I
promised you for this month of June we would look at some of the troubling
texts handed to us in the Bible.
This morning we move from the Old to the New Testament to difficult
words that Matthew attributes to Jesus himself, words prohibiting divorce. In this popular wedding month, we look
at the flip side, for about half of all marriages today end in divorce.
Does
anyone like divorce? I didnÕt
think so. Although our laws
regarding divorce make it easier to obtain now than it used to be, I know few couples
who divorce casually. Far more
often those who divorce carry burdens of guilt away with them, even the
ÔwinnerÕ doesnÕt get away unscathed. It is hard to hear these words of Jesus
without a profound sense of failure and stigma. These words of Jesus have been used to keep people in
miserable marriages, and to convey the message that divorcees are less worthy
than other Christians. Divorced
people were barred from becoming ministers, deacons, and elders for many years,
a prohibition that was dropped by the Presbyterian Church within our
lifetime.
The folks I know who worry over these
verses of Scripture had every intention of keeping their marriage
promises. Hardly anyone goes into
marriage expecting to split at the first sign of trouble. Most of us,
especially the first-timers were undoubtedly na•ve, but not willfully
deceptive. Dave and I married at age 20, and our parents had to sign for us in
the state of Ohio. All of us, married once or twice or more, sincerely gave our
promises of love and vows to stand together Òfor better, for worse, for richer,
for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.
I
canÕt explain fully why Dave and I will celebrate our 34th wedding
anniversary this September, but I am profoundly grateful that we are still
together. Both my brother and
sister suffered through messy divorces; both are still reaping the consequences
of those traumatic days. My
brother has remarried and is building a blended family, while my sister is
still single and childless. The
same parents raised me, my brother, and my sister in the 1950s and 60s. We
picked up their devotion to family, their fighting habits, their strengths and
weaknesses in some combination, we lived through the same cultural upheavals
and new social freedoms.
Who
knows exactly why one marriage holds and another breaks apart. Who knows why
one couple with few problems, the normal strains of everyday life, calls it
quits, while another pair faces tremendous challenges and stresses, and are
still close, happily married. If
you cut out all the newspaper interviews of long-married couples, you get
advice for a successful marriage that is all over the map – donÕt argue,
argue vigorously, donÕt let the sun set on your anger; do everything together
or have your own friends, separate checking accounts, and so on. There is no single formula for making a
marriage work. Likewise, there is a long list of reasons why couples divorce
– infidelity, boredom, fighting over money, one spouseÕs career crashes
while the other is just taking off, a child dies, people change, but in
different directions, and so on.
We
Christians want to apply teachings in the Bible to our daily situations. How are we to view these Ôred-letterÕ
instructions of Jesus against divorce?
First, we ought to look at how marriage was viewed in JesusÕ day, in
order to understand divorce at that time.
Virtually all marriages were arranged between families. The fathers or
responsible male heads of the households contracted the agreement, which
involved a dowry for the bride, who often was promised to an older husband
before puberty. Marriage was about
merging two clans, about the welfare of the group, about maximizing economic
benefits like inheritance prospects and children, not about love, which might evolve
in due time. Our American ideal of
a love match did not exist until a few hundred years ago, and is still uncommon
in many parts of the world. Everyone understood the conditions, and in good
circumstances men and women could flourish within its boundaries.
Divorce
was allowed according to the book of Deuteronomy, quoted by Jesus and also by
the Pharisees in our two readings, but its justice was weighted heavily in
favor of men. If a husband found a wife ÔobjectionableÕ (the specifics of
ÔobjectionableÕ were left up in the air), he could boot her out with a flimsy
certificate of divorce, which didnÕt pay the rent, or feed the children. Probably in small village life, divorce
was uncommon, but JesusÕ speeches were set by the author of Matthew in a more
fluid urban environment, where perhaps men were finding it convenient to find a
wife Ôobjectionable,Õ easy to cut the household ties, and move on, an ancient
version of Ôserial marriageÕ.
JesusÕ
target audience was men, since they were the ones with the freedom and
authority to control marriage and divorce. His prohibition against casual divorce was a protection for
women, who would find themselves destitute and homeless, like widows, orphans,
and aliens, unattached to a household were literally out on the streets. Jesus was also speaking against male
polygamy, another way to raise the status of women. Polygamy was already rare within Judaism, but was more common
among pagans. And finally, Jesus
included men in the definition of infidelity/adultery, whereas previously there
had been a double standard, much stricter for women than for men. Jesus was speaking to people with an
agenda, and he did not tell them what they wanted to hear. In a sense, Jesus stayed within the
boundaries of marriage as a community covenant, but he changed the rules for how marital partners are to treat one another, especially
the men in authority who had control of the rules. Stick that in your after-dinner cigar and smoke it! –
he says to his male audience.
The
Pharisees had presented Jesus with a trick question – if he said no to
divorce, then he could be discredited as Ôunbiblical,Õ (against Moses at least)
a charge that is lobbed at many a minister. Jesus wasnÕt married, so he could hardly speak from personal
experience. But Jesus sidestepped
the trick and called his audience back to the original condition for human
relationships, a partnership of equals made in the image of God, perhaps
playing separate but equally important roles. Marital relationships like other family relationships are
bound within the larger community; two married people were not free to do whatever they liked. Thus, he reminded his listeners that
marriage is a sacred covenant, a web of relationships that should not be torn
apart, like the relationship between God and the people of Israel.
What
about today, when women sue for divorce, and men can hurt as much as women in
the ensuing chaos and animosity of dividing property and children? It is possible that Jesus would say much the same thing to us, holding up the
standard of a forever covenant as our goal and best intention. We ought to be
faithful in keeping our covenants, like God is faithful.
Jesus
aimed this spotlight of faithfulness on many types of covenants, not only
marriage covenants. Jesus, of course, set very high standards for human
behavior in all kinds of relationships, standards that we frequently fall short
of. If we single divorce out above
all other broken promises, then we commit another serious mistake; I donÕt believe
Jesus was in the habit of ranking sins.
He was far more concerned to heal broken relationships. He would caution us to examine our
motives and do our very best to honor our promises. He would urge us to be slow to judge others as the Pharisees
were trying to do.
But
what then of people in impossible marriages? What would Jesus say then - No reason for divorce? Ouch! His words seem incredibly harsh and unfeeling to our ears,
and out of character for Jesus, who of all people was otherwise highly sensitive
to human suffering. I
do know that Jesus was not speaking to a couple in a pastoral counseling
appointment who have tried and concluded that they cannot go on together. One or both of them are grieving over
this failure, and seeking help to move on separately. And I do know that for some, looking back, divorce may have
been the best thing that could be done in an impossible situation – to
cut the ties with a spouse who no longer loved you, or to walk away from a
spouse so needy that they were like one more child, or to flee from a person
whose ÔloveÕ was so jealous that they controlled your every move. I think that Jesus would be the first
one to help us get on with life, taking the wisdom born of that special pain of
reaching our human limitations, to rebuild our lives and make peace with
ourselves and one another.
Certainly, his encounters with people who had been hurt by life, showed
Jesus as a man who helped others pick up the pieces and then commit to living
differently from that time forward.
Divorce
is as common among church members as non-church-goers, so churches donÕt offer
automatic protection against divorce.
But maybe, we can do better in helping people take their marriage
covenants seriously, as well as all the commitments we make in baptism and so
on. Maybe we can help families reduce the stresses that contribute to divorce
today
1) Teaching how to minimize
serious financial difficulty,
2) Encouraging honest communication,
3) Reducing family isolation from
community life,
4) Relieving false expectations
that our marriage partners are supposed to fill our every need. We can pray for
and with all who are struggling in relationships, supporting one another in
every way, because God has said that Òit is not good for human beings to be
alone.Ó
Listen
to this statement on marriage that expresses its joys and difficulties, ÒLife
together is hard. There are no
perfect husbands, no perfect wives, no perfect children, no perfect
mother-in-law. Life in family
– life in any community – is both our sorest test and our sweetest
joy. Life together stretches us,
pulls us, strains us, but in it we are nourished by the struggle. It is the
best chance Providence gives most of us to grow out of ourselves and into
something more like what we were meant to beÉFor the only thing harder than
getting along with other people is getting along without themÉÓ[1]
For some the wounds of divorce are fresh, for others
the scar may still be tender if we punch it in the right place. Jesus would respond with forgiveness,
perhaps with the advice that he gave the woman in adultery, advice that we can
all use every day of our lives - ÒGo, and sin no more.Ó He would tell us to
measure our words, and refrain from judging others harshly. Do our very best to
keep the covenants that we have entered and to honor our promises, to reach for
the God standard and to trust that God will forgive our falling short. He would tell us to forgive ourselves
as God has forgiven us, to drop the weight of guilt or shame from the past that
may endanger our present relationships. He would tell us that no matter what
our marital status is, we are never sent beyond the reach of GodÕs love. May all GodÕs people say ÒAmen.Ó