Continuing from a previous post . . . . from his book Covenant Hearts:
Bruce C. Hafen writes:
Jesus gave the best possible definition of the difference between a covenant and a contract in his parable of the Good Shepherd. Notice here the differences between a hireling (a paid servant) and a shepherd: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. “I am the good shepherd: The Good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. “But he that is a hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep and fleeth: , and the wolf catcheth them and scatterth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is a hireling and careth not for the sheep.
“I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep and am known of mine. “As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. John 10:10-15; (italics added).“
The hireling preforms his job only when he receives something in return. So when the hireling sees a wolf—any kind of serious trouble—coming, he leaves the sheep and fleeth” because his own the sheep are not.” He doesn’t really ‘care’ for them. In utter contrast the “shepherd” cares for the sheep so much that he will lay down his life for the sheep.”
Because of today’s “me first” misconceptions more people now marry with a hireling’s contractual expectation. They too easily assume that if being married cramps their style and you’re no longer happy, you just move out of your starter marriage. So when the wolf comes, they flee. It seems natural these days when one sees so many others in flight. The movement is like that of a frightened, scattered army. The new soldiers desert the battlefield, not because they know for themselves they are beaten but because they see other soldiers running away. To give up so easily is wrong. It curses the earth, turning parent’ hearts away from their children and form each other. It also lets a shallow desire for comfort deprive people of paying the price to discover real joy.
A Covenant marriage differs from a contractual one in scope, duration, intensity, and conditions. Covenant marriage is unconditional, unlimited, and eternal, a reflection of the kind of love and commitment on which it is based. Contractual marriage, by contrast, is subject to conditions and limited in the breadth of its demands as well as its expected duration. p.79
The text for one rendition of “The Lord Is My Shepherd” says of the Good Shepherd. “With blessings unmeasured, my cup runneth over. “Unmeasured” means He is not counting our blessings, even if I am—and naming them one by one. He has no sharp pencil, no quota, no limits. That is why “I shall not want.” Like the well of Living Water, the fountain of His love is a Spring that never runs dry (John 4:14). And because he is not counting how much He will give, neither do we count how much we will offer in return.
Father Flanagan’s Boystown used the motto “He ain’t heavy—he’s my brother.” It really doesn’t matter how heavy my brother is. What I owe him or how long I’ll carry him is based on a permanent sense of mutual belonging, not on my having agreed to carry him as long as I can manage it. In the same way, covenant marriage is, like kinship, without limits. And so, those who understand the unspoken covenants of close kinship, the very nature of relationship means that the load of carrying “my brother” can never become heavier than I will keep trying to carry.
The Savior drew upon this concept when, during His agony on the cross, He asked John to care for His mother, Mary, after his impending death. He didn’t give John a list of things he wanted him to do for his mother, and he didn’t need a lawyer to draw up a contract covering all the details. Rather, he drew on all the unmeasured meaning of terms handed down through the ages—mother and son: When Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciple standing by, he said unto his mother, whom he loved, Woman, Behold they son! Then saith he to the disciple. Behold thy mother! And from that hour the disciple took her unto his own home” (John 19:26-27).
A Russian writer named Pitirim Sorokin once distinguished between covenant and contract marriages, though he used “familistic” to describe what we here call covenant marriage. In his terms, familistic partners share a “mutual attachment” that eclipses each partners self-interest. Their unqualified attachment to one another can yield endless joys but it also requires “sorrow and sacrifice”. Because of its “unlimited ethical motivation,” the “sacrifice” of the covenant partner is “regarded not as . . . personal loss. . . , but as a privilege freely and gladly bestowed,” and even though this open-ended sense of duty may at times seem to impose a “frightful” limit on one’s personal freedom, it blends “discipline with freedom” and “sacrifice with liberty’ to the point of high personal fulfillment.”
Contractual attitudes, on the other hand, rest on very different assumptions. A contract is always limited in scope and duration. It never involves a contracting party’s “whole life or even its greater part.” Moreover, people enter contracts for reasons of self interest uniting with the other party only so far as this provides him with an advantage (profit, pleasure, or service).” Today’s society wrongly but fully expects the contracting parties to interpret their marital differences according to what is in their personal interest — like a hireling.
One example of a contract marriage is the growing number of couples who write their own wedding vows, which many officials who perform marriages these days are glad to use. In customized marriage vows every “contracting” couple consciously holds something back, determined to remain free to define the nature, purpose and bounds of their relationship in whatever way they choose—with or without some degree of “binding” commitment.
To the modern mind, a covenant marriage may seem not only sobering but incomprehensible because its limits are beyond us, out of sight. How else could it be, when the Good Shepherd’s devotion is so utterly limitless as “I lay down my life for the sheep.” This covenantal soberness makes for better marriages by encouraging people to be far more careful about whom, when, and how to marry. Conversely, if one makes the contract assumption that marriage is easy to end, one will be much less cautious about starting it. ~~~ Bruce C. Hafen, Covenants Hearts—Marriage and the Joy of Human Love (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), p.79-82 (continued see A Hireling’s Contract or a Shepherd’s Covenant IV)
