Not everyone is called to the holy estate of matrimony. Jesus himself was not. But those who are exercise a sacramental ministry of great importance in the church.

Two sayings of Jesus on the subject are particulary important: "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so" (Matt. 19:8). And, "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven" (Matt. 22:30). These two texts refer to the beginning and to the end of the sacrament of holy matrimony.

The Hebrew word "adam" means earth or dust or dirt. We have come to take it as a proper name and assume that it refers to a human male. But the Hebrew word for a human male is ish, and the word for a human female is ishah.

A proper noun is never used with the definite article. We do not say "The Mary" or "The William" or "The Richard." That is also true in Hebrew. But in the opening chapters of the Bible, adam is used with the definite article. It is correctly translated as "the man." It would be more correctly translated as "the earthling" or, more accurately yet, "the creature made of dust."

The adam contains both maleness and femaleness, undifferentiated, just as angels do. But God decided to separate the male part of the creature from the female part of the creature. Why did he do that? Because, he said, "It is not good for the adam to be alone."

It was God's intention that the creature of dust should be a reflection of the creator. "Let us make the adam in our own image." But since God is love, and because love is impossible where there is only one person, God himself must be and is a community of persons, distinct from each other but perfectly united and of one substance. That is precisely what the doctrine of the Trinity asserts. If the adam is to reflect the nature of God, then there must be at least two persons perfectly united and of one substance.

So God reached into the adam and extracted the feminine nature that was there from the beginning. This is the meaning of the well-known removal of the rib. It is comparable to the eternal begetting of Son by the Father. God gave the feminine part of the adam a form of its own which is complimentary to the form that the masculine part now assumes. It is at this point that "Adam" and "Eve" become proper nouns (without the definite article). It is also at this point that the Hebrew words ish and ishah first appear.

Adam looks at Eve and says, "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." So we declare with our Lord that a man and his wife are one flesh (one substance, if you will).

We all know that every human being contains both masculine and feminine characteristics to some extent. There may be some validity in the old stereotypes that associate emotions with the feminine side of human nature and rationality with the masculine side. It also seems true that the feminine side is more spiritually sensitive than the masculine side. It should be no surprise then that sin made its entry through the feminine side. The masculine side concurred and so the whole of human nature was corrupted.

The fallout of that corruption was a breach in the relationship between the two persons who emerged from the adam. No longer were they naked and unashamed, which is to say fully open and available to each other. They began to hide their flesh, the substance that they shared, from each other and from God. The fragmentation of the whole creation followed, including the animal kingdom and what we call the forces of nature. We still see that today.

This fragmentation of relationships begins to be reversed when a man and a woman unite in holy matrimony. Their union begins the reintegration of ish and ishah. The nature of their union "in heart, body and mind" fulfills God's intention in two ways. First, it presents to God and to the world a reflection of the unity in love of the distinct persons of the Trinity. Second, the marital union connects with the creative nature of God when it results in the conception of a new life.

In the resurrection, the adam, the creature of dust, is transformed into a creature that partakes of the nature of angels, which is to say that fully integrates the masculine and the feminine in a non-material body. The flesh, which is the outward and visible part of the sacrament, is discarded as no longer needed. Only the inward and spiritual part remains. That means, of course, that there is no longer any sacrament.

But until we reach that happy state, God has given us a foretaste of it in holy matrimony. Like other sacraments, marriage has an eschatological dimension.

Those who make the commitment of marital vows reflect God's commitment to us. Those who are faithful to their vows reflect the faithfulness of God. By their union, they point to the future reintegration of the whole creation that has been so badly fragmented by sin. The whole church is blessed by witnessing this demonstration of faith. q

The Rev. Warren E. Shaw is rector of St. Paul's Church, Chester, Pa.