Celibacy
What is its place in the church?

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Celibacy isn't causing the sexual problems in the Catholic Church. We Protestants grieve over misconduct by some of our leaders and they were married. However criticism of the practice has makes me ask if celibacy is a gift or a vow.

Please allow me what seems an obtuse illustration: A man marries. The first weekend after the honeymoon his wife cooks a roast. The meat is delicious, but the top quarter is missing. She explains that her mom always cut off the top.

Next Sunday they go to her Mom's for lunch. After dinner he asks about slicing off of the top quarter. "Oh that's a family tradition - my Mom always did it."

A month later, during a visit to the retirement village he asks grandma about the family roast tradition. She was amazed to hear about it. The explanation: when they were first married grandmom had a very small oven. She cut the roast to get it in.

Celibacy started with one disciple's life experience and, like the roast, became an international practice. No surprises - that's how most traditions begin. What complicates this one is that St Paul wrote it into the Bible.

He was celibate. He knew it was a gift. He recognized that people had various gifts from God.

The early church faced persecution for the sake of Christ. Paul wrote to believers in Corinth his wish that everyone was unmarried. He could see how hard it was for those seeing their spouses suffer and felt himself blessed to be spared that. Later the church took his wish to be a command.

This comes from how we read the Bible. Have you ever heard the expression: "Not being able to see the forest for the trees"? Some of God's children seek an understanding of His will by pouring over individual verses. When they have comprehended each of these they try to piece them together in a composite picture.

It's the battle of interpretation. I teach that scripture was intended to be studied in large chunks at a time. Even the chapters and verses were added long afterwards.

God created marriage. He said loneliness wasn't good. The Old Testament priesthood were married men.

The New Testament clergy were instructed to be monogamous. Jesus healed Peter's mother in law. Some people think Peter was the first pope. If the first pope were married would there be anything wrong with the next one being so too? Its not just that marriage makes you able to understand marriage from the "inside" - its that God created us to be within the nurture of wedded relationships.

Clerics conclude since there's no marriage in the next life, it's a holy thing to renounce wedlock here.

Here we go again with the elevation of individual verses!

Celibacy in the Bible's overall counsel has to be a spiritual gift from the Holy Spirit to an individual long before it can be an ecclesiastical vow. It's a gift still being poured out today. You know when you have it!

Once Peter misunderstood something Jesus said and thought John was going to live until Jesus returned. Jesus replied, "what is that to you? You must follow Me."

Another time Jesus was explaining to a religious leader that being born of God's Spirit was like following an ever-changing wind. I add this because what started as an expectation (a specific claim by God that he not marry) in the apostle Paul's life became a church tradition.

Making other people's walk with God a norm for our relationship with Him is dangerous and artificial. I know Paul said, "follow me as I follow Christ," but he was talking general ardor, not specific instructions.

You don't have to go preaching around the Mediterranean Sea. You have to love Christ the way Paul did. Come on think!