Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-august-15-2023
Mark 10:1-12
Divorce
1Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his custom, he taught them.
2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
3 “What did Moses command you?” he replied.
4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”
5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her.12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
When I was a child, growing up in a small town, there was much more of a stigma about divorce than there is in western culture today. Families talked about divorces in hushed tones as evidence of failure to instill the proper character traits. Today, people just shrug and say that the couple “grew apart.”
But some parts of the church still resist that trend, and make divorce and remarriage difficult or impossible for their members. The Roman Catholic tradition continues to encourage people to seek an annulment instead of a divorce – an annulment technically declares that no marriage has ever taken place. And there are still churches and pastors in the Protestant tradition – including one in our own presbytery – who flatly refuse to perform weddings for people who have been previously married and divorced.
In those churches, it seems that the burden of keeping a struggling marriage going falls mostly on the wife. All too often, church leaders wind up pressuring wives in ways it’s hard to imagine Jesus blessing. That’s led to circumstances in which many shelters for victims of domestic violence refuse entry to Christian clergy because they’ve had experience with pastors who tell battered women they should go back and submit to their abusive husbands.
But even in parts of the church that are more flexible about the issue of divorce and remarriage, there is – and in fact, there should be – a sense of discomfort about the matter. After all, marriage vows are intended to be permanent and binding. Divorce causes all kinds of emotional and psychological wounds, and is the leading cause of poverty among women and children. So making divorce easy doesn’t make it painless.
Of course, it’s not helpful that so many public figures sometimes seem so casual about their serial marriages. A few years ago, a pop singer announced the end of her latest marriage through hre publicist after just six months. (But she also announced that she and her ex would continue to be devoted parents to their pets. So I’m sure we were all relieved about that.)
The passage we’re reading today is from the teachings of Jesus himself – so how are we as his followers supposed to hear and apply what he says – that divorce and remarriage is the moral equivalent to adultery?
First of all, we should keep in mind a couple of realities of first-century near-eastern culture. The specific question that was addressed to Jesus was whether it was permissible for men to divorce their wives. That points to the imbalance in gender roles in that culture. It was incredibly easy for men to get rid of their wives and trade them in for younger ones.
It was much harder, of course, for women. Divorce was even more of a cause of poverty among women and children in the ancient world. There were no government benefits, and no courts to enforce child support. Divorced women and their children faced very grim prospects. So of course, God’s heart would be grieved by the suffering that divorce brought about.
But it still seems clear that God’s will is that when two people enter into the covenant of marriage, it should be permanent and lifelong. Divorce is always the result of human sinfulness – on the part of at least one member of the couple, and probably of both members most of the time.
Of course, Jesus says in the gospels that there is only one unforgiveable sin, and divorce isn’t it. As emphatic as he is about the sanctity of marriage, God still chose to establish a way for people to escape from marriages that have been ruined by human sinfulness. And if people confess and repent of their sins in previous marriages, I’m not sure on what basis the rest of us can refuse to bless their later re-marriages.
And I will never believe that Jesus would tell a woman who is being beaten by her husband – or whose children are being abused – that she should go back and submit to more abuse. Any victim of domestic violence should get herself and her children out of harm’s way. There are people in every town and city who are trained and equipped to help victims, and all followers of Jesus have an obligation to help protect them.
But it seems to me that many people need to approach marriage more thoughtfully than they do. Studies show that in our time – and maybe for the first time – people believe that the purpose of marriage is to make them happy. That’s too much baggage to put on your marriage – or your spouse. By that definition, if you wake up in the morning and you’re unhappy, your marriage has failed. The purpose of marriage in God’s eyes has more to do with partnership in serving his purposes, and with supporting each other to become the people he has in mind for us to be.
Finally, I’m coming more and more to believe that the church should speak out against the lavish and expensive extravaganzas that weddings have become. Studies show that there’s a direct correlation between the cost of a wedding and the chance that the couple will eventually divorce. My suspicion is that extravagant weddings are all about a fantasy on the bride’s part, and distract attention that should be paid to the marriage, which is ‘way more important than the wedding.
One final comment on this passage: Opponents of same-sex marriage often point to Jesus’ comment in this passage about God making people male and female as a rejection of same-sex marriage. People of faith can disagree on that issue, but Jesus was specifically asked about men divorcing their wives, and it’s never responsible use of scripture to take what Jesus says on one topic and claim it’s authoritative on another topic altogether. You might notice that when Jesus explained his thinking to the disciples, he said nothing applicable to the question of same-sex marriages. My suspicion is that Jesus would expect same-sex couples to demonstrate exactly the same fidelity and loyalty he demanded from heterosexual couples.
Let’s pray. Lord, we pray for your blessing – and the strengthening of your Spirit – on all the marriages in the community of followers of Jesus. Let our marriages be islands of mutual commitment in the seas of selfishness and frivolousness that seem to be so much a part of the culture in which we live. By our marriages, empower us to minister to the generations that come after us and to all those who know us. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalm 119:41-56; II Samuel 14:1-20; and Acts 21:1-14. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.com, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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