"I'm Rick Santorum and I approved this message." "I'm Bob
Casey, and I approved this message." "I'm Phil English, and I
approved this message." Have you heard enough of that line yet
this year? Well, don't fret, we still have four more weeks to
hear it again...and again and again.
I will admit that I am a bit tired of it...especially when
it is attached to one more attack ad. I personally would like to
hear the candidates say, "This is what I HAVE done and this is
what I WILL do; if you can support that, I would appreciate your
vote." Forget this stuff about what a bum the opponent is; tell
me about YOU!!! Gracious!
What brings that stuff to mind is this text we have in
Mark's gospel. For 21st century Americans, that lesson is about
as welcome as a political attack ad, and Jesus' teaching on
divorce has been used to beat up on people for generations.
Knowing Jesus as we do, I think we have reason to wonder if that
is a message that Jesus really would approve.
A bit of background. The story begins with, "Some
Pharisees came and tested [Jesus] by asking, 'Is it lawful for a
man to divorce his wife?'" This was not a request for
assistance. What is likely is a political agenda behind the
Pharisees' "test" - they have been out to get him since chapter
three. In Mark's gospel, the previous occurrence of the word
"lawful" (exesti) is when we are told that John the Baptist had
been telling Herod, "It is not LAWFUL for you to have your
brother's wife,"(1) after Herod had divorced his wife in order to
marry Herodias, his sister-in-law. Would Jesus side with John
and say that this was not lawful? If so, the Pharisees might
push to have Herod do to Jesus what he had done to John - off
with his head. Sounds to me like the question was a not-too-well-disguised attempt to have Jesus, in a sense, "hang himself,"
by speaking against Herod. Nice folks, those Pharisees.
Jesus' response to the question was a question of his own:
"What did Moses command you?" Well, actually, nothing. What
Moses did was PERMIT divorce.(2) Jesus does not debate this. He
chooses instead to interpret Moses within the larger context of
God's intentions for humanity.
According to Moses, a man can divorce a woman who becomes
"displeasing to him" by simply writing her a note saying they are
divorced - the note in Hebrew is called a GIT (which is not
simply short for GIT OUT, but that is the effect of it). If she
then becomes another man's wife, and, in time, the second guy
comes to want rid of her, he can divorce her too, but he cannot
send her back to the first guy because she has been "defiled."
Clear? Who makes all the decisions? The men, of course. What
is the basis of their decisions to divorce? She does something
"indecent." What is considered indecent? Well, men, we know it
when we see it, right?
Actually, knowing it when we see it was causing a certain
amount of controversy in the Jewish community of Jesus' day. The
Hebrew root ('ervah) of what is translated "indecent" has a
sexual connotation which led some interpreters to conclude that
only some sexually immoral act like adultery would be grounds for
divorce. Others thought that conclusion was too restrictive and
interpreted "indecent" as anything the husband found
objectionable, something as simple as if she spoiled a dish of
food, if she talked to a strange man, if she spoke
disrespectfully of her husband's relatives in his hearing, if she
were a brawling woman (defined as one whose voice could be heard
in the next house). All these things were considered to be
grounds for divorce. A certain Rabbi Akiba even went the length
of saying that it meant if a man found a woman who was "fairer"
in his eyes than his wife was. Given the way human nature goes,
you can imagine which school of thought was most popular.(3)
As we are aware, if a divorce did occur in that day and age,
the consequences could be severe. Quite apart from the emotional
pain and trauma, the woman is suddenly cast out on the street:
homeless, unless she has family to which she might return.
Certainly, she was in disgrace. For the husband, less
consequence - he keeps the house, the property and the kids.
There might be extended family concerns since they were the ones
who had arranged the marriage in the first place, but, even with
that, the decision to divorce was his and his alone.
So what is the answer, Jesus? "It was because your hearts
were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. "But at
the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female...For
this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united
to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no
longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let
man not separate." These days, we might wonder how some couples
end up with one another. Did God join them together, or was
their merger the result of other urges? No matter...
Pretty conservative response from Jesus, eh? Which we could
live with, I guess. After all, as we learned in our study of the
Ten Commandments, the family was part and parcel of that
society's Social Security system. You fool with that only at the
expense of the stability of the social order, and in particular,
protection for those most vulnerable.
The problem for us in the 21st century is what comes next.
Apparently the Pharisees who were looking to entrap Jesus had
given up and wandered off. Jesus and his friends had moved on
inside the house in Capernaum with the conversation on the
subject continuing. The disciples asked Jesus to elaborate.
"Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits
adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and
marries another man, she commits adultery." BAM!!!
What we hear is that divorce is OK but not remarriage. Wait
a minute. This is crazy. What good is a divorce unless it frees
you to remarry? And, of course, according to Mosaic tradition,
that is what was allowed. There is something else to note here,
especially after our Ten Commandments study where we found that
"You shall not commit adultery" was essentially a property crime
against a married man, whose exclusive rights to his wife have
been violated (whether the male offender is married or not is
irrelevant); if a married man has intercourse with an unmarried
woman, this does not count as adultery. By insisting that the
second marriage is a crime against the first WIFE, Jesus is
abolishing the established double standard. In addition, because
the law of Moses treated polygamy as legal(4), a second marriage
for the man was always permissible anyway. By declaring the
second marriage adulterous, Jesus is saying no to polygamy too.
We live in a different world. Polygamy is long gone, and,
for our society, so are arranged marriages. These days we see
marriage as mutual decision between equal partners. And the
decision to end a marriage is no longer the exclusive option of
the husband. What do you think Jesus would say today to a woman
in an abusive marriage, a marriage in which to stay is to
risk physical harm, even murder? What do you think Jesus would
say today to a teenage mother with a newborn baby, whose equally-teenage husband has deserted them both because he is not ready
for the responsibility of a family? Sorry, sweetie. Too bad.
Guess you are stuck. Is that the message from Jesus here?
My Dad thought so. At least for most of his ministry. For
that matter, he came by that position honestly because that was
essentially the position of the Presbyterian Church: the
prohibition against remarriage following divorce was not just for
the days of Jesus, but for now on into eternity. Presbyterian
ministers were not permitted to officiate at a marriage where the
bride or the groom had been divorced UNLESS they were the
"innocent party." (We know these days that there is no such thing
as an "innocent party," but this is now and that was then.)
Apparently Dad began to think about the problem and, one night,
as he and Mom were talking, he began to list all the really
wonderful SECOND marriages in his congregation - couples who had
been together for years and years and had raised terrific
families. These were committed Christian people who were active
and involved in the church, one of whom, years before, had been
married and subsequently divorced. Was this second wonderful
marriage an adulterous and sinful relationship? Sure did not
look like it. In fact, it looked like God had marvelously
blessed these couples, and as we all know, God does not bless
sin. Hmm. Dad's mind began to change. Good.
To understand this text properly, we have to look at the
entire context of Jesus' ministry. He was always looking out for
the vulnerable, the powerless, the weak. This lesson, properly
understood, was one more way Jesus was trying to protect wives
who, in that society, had no real way to protect themselves.
The gospel writer emphasizes the point by placing the
instruction about divorce and remarriage next to the story about
Jesus blessing the children. Most of us are inclined to imagine
the children of that incident as much like the children of today:
as people in their own right, deserving of respect. Yet that is
not how people viewed children in Jesus' day. Remember that
something like half of all newborn children, back then, never
made it to adulthood. Childhood diseases - most of them wholly
preventable by today's standards - were killers in the first
century. As a result, little children had a very low place in
society; after all, who would want to forge a strong relationship
with a child who could up and die at any time?
Over the objections of his disciples, who are seeking to
protect his time, Jesus insists that the little children be
brought to him. In doing so, he is reaching out to another
downtrodden group in his society, not the abandoned wives this
time, but the children who were considered almost less than
human. Once again, Jesus turns the tables; he lets love rule.
Would Jesus say divorce in the 21st century is OK
considering we live in such a different culture? I doubt it, if
for no other reason than divorce is so incredibly painful for
almost everyone it touches. Listen to Abigail Trafford:
There is nothing easy about divorce. It is a savage
emotional journey. You don't know where it ends for a
long time. You ricochet between the failure of the
past and the uncertainty of the future. You struggle
to understand what went wrong with your marriage, to
apportion the blame and inventory your emotional
resources. There's one thing you are sure of almost
immediately: You know that life will never be the same
again. "Divorce is a death, says counselor Sharon
Baker of the Los Angeles Divorce Warm Line. "Divorce
is the death of a relationship. It is the death of
your dreams. You have to start all over."
Most people go a little crazy when their marriage
cracks open. You are rarely prepared for the practical
or emotional turmoil that lies ahead. You swing
between euphoria, violent rage, and depression. You
may search frenetically for a new mate or you go the
other way and withdraw from people and not answer the
phone. Health statistics tell you that you're prone to
getting sick and having car accidents. Reports of
triangle assaults and murders of estranged spouses make
regular newspaper headlines. In the dark hours of
loneliness, you think about suicide. At some point,
almost everyone coming out of a marriage mutters to
what was once the other half: "I could kill you."(5)
I have officiated at LOTS of weddings in my career. I would
love to say that I tied the knot so securely that none of them
ever unraveled. I wish. So saying, none of those folks got
married with the intention of getting divorced. Every couple who
marries does so with the intent holding on "so long as we both
shall live." That is the promise. Yet sometimes the promise can
no longer be kept. Relationships break down. People break down.
Should that happen, the church is called on, not to stand in
judgment or point accusing fingers, but to offer hospitality. With Jesus we say, "Let them come to me, and do not hinder them..." And he will take you in his arms, put his hands on you, and bless you. When the church does that, we are liable to hear, "My name is Jesus, and I approved this message."
Amen!
1. Mark 6:18
2. See Deuteronomy. 24:1-4
3. William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, CD-ROM edition (Liguori, MO: Liguori
Faithware, 1996) used by permission of Westminster/John Knox Press
4. Deuteronomy 21:15-17
5. Abigail Trafford, Crazy Time: Surviving Divorce and Building a New Life, (New York:
Harper Perennial, 1992)
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