LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 1983, Page 331

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS

temporary experimentation. However. children of God are
warned against the roluntary indulgence of serual fantasies
as endangering faith and spiritual life. Such inordinate
desires are clearly called sin by our Lord (Matt. 5:28). As the
child grows and matures, youthful lusts and fantasies (2 Tim.
2:22) are left behind.

For those who are troubled by guilt and who seek God's
help in viercoming problems in this area, pastors and
Christian counselors need to stand ready to offer Christ's
forgizeness, remind them of the power of the Holy Spirit tohelp
them lead “a chaste and decent life in word and deed.” and
hold hefore them the joys of remain ing faithful to what God's
Word teaches abuut His intention for the good gift of sexuality.

The satisfaction of sexual appetite does not necessarily
involve a personal relationship at all. At that level the man. for
example, need not be concerned with woman as woman. as a
personal being who calls him to fellowship. but simply with her
physiological functions and capacities. And at that level it is
quite understandable that people should regard their partners
as essentially interchangeable. C. S. Lewis has described the
situation quite well:

We use a most unfortunate idiom when we say. of a

lustful man prowing the streets, that he “wants a

woman. Strictly speaking. a woman is just what he does

not want. He wants a pleasure for which a woman

happens to be the necessary piece of apparatus.’!

When the church condemns such a casual! approach to sexual
encounters as contrary to the will of God, it does more than take
recourse insome special “religious” insight. It calls people back
to arealization of the human. personal significance of the sexual
act. A society in which casual sexual encounters and divorce
prevail is on its way to viewing sexual partners as inter-
changeable. Its tendency is to dehumanize people and treat
them solely in terms of their sexual functions. abstracting such
functions from any content of personal significance.

The relationship of mutual love. one of the purposes for the
fulfillment of which the Creator ordains marriage. is something
very different. "Eros makes a man really want. not a woman.

2S Lewis Tre BoseLac stew Yors Harcourt Brace and Company, a8. pp
lsa f

16

is this at the same time."“4 In marriage two different and
separate individuals are united without having their individ-
uality obliterated. As a result of God's creative power at work
through their union the child incarnates—makes physical and
represents in the flesh—the mystery of this union. With the
birth of a child, husband and wife come to share a common
work. The birth of their child is the public manifestation that
this union of husband and wife is not one which turns inward.
concentrating solely upon itself. Theirs is the task of raising the
child up to become a mature and responsible member of the
human family. Moreover. Christian parents have reason to look
upon the birth of a child from their union as an occasion to have
this child brought into the divine family and to nourish it as it
grows to spiritual maturity. They have God's promise that He
desires to have their child become an heir of eternal life and a
member of His household through Holy Baptism. Theirs is the
high privilege of joining in the common work of raising a child
up in the knowledge of Jesus Christ. whose forgiveness enables
us to live together in unselfish love toward each other.
Couples may. of course, remain childless either voluntarily
or involuntarily. From the Christian perspective. involuntary
childlessness need stand under no special stigma. While couples
who are involuntarily childless can find great comfort knowing
that the Child Jesus has come among us and that all Christians
are members of the one family He has created, nevertheless it is
still true that a childless couple may sorrow greatly at their
inability to bear children. This is perfectly understandable.
since one of the natural purposes of marriage has failed to come
to fruition in their union. We need not gloss over that fact.
Indeed, we do well to share their sorrow where we can.
However. we ought not characterize their union as “incom-
plete.” To do so would be to take back all that was said
concerning the relational purposes of marriage. It would be to
forget the profound significance of the one-flesh union. That
union of husband and wife has a full and sufficient meaning in
itself, and the joining of a man and woman in marriage should
not be envisaged merely as a means of reproduction. Further-
more. husband and wife. even when childless. can stillengage in

HRobert Mehl. Seen tyand Lune Eth ca Protlemsef hire ah % trans JamesH
Farley (Philadelphia: The Westminater Press. 1964). p. 46

18

but one particular woman. In some mysterious but quite
indisputable fashion the lover desires the Beloved herself. not
the pleasure she can give.” And. indeed. lovers—however
fickle they may prove to be at some future moment—are
genuinely captivated by one another. They will quite naturally
swear fidelity toeach other. They rightly recognize the immense
human and personal significance of the encounter with the
beloved. It is this mutual love. implanted by the Creator in His
creatures, with its original tendency toward permanent commit-
ment, which marriage institutionalizes and seeks to make
permanent. Thus does the Creator continue today to deal with
the predicament of “aloneness” within the human creation. He
continues to give men and women to each other in the one-flesh
union of marriage.

2. Children: The Procreative Purpose of Marriage

Men and women are called out of their loneliness into the
fellowship of marriage. Yet. their union might now turn wholly
inward and become a purely self-serving one. This is not to be.
The union of the man and woman who in their embrace have
excluded al! third parties is to be a fruitful union. They are
privileged to give life to future generations.

The Biblical injunction to“be fruitful and multiply” is to be
understood as a blessing as well as acommand. It is one of God's
good gifts to His people. for procreation is an actual sharing in
God's ongoing creative activity. We may even speak of the
blessing as a kind of natural promise embedded within the
creation: asign and manifestation of the truth that genuine love
is lifegiving and fruitful. Hence, in the Christian tradition the
child has been regarded as a blessing from God (Ps. 127:3-5:
128:3). A willingness to give birth involves a willingness to align
ourselves—in wonder. humility, and hope—with that blessing
embedded in the order of creation itself.

The child reveals to the parents “the depth of their carnal!
unity. He partakes of both. He is both one and the other. and he

4} marriage as we inane lvexpercence
« precede love leg marriages
“ marragy would stil! be ordered

eagle expect it ta give fise La ties love
17

a common work. Their union need not turn inward solely upon
itself. They can permit the absence of children itself to be
creative and fruitful in new ways in their shared life. To be sure,
it will take greater thought for them to find some other work in
which their oneness may incarnate itself. but it is possible for
them todo so. And. of course. they may seek to adopt children. It
would be hard to find anywhere in our lives a more exact
paradigm of agape (self-giving love} than the love which will
move people to become parents or to provide foster care for
those children who for a variety of reasons are without a family
to provide for them. To offer such love is a special blessing and
opportunity available to the childless couple.

In view of the Biblical command and the blessing to “be
fruitful and multiply.” it is to be expected that marriage will not
ordinarily be colantarda childless. But. in the absence of
Seripturai prohibition. there need be no objection to contracep-
tion within a marital union which is. as a whole, fruitful.2*
Moreover. once we grant the appropriateness of contraception.
we will also recognize that sterilization may under some
circumstances bean acceptable form of contraception. Because
of its relatively permanent nature. sterilization is perhaps less
desirable than less-far-reaching forms of contraception. How-
ever. there should be no moral objection to it. especially for
couples who already have children and who now seek to devote
themselves to the rearing of those children. for those who have
been advised by a physician that the birth of another child

erary Reman

331