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Henrietta United Church of ChristRev. David Inglis October 8, 2006
Mark 10:2-12
“Love and Marriage–And Divorce”
A very elderly woman steered her walker into a lawyer’s office. “I want a divorce!” she demanded.
“You are here for a divorce?” the surprised lawyer asked.
“You heard me, Sonny! I can’t stand to live with that old rattlesnake another day!”
“Well, how long have you been married?”
“We’ve been married for 74 miserable years! Ever since the honeymoon, it’s been all downhill, and I’m not going to stand for it anymore!”
“If it’s been that bad for so long, why now, after all this time?”
“We stayed together for the children. But now that the children are dead....”
Is divorce ever justified? Half of all US marriages today end in divorce. Should we just shrug our shoulders and say, “That’s the way it is these days?” Or should people who have divorced be made to feel ashamed, like they have failed, as a kind of deterent? Jesus’ teaching against divorce seems straightforward and clear. And yet those very words have been used to keep women locked into abusive relationships that have resulted in emotional damage, serious physical injury, and even death. This issue of divorce is all very confusing. That’s why I was tempted to bypass this passage when it showed up in the lectionary for today. But our confusion is a all the
more reason to try to sort it all out.We’re going to look at Jesus’ teaching on divorce from three different perspectives. Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Listen for what resonates as truth that frees your spirit to become its fullest and best.
The first perspective we can look at Jesus’ teaching on divorce from is literal--we can just take it at face value. What Jesus says in his teaching is that marriage is a sacred relationship ordained by God. “What God has joined together, let no one put asunder.” To divorce and marry someone else commits adultery. He doesn’t mince words in his opposition to divorce.
And there is some liberating truth even in this straightforward reading of Jesus’ words. Jesus is saying that the foundation of marriage is not attraction, convenience, or even the mutual meeting of needs. It is a spiritual relationship. Jesus points to God’s plan in creation, where a couple is drawn to each other to become one. Our translation says “and the two shall become one flesh.” The Greek simply says, “the two shall become one.” The translators assume the flesh part is implied. But marriage is not just a sexual union. It’s a uniting of two beings, who offer and devote not just their bodies but also their hearts and souls to this new entity that they are creating, this union, that takes on a life of its own. It’s spiritual because it requires each one to take off their whole social wardrobe of masks and hats and adornment and create a space of intimacy as they are. This exposes their hearts, their souls, and their spirits to each other. This requires deep trust and great vulnerability. That’s the union that marriages are stretching us toward. It’s the unconditional love that each person brings into the union that offers each person the room to open themselves deeply and encourages each other to grow more fully into who they really are.
What does it take for this to happen? Few people, let alone young people, are mature enough to do this right away. Almost everyone enters marriage with a neediness or a hole that they are secretly hoping that their partner will fill for them. But the marriage vows of “for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part,” are designed to create a container of security where love can deepen and trust can grow. If you approach marriage like you would a 30-day trial period, or like a money-back guarantee if you’re not satisfied, the marriage won’t work. No enduring union will happen, because it’s two individuals trying to use each other to meet their own needs, rather than two individuals working to create something bigger than their own needs.
That’s why divorce has been frowned on in the past. That has been the church and society’s imperfect way of saying, “Don’t bail out just because it’s hard. Stay with it. Work on it, and work on yourself, so you can grow into it. Let your spouse know that your love goes deeper than how she looks in the morning or his paycheck or her moods or his secret insecurities. Create for your spouse the security to be themself–the self beneath their ego–and they will grow. And commit yourself to stay aware of your own neediness, possessiveness, manipulations, control, stubbornness, or passivity.”
Believe me, whatever immaturities and unhealed wounds you’re carrying will come to light if you’re married for any length of time. The question is, will you take responsibility for them and work on them, or blame your partner for not making you happy? If your marriage is a commitment rather than arrangement, that gives you the incentive to work on yourself. If you blame your spouse, get a divorce, and go off and marry someone else, on a spiritual level, you are being unfaithful to your former spouse. You haven’t done what you promised to do. You haven’t finished your work. You’ve just transferred your immaturity from one person to another.
I think this is the higher truth that Jesus’ teaching is lifting up when he elevates marriage to a sacred covenant ordained by God.
Unfortunately, the Church did with divorce what it often did with Jesus’ great spiritual teachings. It turned Jesus’ wisdom into legalism. Rather than saying, “Here’s the ideal, and we’ll do what we can to help you attain it,” it said, “Here’s a new commandment: get married, but never get a divorce, and if you do we’ll make your life even more miserable--because Jesus says right here that to get a divorce is a sin.”
That’s the pitfall in only looking at this passage literally and legalistically. If you are in a relationship that is abusive, soul-stifling, or crazy-making, it puts you in a terrible choice: if you divorce your spouse to save your sanity or safety or children or maybe even your life, you get further shame, humiliation, judgment and ostracism heaped on top of you, all in the name of Jesus. Do you see something wrong with this picture?
To see what’s wrong with this picture, we need to look at the passage from another perspective–from the perspective of its context. Jesus’ teaching about divorce takes place in the middle of a trap that the Pharisees are trying to catch Jesus in. They hoped that Jesus would set his own authority over the law of Moses. Then they could accuse him of undermining their faith and attacking their tradition.
So they asked Jesus if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife. This must have been a controversial topic in those days, because it was both lawful and it was abused.
Jesus asked them what Moses commanded them.
“Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” And they had a pretty good idea that Jesus was going to take issue with this. Why? Because, in their male-dominated society, men were using this to divorce their wives for any reason they chose. If a man’s wife burned the supper, he could write out a certificate of divorce and get rid of her. If she wasn’t subservient enough, he could write the certificate and send her packing.
So women could be given their walking papers for no cause other than the whim of their husbands. And then what? Could they get a job? Well, let’s see...there was prostitution, and begging, and servitude that amounted to slavery. That was about the extent of the job market for women in that culture. Do you see the problem here? Do you see the gross injustice to women that Jesus was trying to address when he said what he did about the men and women being given to each other as God’s gift, not throwaway objects, and about treating marriage as a sacred covenant that shouldn’t be broken?
So do you see why taking Jesus’ teaching against divorce and then using it to shame women into staying in abusive, soul-suffocating relationships is actually a violation of the intent of Jesus’ teaching here? Jesus’ teaching on divorce was a radical lifting up of the value of women, and in no way would he condone it being used to trap them in further abuse. Jesus opened up every law that the Pharisees were interpreting legalistically to help people tap into the spiritual liberation that lay at the core of the law.
So this passage has shown us how marriage is meant to be a sacred responsibility between two God-created people. Only by committing our highest selves to a new union that is bigger than either of us or our spouse is enough safety and security established for us to grow in unconditional love and in spirit-opening trust. And this passage has shown us how it violates Jesus’ intent to apply this teaching legalistically, in a way that actually violates people’s safety and security or thwarts their spiritual growth.
There’s one more perspective to look at this teaching from–the perspective of Jesus’ other teachings. Jesus said that the most important commandments are these: to love God with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength; and to love our neighbor as ourself. What if we looked at this teaching through the lens of these commandments?
This tells us that our highest love and devotion is to God, even before our spouse. To love God the way Jesus showed us is to open ourself more and more fully to the Source of all love. God’s love has the power to free us from every regret, heal every wound, call forth every gift, open us to every truth, awaken us to the fullness of living, and empower us to carry the power of love creatively and courageously into the world. To love God with our whole being opens up our whole being to be a channel of God’s love.
If we immerse ourselves in a human relationship without being grounded first in the Source of all love, we’ll be looking for our partner to be our primary source of love. Is this going to work when our partner is stressed out, not feeling well, disappointed in us, feeling needy and insecure, or in some other way acting like a human being?
And if our spirit isn’t devoted to the Source all love, how is our love of our spouse going to hold up when we go through those brief little times of being not quite altogether perfect ourselves? That’s why Jesus said our first relationship has to be with God.
And note the second commandment: We are to love our neighbor, including the one we share our life with, as ourself. Not less than ourself. Not more than ourself. As ourself. In other words, we have to love ourself well in order to love another well. If we love ourself more than the person we’re married to, then we’ll tend to try to use them for our own ends and we’ll undermine the union our marriage is intended to create. If we love and value ourself less than the person we’re married to and hand over our soul to them, we’ll tend to betray the responsibility for our own life and our own soul’s development that God gave us when we came into this world. We cannot love another person in a healthy way unless we also love and care for the spirit in us. That’s why the Bible often mentions Jesus going off to a lonely place to pray. He had to renew his connection with God, which was also a way of loving and caring for himself. Then he could go back and give deeply to others again.
When we are deeply grounded in our love for God and a healthy love for ourself, we can find the courage to speak our truth in love–that is, with a deep caring for ourself and the other person at the same time. We can let our spouse know when we feel frustrated, disappointed, hurt, or simply in need--without blaming them for our feelings, but openly sharing where we are in the moment. We can take responsibility for our feelings and our needs instead of putting the responsibility on our spouse for taking care of us. And we can hear our partner with an open heart instead of needing to fix them or meet all their needs.
If we brought this kind of spirituality into our relationships, what do you think would happen to the divorce rate? And if a couple decided that they were no longer serving each other’s growth or spiritual health, and out of caring for each other, decided to release each other from their marriage vows....well, it might not be too good for lawyers, but it sure would save a lot of wear and tear on people and on families.
Maybe Jesus’ teaching on divorce isn’t as confusing as we thought. It’s not a teaching about judgment or sin. It’s a teaching about how to love. Whether you’re single, married, divorced, or widowed, the lessons of love are the same:
Honor your commitments in a way that builds trust and helps others’ spirits to open and grow.
Stretch yourself to love the people in your life with a love that seeks their highest good, and isn’t dependent on what they can do for you.
When conflicts arise, don’t blame the other person, but speak your truth humbly, straightforwardly, and in love, and encourage them to do the same.
Stay grounded in your love for God, practice a healthy love for your deepest self, and let that fuel your love for others.
When divorce happens, there is no need to live in shame or guilt. Everything that happens is an opportunity for new awareness and growth, if you learn what you need to learn, heal from what needs to be healed, and find new ways to offer your love.