A marriage license has absolutely NOTHING to do with the sacramental union of marriage. A civil marriage license affects your taxes, your health benefits, your inheritance and property rights – it is for the most part about money. So give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar but don’t pretend that it has anything to do with God’s stuff! People who are registered members of sex exchange clubs can get a civil marriage license. People who have changed their legal gender through sex change operations can get a marriage license. People who want to marry their own, legal, children (Woody Allen) can get a marriage license. People who have an established lover and have no intention of living in marital fidelity can get a marriage license. People who intend to be barren by their own choice for all their lives can get a marriage license. None of this has the least connection to sacramental marriage.
Civil marriage has nothing to do with fidelity to God or to each other. Sacramental marriage has everything to do with this. Civil marriage has nothing to do with having children and committing your lives to THEIR future. Civil marriage has nothing to do with giving glory to God by your daily lives and the eternal but visible earthly fruits of God’s work in your life through the ongoing and abundant grace given by God to those who live out the vows of their marriage sacrament. The sacrament of marriage is hugely powerful and hugely productive. It is a blessing to the nuclear family, the extended family, the neighborhood, the nation and the world. In a very literal sense a sacramental marriage is a blessing to the FUTURE. A civil marriage license has nothing to do with this.
When Jesus instituted the sacrament of marriage as we know it He didn’t say, “Clear it with Caesar first.” Nor did He say, “Make sure that the sacrament won’t unnecessarily put undue financial burden on the couple.” God takes care of the financial needs of holy couples. For a few centuries, entering into a Christian sacramental marriage actually meant that you put yourself at higher risk for dying as a martyr. Yet sacramental marriages were made and blessed by God. Those blessings drew many pagans to compare pagan partnering with Christian marrying and opt for the more permanent and fruitful union. We Christians in the United States need to look around and acknowledge that we don’t live in a Christian culture. We live in a very pagan culture. We need to see clearly the massive differences and choose to live as Christians first. That is how you sanctify your nation. Not by demanding that the pagans learn how to disguise their true beliefs and camouflage themselves as God’s people by elevating a marriage license to be equal or greater than a sacrament!
I pray with all my heart that the Mother church will separate the marriage sacrament from the strangling and parasitic vines of civil marriage licensing and give freely this grace to those who meet the spiritual requirements to receive the sacrament.
How have Christians gotten so confused about this issue? The fault lies with the Christian churches and maybe mainly with the Catholic Church because they stay in closest union with Him Who is the Truth. Yet, here they have dropped the ball.
Somehow in her efforts to be obedient to authorities, which Jesus asked us to do, she has placed the sacrament under the control of civic authority, which she may never do.
In my work with the poor I have encountered situations that make this very clear. I met a couple who had been living together without sacramental marriage. They had come closer to God and were attending mass frequently with their two daughters who were very attached to the Lord. They wanted the sacrament of marriage but were ineligible to receive a marriage license because they had illegal immigration status. They had no problem finding employment or housing or medical care of a rudimentary sort but they could not get a marriage license. The church told them that they could not receive God’s blessing on their union, which was faithful and constant, because the state refused permission. The U.S. constitution proclaims that the government will not restrict the practice of religion. What is more basic to the practice of religion that the sacramental life of the family? It’s ABOUT the FAMILY!!! Yet in the United States the churches of Christ have said to a secular authority that the state can control completely who may receive a SACRAMENT! Wrong, wrong, wrong!
We continue with this saga of confusion about marriage. The orthodox and fundamentalist Christian churches have got their bowels in an uproar over the civil union of gay people. The church leaders proclaim from the roof tops that extending the privilege of civil union to these excluded people will be the eternal destruction of sacramental marriage as we know it. Balderdash! Pure and unrefined balderdash! Why should gay people be denied civil union if fornicators, adulterers, transgendered couples and people with no interest in permanent union (or children) are already in legal civil unions!
If sacramental marriage is imperiled the danger doesn’t come from a pagan society that wants to continue to be pagan. Marriage can be weakened only by a Christian faith that can’t tell the difference between a sacramental covenant and a business contract.
