A Wedding and Roy's Ramblings

This past Saturday (May 17th) my nephew Bryant was married to his fiancee Emily.  The wedding was at Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church at 118th and Fort Street here in Omaha.  I had never been inside of this Church before even though I used to live just a few blocks from it at one time.  It's a very nice building and it served as a wonderful setting for a wedding.  Bryant and his new wife looked to be a very happy couple and I pray that they have had adequate pre-marital counseling to help them forge their way towards a very happy, rewarding and lifelong marriage.

I really enjoyed the Priest's Homily during the service as he very ardently stressed the indisputable fact that a marriage is a covenant with God, and not something to be taken lightly in any way shape or form.  These are sentiments that I've shared on this blog before and ones that I desperately wish were beaten into the hearts and minds of each and everyone who goes before the Lord in a house of worship to recite vows of matrimony.

Past blogging on Marriage

The Priest also stressed the importance of children in a marriage.  While we may wish to simply attribute that to it being a Catholic wedding, it is something that is absolutely important for all of us Christians to consider.  Certainly one of if not the primary function of a marriage is to bring new life into this world.  Furthermore we need to raise that new life in such a fashion as to instill a love and devotion to God; this is the most important thing we can do for our children in trying to set them up for a successful marriage of their own.  Without a steadfast belief and realization that marriage is a covenant with God the Father, as well as our spouse we will always take our vows far, far too lightly.

It is no small thing when we go before God and pledge to Him that we desire to be joined together in His eyes as no longer two people but one.  It has been realized for many years that divorce is a serious problem for not only society at large but for Christians in particular.  Now there are studies that contradict each other as far as to the rate of divorce among Christians as a whole, as well as among the various sub-categories of Christians, and I really am at a loss to say which study may or may not be more accurate.  But honestly, who among us needs an actual study to realize the scope of this problem in society.  Which of us does not know of several Christian friends who have divorced. Which of us does not know of a minister of the Faith who has divorced, for crying out loud I know of ministers who have had affairs (within their congregations to boot) while in the pulpit, gotten divorced, remarried and are still in the ministry.  Can we honestly say that this is not a serious problem for us as believers.

Scripture tells us that Jesus himself held no place for the concept of divorce.  

Mark 10:2-12

New International Version (NIV)

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.”

Luke 16:18

New International Version (NIV)

18 “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Matthew 5

New International Version (NIV)

31 “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Matthew 19

New International Version (NIV)

1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’[b]? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

7 “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

It is important to note that in Mark, Jesus does not provide any exceptions for divorce.  We see this repeated in Luke and then in Matthew we see divorce mentioned twice and both times the exception of sexual infidelity on the part of the wife (and the wife alone) is given as the only legitimate reason for divorce.  Now how can that be, why would Mark and Luke give no exceptions but Matthew clearly provide one.  Well in my opinion the answer to that is fairly clear and straightforward.  Let me elaborate upon that a bit.

Nearly all Biblical Scholars are in agreement that Mark was the first Gospel to be written (though almost certainly all of the genuine letters of Paul were written prior to any of the Gospels) and that the authors of both Matthew and Luke had copies of the Gospel of Mark along with what has come to be known as the 'Q Source' which was an early collection of Jesus' sayings and teachings.  No copy of this 'Q Source' has ever been found it's existence has rather been inferred from the writings of Matthew and Luke.

So why would Mark clearly provide no exceptions for divorce, then Luke follow suite, but Matthew decide to interject a way 'out' so to speak into his Gospel.  Much 'theological hay' has been made over this, but in my opinion the answer is clear and easily determined.  Mark is the earliest and also generally considered the most reliable of the three synoptics and the one generally defaulted to in times of disagreement.  Luke followed Mark's lead but Matthew, who it is extremely important to realize is writing to a predominately Jewish audience, included a very specific exception.

Matthew has allowed for a divorce in the circumstance that the wife has been unfaithful (and again please note there is no exception for an unfaithful husband).  But why add this exception, well Judaism is a very patriarchal culture and within traditional Judaism ancestry is of considerable importance.  One need only to look at the various genealogies in scripture to see the importance of this factor in Hebrew culture. If a woman has an affair and proven herself to be an unfaithful spouse, the husband can no longer be certain that any child born is in fact his own (there were no paternity tests in those days).  This would disrupt his family legacy and could result in having the child of another man inherit his property.  These are not things which would go over well in a patriarchal society.  As a side note it should be noted that this emphasis on patriarchy is a factor in the prohibition on homosexuality... but that's a whole other blogging subject that will have to wait for another day.

It seems fairly obvious that the author of Matthew added to or revised the teachings of Jesus as reflected in both Mark and Luke.  This exception was added to placate the group that this Gospel was originally addressed to, a group of Jewish Christians who almost certainly did not differentiate themselves from Judaism as a whole.  Rather this group would have viewed themselves as just another of several dozen different sects of Judaism that existed in the first century AD.  I've attached a link for those that might wish to learn more about the people and culture to which this Gospel was addressed.

Link to information on the Gospel of Matthew

For the author of Matthew to have completely banned all divorce after Jesus' lead would have likely been too difficult for this rigidly patriarchal society to have accepted.

Of course nearly always all of these passages are brushed away with the pass of a hand, saying something like, "in those days if a man divorced a woman she would be destitute, she would have to resort to prostitution just to survive."  Well, let's hold on just for a moment.  If Jesus was merely putting this strict of a position against divorce as a protection against women being left in poverty, than why didn't he merely require them to be provided for by the divorcing spouse.  And let's look further into these passages of scripture because there's something here that everyone loves to look beyond (or is it we just want to avoid it).

Perhaps the most troubling portion of all these pieces of scripture is all the commentary on adultery.  All  of these passages point to the man as committing adultery if he divorces his wife and remarries, but in Matthew and Luke the man who marries a divorced woman is also guilty of adultery, and than in Mark even the wife commits adultery if she divorces her husband and marries another man.

If Jesus' primary concern with admonishing divorce had to do with the financial welfare of the woman than something here does not add up.  For why would it be a sin (adultery) for the woman to divorce her husband and remarry another man, isn't she thereby merely shifting who is paying the bills so to speak.  And for crying out loud, why would it be a sin for another man to marry a divorced woman, shouldn't he be lauded as doing charity rather than condemned of a sin.  It seems painfully obvious to me that the old argument of concern for the welfare of the woman doesn't hold up to scrutiny.  Of course I'm certain that Jesus cared deeply for the welfare of all, but I don't believe that's the underlying theme here.

What happens in a divorce... well, we of course break a sacred vow, a covenant made not only with our spouse but with our God.  This 'brokenness', this betrayal of faith puts us out of relationship not only with our spouse but with God, this is the sin that is involved.  Above all else, God is a God of reconciliation.  God is in the business of love, grace, forgiveness and salvation but honestly in my opinion all of these are just stones along the path to reconciliation.  God wants you, God wants me, God wants all humanity and all his creation to have a deep and profound relationship with Him.  The problem with divorce as I stated before is the brokenness, we are out of relationship.  The problem with remarriage outside of the original marriage is also one of brokenness, for these remarriages prevent the reconciliation of the original covenant... the original marriage contract.  The husband that remarries blocks that reconciliation, the wife that remarries blocks that reconciliation, and (what seems so extremely unfair at first glance) the new spouse is in a state of sin because their marriage to the divorced person blocks that reconciliation as well.

So very many of us, myself included most of all, would love to see these passages of scripture suddenly disappear from the canon.  These are hard verses, and again so many of us just wish they were not there... but as I so like to say:

"If when reading scripture you never feel convicted, if you never see the hairy hand of God pointing a fat finger right back at you... well then you're not paying close enough attention."

But, there is power in these passages and we need to understand the gravity of the desire and drive that our God has to be reconciled onto us.  There can be little doubt that Jesus viewed divorce and remarriage as a sin, but what about all of us who have been divorced and who have been remarried within the Church.  Whereas I find myself in agreement with my conservative brothers and sisters on my stance on divorce being a sin, I part company with them in thinking that I can lay down any kind of pronouncement and/or judgment concerning it.  Long, long ago the church decided to look the other way concerning these passages and perhaps that's no small part of why we find ourselves encountering divorce so regularly today.

What are we to do about the messes we've made... in this world we divorce, we remarry and far too many divorce and remarry again or even again.  We are so very broken in the department of marriage that it simply has to be a considerable burden on the heart of our Lord.  God wants us to be reconciled, but for most of us this just simply seems impossible.  The good news is of course that we worship a God of love and grace, in Him and through Him there is nothing beyond repair.  Though many of us will simply have to wait for complete reconciliation until beyond the grave we are still able to turn to God, confess that we know we have strayed and broken His heart (not to mention all the human hearts we've trampled upon) as well as our sacred covenant with Him, and we will find that we are already forgiven.  

Now let us not say that "well okay since God is all graceful we can sin all we wish so who cares about divorce".  Paul addressed this in the letter to the church in Rome, since we are in Christ we are to be dead to sin.  Sin should no longer be within us, but of course we all know that Paul also said in Romans "For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing"   We will never eliminate divorce entirely from our society, in fact we'll never completely eliminate it from within the church or even amongst the clergy.  But we simply must do all we can do to eliminate it from our own marriages, our own families, our own churches.  We must do as much as we can possibly do in our human capacity.  We need to encourage those that we know are getting married to engage in pre-marital counseling, we need to encourage those that we know are struggling in their marriages to go and receive counseling either from a minister or a professional counselor.  We need to love each other enough to forgive and move forward and not simply give up and move on.

Thus far I have addressed marriage and divorce strictly from a theological point, but are there any pragmatic reasons for divorce.  Generally the two areas which are universally accepted as means for a divorce are physical and emotional abuse.  In the case of physical violence and physical abuse I certainly believe that our Lord would sanction removing oneself from such a situation.  

The subject of emotional abuse is a bit more difficult to qualify.  It would seem to me that emotional abuse is a bit like the famous quote from a member of Congress who supposedly said something along these lines concerning pornography, "I can't tell you exactly what it is, but I sure enough know it when I see it."  I think in almost all marriages there is from time to time something done or said that would qualify as emotional abuse.  Certainly in my first marriage I was guilty of what could only be classified as emotional abuse.  But did it rise to the level which would justify divorce... no, I don't think it did.  I believe in my own circumstance as well as a great many others what was needed was an honest and sincere commitment to counseling and trying to salvage the marriage.  The problem is that through ego and anger we tend to let the relationship turn so poisonous that neither an honest nor a sincere commitment can be made to counseling.

Far too often (perhaps always) we divorce over things that should have been addressed in pre-martial counseling.  Money, family, sex, children, where we want to live, what status we hope to have in our community, and others.  So often failed marriages point to infidelity as the reason for the divorce but generally in my opinion that is just a symptom of the real issue.

I will confess a concern for Bryant and Emily as they are burdened with having had both sets of parents divorce during their childhoods.  One can only pray that the Pastor chose not only to stress the covenant with God during the Homily but also during the pre-marital counseling as well.  I will continue to pray for Bryant and his new bride, along with  praying for his younger brother Tyler who was married earlier this year up in South Dakota.

Please note that any interpretation of scripture is the result of my own study, research, reflection and meditation, and does not reflect the position of my denomination either locally or nationally.  Furthermore my thoughts concerning marriage, divorce, and remarriage are also my own.  These positions are the result of my own life experiences, personal studies and observations.  So please do not become agitated over any commentary of mine, these are my thoughts and opinions and as they say "your mileage may vary".

God's grace, peace, blessings and love to you all in abundance.

In Christ,
Roy