participate in The Holy Communion).
But to live in this tension of unresolved dreams and hopes brings
pain! Yes, it does. “Thank God, there is deliverance through
Jesus Christ, our Lord!” (Rom 7:25)
.. _`My marriage is just fine, my wife has been for long time in Venice`:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolat_(2000_film)
