72 - Marriage, Parenting, and the Church

Marriage, Parenting, and the Church
By Freda A. Gardner

I must confess that this article belongs under the heading "fools rush in where angels fear to tread." An always single, childless person cannot possibly know enough about marriage or parenting to scold, suggest, predict, advise. Except that such a person may take with utter seriousness the community that is the church and the responsibility and accountability that is intrinsic to that community. Struggling to understand our common calling, and to know that each of us is called to various expressions of that calling, does not provide an excuse to focus only on oneself. As a church, we recognize gifts and support the exercise of those gifts which others possess; we hold one another accountable and we confess together when we misuse the gifts that have been given; we tell one another again of the grace in which we each and all together live and risk again. In none of this is the evoking of guilt a goal. In all of it, faithfulness to our calling, and to our acceptance of Christ's goals as our own, is the reason for our being together. Fools make mistakes and hurt people with their words; they make too simple the complexities of living; they gloss over the depths and heights of human experience; they make significant that which is peripheral and ignore that which is central and crucial. Fools need forgiveness, not condemnation; they need insight, not sympathy. And they need some others to say bow singleness and childlessness look to them in the light of the Gospel.

I

It was a wonderful day when churches woke up to the fact that there were in their congregations those who were not a part of a family. Persons with special needs, people of other races or cultures, children as individuals were becoming visible, and so, at last, were single adults. The always single, the single parent, the widowed or divorced person became real. How good it was to hear a stewardship challenge that did not end with "go home now and discuss it together and pray together and see what you will do." How liberating to hear a sermon illustration of forgiveness or fear or fidelity that did not always involve a spouse. What an exciting and provoking confrontation when the gospel illumined the single life in its many-faceted dimensions and did not stop with just what is expected of a single person in his or her sexual activities. At last it

Freda A. Gardner is a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and is a commissioned church worker recognized by the Presbytery of New Brunswick. She has been on the faculty of Princeton Theological Seminary since 1961 and is presently Associate Professor of Christian Education and Director of the School of Christian Education

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seemed that a modern day ark might have found a few "one-only" of the species worth something, that not all that was good came two-by-two. Sermons on the wholeness of life as a single person were only occasionally undercut by promotion of church groups with names like "Pairs and Spares," and there seemed, at last, to be a place in the church, a covenant with God to be lived out, a way to be a disciple amidst disciples.

But, as is frequently the case, consciousness-raising, even when grounded theologically, cast a spotlight on some hitherto shadowed people and in so doing left others new to darkness. For at least two decades, churches have been relatively silent on marriage and, as a result, also on parenting. The late '60s and early '70s and their appeal to magnification of the self and the liberation movements with their advocacy of rights nurtured a me-first attitude which infected the church as well as the culture. No reader needs documentation of the multiple forms of social change spawned in that period. Viewing people as persons, seeing persons as individuals, somehow came to mean that we need not see them in relationship except when the relationship infringed on their individual rights.

I was grateful when the church began to realize that not everyone was moving as one of a pair through life. It was one of several liberations of the past two decades and, like others, long overdue. Recognition that singleness could be good and a context for faithful living cannot, however, be at the expense of the recognition that marriage should be described in similar fashion. As it does (or should that be "we do"?) so often, the awakened church began to move toward concern for and appreciation of single people and away from continuing concern for and ministry to couples. As appreciative as I, a single person, am to be included in the community of faith, I know that any goodness in my life is not to be realized apart from the well-being of the married people who comprise most of my original and extended family, friends, church and community.

II

Almost as important to me as marriage is parenting. Like marriage, it too has been less of a concern for the church in recent years. Both marriage and parenting have been described, decried, defended, shaped, analyzed and dramatized by a wide variety of experts and vested interest groups. The doomsayers among them have been articulate about selected statistics and their implications, while the quick fix devotees have offered packaged plans for preserving, promoting, and generally succeeding as couples and parents. But where has the church been? The isolated answers echo from across the country-a course here, a workshop there, an expert flown in to tell it all in two hours, lots of bibliographies which identify the apparently endless variety of family configurations. But few sermons which explore biblically and theologically these two ways of being in the world, few on-going study groups

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digging into the realities of marriage from a Christian perspective, few parent groups sharing the wisdom of experience as it meets the truth of the Gospel.

I view as positive the change in thinking, slight and limited as it may be, that posits single life and childless marriage as legitimate options for whole adult people. To the' extent that this altered perception is known and felt and valued by people, marriage and having children also become options rather than absolute necessities. With greater freedom to choose, it is also reasonable to expect greater accountability for choices.

III

Our calling in Jesus Christ is our vocation. Barth's description of vocation and his explication of vocation in terms of making Christ's goals our own provide a perspective for consideration of marriage and parenting.

If one chooses to live in marriage or to parent a child, he or she is choosing an expression of discipleship. Called by God to live with Christ's goals, I take this job, work for this cause, become a member of this organization, choose to commit myself in marriage to this person, choose to bring a child into the world or to take a child as though she or he was a child of our flesh. In marriage and in parenting, we make commitments to live in these particular relationships with Christ's -oats as our own.

It is naive to assume that it is easy to know Christ's goals or God's will for our lives, but I suspect that we may know more about them than we care to admit. Exploring the meaning of Christ's goals often leads us outward to what may be desired or accomplished. The exploration ought also to lead us inward to the characteristics of the Christ-like life. In the life of Jesus and in the teachings of Paul, one cannot help but be struck by such characteristics as purposefulness, renunciation, fidelity to God's ordering of life and its quality. To take seriously the humanity of Christ is to expect that he knew frustration, boredom, and desire. To take the witness of his life and teaching seriously is to recognize perseverance, choosing against, compassion that did not eliminate anger, a centering in the purposes of God for humankind which kept straight personal preferences in reference to the well-being of others. To take Christ's goals as our own is to develop the characteristics which provoke, encourage, and support our choosing them instead of our own.

IV

We do not learn how to be married or how to parent when we say "I do" or "yes, let's." Learning to be married and to parent begins when we begin. In the earliest years of life, we start to form our ideas and our behavior around notions of what it is to be with others. If parents keep on deciding everything for us or protecting us from the consequences of our mistakes or overlooking the hurt that we do others or rewarding us for

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never expressing our own pain and frustration, we are already developing the patterns which will find expression in our relating to a spouse or to our own children. Just as the child learns so much about sex in the home, so there, too, does the child begin to learn how it is to be married and what it is to parent. The nursery class or the fourth grade choir or the junior high fellowship don't have courses on Marriage and Parenting, but the curriculum for those two ways of being in the world is well set in the dynamics and vocabulary, the values and celebrations of those gatherings. Both marriage and parenting are communal activities; and in the communal activities of the home and church, children and teens learn what is important, not so much perhaps by what is said, but by the way people live with each other, by what is considered appropriate behavior, and by how the life together is affirmed and celebrated.

Young children, egocentric as is appropriate at that age, begin to learn how to stand up and give up for others as they do those things with adults and other children. It is not easy to speak of giving up what one wants in today's culture, and many children seldom have to give up anything; nor do they see their parents having to do it too often. As I write this, I am reminded of a TV account during the Christmas season of a woman who has 55 Cabbage Patch dolls. I have yet to hear one parent I know suggest that not giving a Cabbage Patch doll to a child who wants one is an option. That should not be too surprising when many parents of reasonable intelligence confess themselves to be at a loss when it comes to monitoring what their children see on TV or how much time they spend watching it. It's as if these reasonable adults never see the OFF button, or have never learned to say, "NO." Of course they have; they set limits in other areas and say "no" when they really want to. But somehow they wish that on this one someone else would decide for them. The social pressures are too great. It's one thing to declare that sleeping outside is not permissible when the temperature is only 25 degrees; you are pretty sure that "they," those out there in society, would agree with you. A "no" to a Cabbage Patch, or to five unchecked hours of TV, may not get the same support. When does one learn how to decide for oneself, commit oneself to some decision, live with it without feeling like a pariah or the martyr of the year? To be sure this sounds harsh and judgmental. It does not suggest that I nor anyone would do it differently; but it does suggest that maybe we should. It does suggest that some of the capacities for sustaining a marriage and for parenting are shaped or misshaped in the early years, and that it is difficult to relearn after 22 or 35 years of living have taught and reinforced particular ways of thinking and acting.

The church is in a unique position to teach about these expressions of discipleship. It has something to teach, its own life is communal, and it has entree to the homes of its people. The church can offer to couples and to parents the challenge and the support it takes to withstand the pressures of the society and to decide for themselves what they want to honor in marriage and family. In its gathered life, the church can live

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with Christ's goals as its own, can celebrate the characteristics which mark the life of discipleship, can suggest by experience and direct teaching the shape and substance of home life for couples and families. The world is quick to project images of the successful marriage and family and to reinforce them in sophisticated and subtle ways. Perpetual youthfulness, independence, consumerism, materialism, self-satisfaction, popularity are ideals aimed not just at teenagers and swinging singles. Even the apparently innocuous and unquestionable good life portrayed raises questions for the Christian community. Is it too unfair to say that many parents would rather have their children see them as rugged outdoors types who are good buddies and pals than to insure that their children see them as people of prayer and of sacrifice? The picture of youthful and energetic Mom and Dad pitching a tent with their children, surrounded by the best the leading "in store" can provide, is a seductive, contemporary Walton's Mountain. How often we hear a parent say "I want my child to know me as a friend"? A child needs friends, needs to learn how to make them and to sustain friendships, but a child needs a parent, too. Parents are those who have taken that seriously enough to risk friendship in order to nurture, protect, challenge, monitor a child's life, to act on values which may not be the world's values. Parents are those who know that they don't own their children and that their children don't owe their lives to their parents but, who are, nevertheless, there for their children, making sacrifices for the child's well-being and growth in Christ-likeness. Who does not know the pain that is part of parenting? To be sure, there is amazing grace in the relationship, the wonder of the child returning to the angry or punitive or distant parent and, by word or gesture, offering restoration. But there is the other side, too. Investments and sacrifices and hopes are not always returned, rewarded, or realized. But is that not the way of the Christian life? Are we not called by Christ to act in behalf of the other, whether the other responds as we would wish or hope or not? "Not that we loved Him but that He loved us and gave Himself for us." Truly amazing grace.

And is it any different in marriage? Marriage may make one whole but that is not its goal, is it? It comes, not from our striving to produce it, but as a result of our giving and forgiving, our sacrificing and our fidelity, which we discover is not simply our gift to the other but the greatest gift to ourselves. To become a disciple of Jesus Christ is not for the purpose of making one happy, but happiness may come as a benediction to the life of faithfulness. It is not easy to think or speak in these terms, for one cannot help but be haunted by people who are physically or emotionally bruised and battered in marriage: those ravaged by the toll of alcoholism, mental illness, or heavy-handed authoritarianism. Who can condemn such persons for their efforts to extricate themselves from the situation? But have we not blurred the distinction between such situations and the more ordinary human experiences of boredom, frustration, selfishness, and disillusionment?

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How many people do we all know, and we may be among them, who leave one marriage and one partner only to marry another very like the first? In an age of 100 varieties of cereal an 10 films in one theatre, is it even reasonable to expect people to be content with one spouse? And we are all so slow to learn that 93 of the cereals are so similar that only the box distinguishes one from the other, and that 9 of the 10 films will offer the same package of violence, superficial relationships, or out-of-this world fantasies.

Marriage at twenty-four may mean sixty or seventy years of shared life at its most intimate level with one other person. Parenting today can mean dependent children for thirty-five years instead of eighteen. It may mean outliving your middle-aged or retired children, knowing the wounds that parents once knew only in the deaths of their infants and youngsters. There are countless new facets to both marriage and parenting for which old discussions and answers offer little insight.

The church has much to offer to wives and husbands and to parents. We have the context of a people who know whose they are and how they can be God's people together. Our common life has a rhythm and a shape. We have a living Lord, active in our midst, incarnating that which our predecessors in the faith have recorded for our edification and support. We have a language which enables us to speak about the lives we live with each other and with our God. Our life together is, or can be, the first place where we can speak hopefully, tell of our conflicts over values, of our selfishness and of our failures. In sanctuary, classroom, boardroom, neighborhood groups, community service, God's Spirit moves among us and in us to free our minds and affections and wills from enslavement to the world's picture of success and happiness and for life in Christ. For too long and far too often the church has either ignored the pain at the heart of all commitments and simply admonished those who bear it to keep on, or it has accepted the pain at face value and looked the other way, while people left their marriages or abandoned parenting for the easier role of pal to their children. Is it not time for the church in its educational, pastoral, and preaching ministries to face, acknowledge, and accept the pain-be it agony or apathy, boredom or hopelessness- and then say, "but there is more" and proceed to help all of us to learn and to know, in whatever forms of discipleship are ours, what it is to live by grace for others as Christ lives for us? Is it not time?