by Dr. Graham Standish
Mark 10:1-12
Jesus left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him; and, as was his custom, he again taught them.
Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.’ But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’
Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’
A number of years ago, perhaps six or seven, I paid a heartbreaking visit to a women’s shelter in the North Hills. I had been asked by a counselor at the shelter to come and talk with the women about the role of spirituality in overcoming abuse. I felt extremely privileged to be there because, frankly, men only rarely get to go to a women’s shelter. They are hidden and kept secret in order to protect the women from their abusive husbands and boyfriends.
My talk really focused on the idea that God was on their side, and that despite what they may think, God wants them to be whole and healthy, and not to be subject to chronic abuse. In discussions after our talk, they focused on something that had never occurred to me before. A number of them said that they had a hard time with their faith because one of the tactics that their husbands used to keep them in the relationship was the Bible, and specifically our passage for today. They said that because of passages like this one, they still felt incredibly guilty for leaving their relationships. They worried that God was angry with them and that if they didn’t go back they would be consigned to Hell. One woman said that she struggled with the idea that perhaps the abuse she received was God’s disciplining hand teaching her to be better, and that she was hit so often because she wasn’t trying hard enough to be good. I had a hard time convincing her and them that God wanted good for them, not bad. Some were hard to convince because they kept coming back to this passage.
Passages like the one for today are really difficult to deal with because they seem so hard and fast, so black and white. The rule is that you get married and you stay in the marriage no matter what, right? No excuses. No exceptions. What is hard about these passages is that they go against how the rest of the gospels portray Jesus. In the rest of the gospels we find Jesus leading with love and understanding first. He says things such as that the law was made for humans, not humans for the law.
He always seems to be on the side of people who were hurting, struggling, or who had been outcast because of the law. He loved and healed lepers and blind men who were told that their skin rash or blindness was a sign of God’s judgment. He loved and healed outcasts such as the Syro-Phoenician woman, the woman with a twelve-year hemorrhage, the Roman centurion, and more. How, then, could he be so judgmental and harsh to those who were divorced, especially those who were divorced through no fault of their own because their husbands had kicked them out? Are there really no valid reasons for divorce? What about people who are stuck in abusive marriages? What about people who are married to someone with an addiction who refuses to get help and is tearing apart the family? What about those who are married to chronically irresponsible spouses who waste away all the money, ignore the children, and carry with serial affairs?
Do you know what the problem with this passage is? The problem is that it was spoken to address a particular problem that existed in Jesus’ day, but not so much in our day. On the surface this passage seems fairly straightforward, but the conditions Jesus was speaking to really don’t exist in our day-and-age. Let me take you back a few thousand years and I think you’ll see what I mean.
The fact was that Jesus wasn’t trying to outlaw divorce as much as he was trying to protect families. To understand what I mean you have to appreciate the dynamics of marriage in Jesus’ day. To begin with, women weren’t free like they are today. Back then women were considered to be pretty much like chattel—as property of their fathers’ until they became property of their husbands. Husbands had all the rights, women almost none. Women were considered to be a step above slaves.
If a man were to divorce his wife, there was little to stop him. In fact, the understanding of divorce in Jewish culture was based on Deuteronomy 24:1, which said, “Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house.” The Sadducees limited the number of “objectionable” reasons for divorcing, but not the Pharisees (and it was the Pharisees who asked Jesus about divorce in our passage). The Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus by getting him to give an answer that would get him in hot water with the Sadducees, the Pharisees, or both. For the Pharisees, divorce was a fairly simple matter. They gave wide latitude in determining what was objectionable. A man could divorce his wife for a variety of reasons ranging from adultery, to her quarrelling too much, to her speaking in too loud a voice in the marketplace, to her getting old and a bit ugly. Now, what could a woman divorce her husband for? Adultery, and she had to prove it. He didn’t have to prove it of her, but she did of him.
So, let’s go back to why Jesus said what he did. He was trying to protect women from being cast out. When these women were divorced, there was nothing for them. Often their families would not take them back because of the stigma of divorce, so what was left was a life of prostitution or one of being a virtual slave. Jesus was saying to these Pharisees, “Look, I’m not going to give you a way out. Live according to your commitments. You’ve promised to give a good life to your wife. Honor that. Don’t be looking for someone prettier or better, love what you have.” I don’t think he was even thinking about abused women or about people who are stuck in destructive marriages. He was thinking about the condition the Pharisees presented him, which was the rampant disregard for marriage that many Pharisee men had. He also knew that Jewish culture was being influenced by Roman culture, where it was not uncommon for a person to be married and divorced up to eight times in a life.
So, with all this under consideration, what is the Christian view regarding marriage? Is all divorce wrong? Should people stay together no matter what? Actually, I think that’s the wrong question. Certainly God doesn’t want us to stay in marriages that are unhealthy and that kill life rather than give life. I don’t think that marriage is so important that God would rather have us be abused, neglected, and harmed, all for the sake of keeping a marriage intact. The fact is that sometimes lives are made healthier by divorce, especially when there is abuse, neglect, chronic addiction, and the like. Sometimes the only way to protect life is to get divorced. And the truth is that God will work with what we have. I’m not saying that God doesn’t care about divorce. I’m clear that some people divorce out of convenience or lack of commitment, and that’s a tragedy because their immaturity often leads them to become serial divorcers.
I think the better question to ask is what God wants in our marriages. Divorces will happen, and I don’t believe that if you have been divorced that God will abandon you, nor do I believe that God wants you to be lonely and alone for the rest of your life. But I think there’s a larger point here. What God ultimately wants is healthy families, and healthy families generally come from healthy marriages. For me the modern Christian question isn’t whether divorced allowed. It’s how to keep divorce from happening.
The issue for us today is that we face so many stresses on marriages today that didn’t exist in Jesus’ day. For the past twenty years the statistics are that 50% of all marriages end in divorce. That means that whenever I do a wedding, half of them will end in divorce. That also means that 50% of all children are growing up in single parent or stepparent homes. The result of all these divorces is that we have a generation reaching, or in, young adulthood who are scared of making a commitment to marriage because they are afraid of failure. They’ve witnessed the pain that comes with divorce, and have a hard time following through with commitments as a result. I resonate with them because I grew up in a divorced household, and I know that I have to try extra hard to stay committed.
Do you know what’s even more tragic? The answer most people have to their fear of commitment is to simply not get married. They move in together and therefore believe they are protecting themselves from the pain of divorce. Unfortunately, the break up rate is actually higher than the divorce rate after ten years (57% to 30%, according to a Columbia University study). And those who get married after having lived together have an astonishing 80% divorce rate. The question for us is not so much about how do we avoid divorce, but how do we keep our marriages intact? So, with this in mind, what I want to give three tips to those of you who are married, and those of you who want to be married.
1. It’s not about you. It’s not about me. It’s about us: The fact is that we live in a very narcissistic culture in which most people are constantly thinking of themselves first and only. Today far too many people enter marriages asking, “What can this person give and do for me?” That’s simple immaturity. It’s normal for people to have that attitude when they are dating. No one dates another at first, asking, “Gee, how can I be all about her or him?” We ask, “What does that person do for me?” We like how the other person makes me feel. We become infatuated with her or him because of what she or he brings to me.
Over time, though, we need to give up our focus on ourselves. And we need to give up our focus on just what the other wants. The question we need to ask is, “What is right for us.” Good marriages are based on us, not you or me. That doesn’t mean that good relationships are perfect. We all slip into a me- or you-focus. But the best marriages are sacrificial in the sense that I am willing to give up what I want, you are willing to give up what you want, in order for us to do whatever makes us healthy.
I’ve noticed over the years that unhealthy marriages have one or both spouses who keep the focus only on themselves. In fact, when I put on my marital therapist hat, I notice something about my ability as a counselor. When I work with couples where both really want to make the marriage work, I am the greatest counselor in the world. When I work with couples were just one really doesn’t care about the marriage anymore and is only meeting with me to put down one more mark on the checklist of things to do in order to get divorced, I’m the worst counselor in the world. The point is that marriages in which the couple takes us seriously usually turn out to be healthy marriages. Marriages in which one or both merely take me or you seriously end up in divorce.
2. We’re # 1: If jobs, kids, house, money, sports, friends, or anything else becomes more important than the marriage, the marriage is lost. This happens all the time. At first our marriages are the most important part of our lives. Then work starts to get in the way. Then we have kids, and they begin to come first. Perhaps our friends also become more important than the marriage, as do sports, hunting, shopping, or anything else.
The fact is that families are only as healthy as the marriages at their center. Do you want to have healthy kids? Start with working on your marriage. If the bond between husband and wife is strong, then the children will be more likely to be healthy physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually. What does it mean to make your marriage #1? It means making your relationship with your spouse more important than your work, your friends, sports, activities, and even your kids. I’m not saying that you should neglect your kids. Only that by making your relationship #1, you actually help your children.
So what does that mean on a practical level? Well, one thing I often tell spouses when they come for counseling is that they should make going out on dates a priority. And by going out on dates I don’t mean getting together with friends, or going to a movie where you sit next to each other but watch a screen for two hours. A date is where you go and do something fun together and talk—not about kids or work, but about life and your relationship. You’d be surprised at how many couples struggle to go out and just talk. The point, though, is that if your relationship is #1, your family will be healthy.
3. God is Love: This is an aspect of marriage that far too many people neglect. When you got married, did you notice that you not only made a promise to each other, but you also made a covenant with God? What that means is that you made a promise to God to put God at the center, which also means that you recognized that you can’t love without God.
I don’t know what you make of that last comment, but I’m speaking out of the first letter of John, who says in 1 John 4:16, “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” In other words, if you want to find more love in your life, find more God. The more open we are to God, the more open we are to love. Conversely, the more closed off we are to God, the more closed off we are to love. So, whether you sense this or not, just by going to church each week you make your marriage better. Each time you pray, you make your marriage better. How? By becoming more tied into God, who not only is the source of all love, but who is love, we enhance our marriages.
Amen.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
