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The Rev. Frank Logue
Dealing with Divorce “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” A group of Pharisees come to Jesus with the question. It was a pop quiz and the answer would determine just what sort of teacher this Jesus of Nazareth is. There were two schools of Jesus thought on this issue, the same two schools of thought as on many others. Rabbi Hillel taught that a man could divorce his wife for anything that displeased him. Rabbi Shammai taught that it was only in cases of adultery that divorce was permitted. They want to find out where Jesus stands. So, yes, I am preaching about divorce this morning. And I know that I am playing with live ammunition. Most of us have been divorced, or have parents or others dear to us who have. Or you have considered divorce or might before the week is out. But rest assured, both of my parents were married to others before marrying and having me, so I can’t be so completely against the practice that I deny my own existence. Instead, I want to help you find out what Jesus teaches on this subject on which everyone has an opinion and with which most everyone has experience. Jesus allowed that their might be grounds that make divorce permissible, but these were only given because “of your hardness of heart.” Jesus pushes further to connect his answer to the creation itself saying, “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.” That’s a pretty rigid standard for divorce and remarriage: “What God has joined together, let no one separate.” Yet, I am preaching in a church that doesn’t encourage divorce except in cases of abuse. But we certainly permit divorce and remarriage, so why the change? Why not hold to Jesus’ teaching that we can not separate what God has joined together? Well, I think there is a biblical basis for not doing so and I will get to that. But if you’ll permit me, I want to first let you know what The Episcopal Church teaches about the dissolution of a marriage and remarriage. The Canons of the church are its church laws and I have pledged to keep them as part of my ordination vows. I find this teaching particularly helpful in Title I Canon 19. CANON 19: Of Regulations Respecting Holy Matrimony: Concerning Preservation of Marriage, Dissolution of Marriage, and Remarriage Sec. 1. When marital unity is imperiled by dissension, it shall be the duty, if possible, of either or both parties, before taking legal action, to lay the matter before a Member of the Clergy; it shall be the duty of such Member of the Clergy to act first to protect and promote the physical and emotional safety of those involved and only then, if it be possible, to labor that the parties may be reconciled. So if you are considering divorce, it is your duty to let me know and then it becomes my duty to first protect and promote the physical and emotional safety of those involved. This means that among my duties is to get a spouse and their children away from a physically abusive husband or wife and it even extends to emotional safety as well. Having done that, and to the degree possible, I am charged with helping bring about reconciliation. This is my job. I have done a good bit of it as your pastor and I find it both challenging and rewarding. If divorce has already occurred, I am to apply to the bishop for those who wish to be remarried and I must certify that the persons considering remarriage have come in counseling with a trained professional to understand what led to the death of the first marriage and show that they are now in a place to avoid the same problems. Further it states, “The Member of the Clergy shall have instructed the parties that continuing concern must be shown for the well-being of the former spouse, and of any children of the prior marriage.” The priority again is for the commitments to a previous spouse and any children, and then to making sure that a person is in a better place to begin a new marriage. Now back to Jesus who is pushing a much harder line. Jesus says divorce came about from hardness of heart and let no one separate what God has joined. That is what he says. But what is he doing? Many of you will know that is a question I always try to ask of a passage of scripture. What is the text doing? And if we look at what the text is doing we will find that what Jesus is teaching here goes well beyond issues of divorce. First, Mark gives us a specific context for the question. The context is not someone coming out of a rough divorce where her reputation has been unfairly dragged through the mud just so her husband can keep more of the marital assets. The context is not a wife come to Jesus not knowing what to do because her husband is abusing their children. Rather, the context is a group of Pharisees who want Jesus to tell them whether divorce is legal. Now legal is a specific question, because they don’t want to know Roman law. They are well aware that Roman law permits divorce. They also don’t care about current Jewish practice as they are well aware that the norm is something more like Hillel’s school of thought that a man can divorce his wife for anything, while a wife has no similar standing. What they want to know is how Jesus interprets Moses’ law. This is really a question of biblical interpretation. The difference among those contexts is quite important as Jesus would frequently preach against adultery. As the only sexual sin to make the 10 Commandments, adultery was a biggie and Jesus was strongly opposed to marital infidelity. Yet, to a woman caught in the very act of adultery Jesus said that he did not condemn her and she was to go and sin no more. Both of those parts are important, not just that he did not condemn her, but he also expected it would not happen again. But you see there was a distinction between the ideal Jesus taught and lived and the forgiveness Jesus was willing to offer someone who wanted to change their life. Jesus was all about letting the past be the past and helping someone heal that past as they move into a new and better future. So, I know some folks are sitting here and you’ve been divorced and you are wondering if you are about to get beat up over it. I don’t condemn you and neither does Jesus. So now that we understand this as a question of biblical interpretation as much as one of divorce, it is worth asking what the texts said about divorce. Jesus points them back to the text they expect. It is found in Deuteronomy 24:1 says that a man can give a woman a certificate of divorce when “it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her.” This was a provision which allowed a woman to remarry, for without marriage she would have no standing in the society of Iron Age Israel. The certificate of divorce freed the woman to enter into another marriage. Nothing about that passage from Deuteronomy covers an ideal marriage. Jesus taught that this provision in Moses’ Law offered a loophole, not the ideal. And so Jesus answers the theoretical question about marriage by pointing to the ideal, which is that in God’s perfect will marriages are for life. However, I feel that there is something more going on here and I’ll show you first the evidence that is so. In Matthew 19, we get this same exchange with the Pharisees and that Gospel records the additional statement by Jesus that, “Whoever divorces his wife, except for immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” Jesus had already said in that same Gospel, “everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” So if we put these together, we could say Jesus only allowed someone to divorce for adultery, and adultery takes place whenever someone looks at a person with lust. I would suggest that this would give a lot of people grounds for divorce. And yet, I don’t think that is what Jesus is looking for at all. I think if we look at all of these texts from another angle, the picture will clear up. The key is to understand permissive will and perfect will for God has both. God’s permissive will are those things that you can do that are right, they are ethical, but they are not ideal. God’s perfect will is the ideal. So if you want to know God’s perfect will for any marriage, it is reconciliation. Yet, in a perfect world, there would be no abuse. In a perfect world there would be no affairs, no spouses who have already checked out of the marriage and making plans for the next. In a perfect world no one would be told to leave and no one would come home to find the other already gone. There are a lot of things that happen outside of God’s perfect will. It’s our hardness of heart that leads to all these things and that’s not perfect. But there is also God’s permissive will. Leaving a marriage may not be perfect, but knowingly leaving your children in abuse is wrong, and divorce is permissible and is even the best choice given the situation. Going along with a divorce after you have been left is certainly not perfect, but it is also permitted, and is in fact your only choice. This is what reconciles many of Jesus’ teachings. For it seems like a common occurrence that people came to Jesus to ask, “What’s the minimum? What is the least I can do?” People wanted to know how little they could get by doing and Jesus upheld a higher standard. Jesus doesn’t want what is OK for you. Jesus wants what is best for you. Figuring out the loopholes in advance is no way to enter into any agreement, much less a marriage. And so, Jesus routinely held out the high standard of God’s perfect will and he wanted us to reach it. Then when people found themselves wounded by a life hell bent on doing everything but God’s will, Jesus reached out with compassion. This is, at its best, what the church does too. We are called to help one another as we strive for God’s perfect will. But in times when life makes that impossible, we show compassion and love to those whose life is not going as planned. No judgment. That’s God’s business. But mercy, that’s our business as well as God’s. This church must be a place of love, compassion and healing, not law and judgment. Offering one another love and compassion is God’s perfect will for the church. So if you are feeling guilty, you probably haven’t heard everything I’ve said. That is unless you have moved beyond God’s permissive will to doing whatever you want and calling it right. Talking about divorce does not have to be something just to layer on more guilt. It’s a way of coming to terms with what Jesus was really doing in his ministry. Jesus was holding out and affirming a higher standard and calling us to that standard of love in the midst of a broken world. He knew what was permitted, but wanted to call us to something perfect. And Jesus wants that perfect life of love for you still. Amen.
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