Mark
10:2-16
We are all aware of the
intense debates over the nature of marriage that have been going on all around
us recently. There’s no question that
the institution of marriage and the event of a wedding bring into focus a whole
catalog of questions around sexuality, family relationships, church and state
relationships, the relationship between law and conscience, what it takes to
raise a child, and on and on. In the
middle of that, along comes this reading from Mark that talks about divorce.
Once upon a time, divorce was
controversial. In the 1930’s the King of
England abdicated because he wanted to marry a woman who had been
divorced. It would have been scandalous
under any circumstances but in his role as head of the Church of England it was
just plain unthinkable. That has
changed. The divorce rate in this
country spiked in the 1970’s and 1980’s, and has come down a bit since then,
but according to The New York Times[1]
about one in three recent marriages (meaning less than fifteen years old) will
end in divorce. We feel badly about
divorce, but there is little public outrage.
Jesus’ words on divorce, however, have some bite 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.” [Mark 10:11-12]
Before we start pointing fingers, though, let’s look at
where that comes from.
First
off, he admits its legality under Jewish law.
His words are a part of a discussion with religious authorities.
“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.’” [Mark 10:2-5]
What
was that hardness of heart? That was the
ability in that time and place for a man simply to discard a woman when he was
unhappy with her. Perhaps she was no
longer in her prime child-bearing years.
Perhaps there was a personality conflict. Maybe he felt a need for variety in his
life. It didn’t matter. Women had no independent legal status. For a woman to get a certificate of divorce
was a small protection for her. She
probably would not have been considered a leading candidate for remarriage but
at least she would not have been a landmine, since involvement with another
man’s wife was more than wrong, it was dangerous. It’s very much like things still are in the
Middle East. Marriages are arranged and
are very much an economic matter. A
man’s honor may be involved, but a woman is still a commodity.
Jesus
wanted to go beyond that outlook. He
pushed things back to look at marriage as a matter of relationship instead of
convenience.
“‘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.’” [Mark
10:5-9]
He was speaking to those who had the ability to prevent
divorce and telling them that their choices would not affect the woman only,
but the man as well. If the two are one,
a divorce would mean amputating a part of oneself.
“Whoever divorces his wife and marries
another commits adultery against her; and
if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.” [Mark 10:11-12]
There was to be no easy, clean divorce.
Let’s be
clear. Modern divorce, in this country,
is not the same thing. A divorced woman
is not sent back in shame to her family, and she is not going to be whispered
about at the village well. It is also
clear that Jesus did not shun a Samaritan woman he met at a well one day even
though her marital record was right up there with Elizabeth Taylor’s. In fact, he welcomed her into the
kingdom. There is no reason for anyone
to stigmatize someone over divorce.
We also
need to recognize that Jesus’ rejection of divorce was part of the way that he
stood up for the powerless and the exploited.
In our time, divorce can be a way that the powerless and exploited stand
up for themselves. Marriage, as he
insists, should be something that fulfills God’s will for people. If marriage is being used as a tool to
control somebody or as a cover for abuse of any type, that is not marriage as
God intends.
I’ll
give an example from the Middle East again.
The Iranians struggle with the use of marriage and divorce as a cover
for prostitution. For a man to go to a
prostitute is against Islamic law. But
if he marries a woman, offering a gift to her guardian, and then shortly
thereafter divorces her – very shortly thereafter – the legalities have been
observed.
In our own society, where people
can run to a wedding chapel and the next morning go to a lawyer in regret, or
where weddings have become an industry of their own with thousands and
thousands of dollars going into a show reception with no thought about the life
that is to follow “the big day”, there is often a parallel disregard. It just has a different shape. Then if the marriage becomes the arena for
people to live out the worst sides of themselves, it becomes toxic for
everyone. Divorce then makes sense,
because it affirms what Jesus affirms, which is the value of a human being in
relationship with God and other people.
It should be an event that brings to an end something that has harmed
someone badly.
Divorce is never good. Christian faith, though, is about how God
brings good things out of bad situations.
He brought forgiveness out of Jesus’ death on the cross, and he brought
life out of Jesus’ burial in a grave.
Surely a God who can make those terrible, painful events the key to
eternal life for sinners can use the terrible things in human life to point the
way to fullness of life as it should be.
Ruth
Graham, daughter of Billy Graham, grew up with all the pressures and
expectations you might predict. As an
adult, she had a daughter who went through a teen pregnancy and a son who
became addicted to drugs. Her first
marriage, of twenty-one years, ended because of her husband’s infidelity. She then got into a “rebound relationship”
and married, against her family’s advice.
That marriage lasted five weeks. She
describes what happened next:
"I had to go tell my parents. I thought, 'What are they
going to say to me?' As I rounded the last bend in my father's driveway, he was
waiting for me. He wrapped his arms around me and said, 'Welcome home.' He
showed me enormous grace.
"As I was talking to him one day, really beating myself up
and taking responsibility for everything and just pouring my heart out, he
said, 'Quit beating yourself up. We all live under grace and do the best we
can.'”[2]
To me, that sums it
up, and it applies to anything we face.
We all live under grace, and we all live by grace. ’Tis grace hath brought us safe this far, and
grace will lead us home.
[1]
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/upshot/the-divorce-surge-is-over-but-the-myth-lives-on.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&_r=4&abt=0002&abg=0
[2] Rose
French, “Graham’s Daughter Addresses Gritty Issues” (Associated Press, November
13, 2008). http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/life_and_entertainment/2008/11/13/1A_RUTH_GRAHAM.ART_ART_11-13-08_D1_45BQKGD.html
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