He didn’t talk about it, but we all
knew that it was happening. Even by
third grade, you know that someone whose family is experiencing a divorce
should be left alone. So, we did leave
our classmate alone. We didn’t talk
about his family breaking into two. We
didn’t talk about what it was like to have two bedrooms. We didn’t talk about his sadness. We left him space to be alone on the
playground. We especially didn’t talk
about the uncertainty and anxiety that we ourselves starting to feel about life
if the one thing you trusted to remain the same…your parents…was falling
apart. We learned very well that you
don’t talk about divorce beyond jokes, quips, and jabs.
The church usually doesn’t fare any
better than the playground. We don’t
talk about divorce, except on the day that this text arises. Then, on this day one of two things happen,
either the pastors blabber on apologetically in order to just get it over with
(that is the course that I usually choose), or the pastor launches into a moral
diatribe about the ungodliness of divorce and the need to strengthen
marriages. I guess there is the third
option, to joke about it. “When we got
divorced we split the house 50/50, she got the inside and I got the
outside.” In a way, the joke gets closer
to things that we don’t talk about than the other two approaches: it at least
acknowledges the loss and pain of one splitting back into two. Of course there are other things we don’t
talk about: the confusion of how extended family should now treat the cast away
family member, the sense of failure divorced people feel, and we certainly will
not talk about the confused sense of relief and happiness that comes when the
daily arguing is finally over and life seems to be getting better.
Most of us think that we know what
Jesus says about divorce…that it is against God’s plan to unite the two into
one…and that either drives us to be moralistic or silent. But, a God of grace and love who desires to
pull all things together and reconcile the entire world would not respond
either way. The God of grace and love,
instead, flips the subject of divorce on its head and forces us to focus on
what is important.
So, I am inviting you to look at
this subject up-side-down. Pretend that
you are on a swing, and that you lean all the way back and see the sky as the
ground and the ground as the sky. Feel
the exhilaration of falling away from the ground into the vastness of something
new. Look at Jesus’ concern in a new
way.
As a test, someone asks Jesus, “Can
a man divorce his wife?” There really are
two answers Jesus could give to this ancient Hebrew question: “No, not unless
she cheated and broke the marriage contract,” or “Yes, of course. If she isn’t pleasing and fulfilling her role
as wife and caretaker of the household to your satisfaction you can divorce
her…kind of like being fired from a job.”
So Jesus, which is it?
The problem with either one of these
answers is that they forget two very important things: God and the fact that
the woman is a real person with real needs like food, shelter, and love. Marriage is neither a contract nor a job
description. As you lean back in your
swing and look at the world up-side-down, the first thing that you will
discover is that Jesus doesn’t answer yes and no questions. The world seen right-side-up is about right
and wrong…divorce: yes or no, but the world seen up-side-down is about
relationships and caring for the weak.
In Jesus’ up-side-down world, Jesus
sees that marriage is a small step toward God’s bigger concern, to draw all
things together in grace. It is a
beautiful thing to see, when a couple gazes into each other’s eyes and “the two
are made one flesh” in marriage; just like it is beautiful to see two siblings
who hated each other for years, finally take a walk in the park together; or
just like when two former enemies are seen eating at the same lunch table. What God does in marriage is just a tiny
sample of what Jesus does for all creation on the cross; drawing all things
back together in grace and love.
In Jesus’ up-side-down world, Jesus
cares that an ancient divorce truly affects the woman. Instead of breaking a contract against the
woman’s father, the divorce is “against her.”
God does not simply walk past the poor and the weak like someone may
when encountering a broken person on the street. Jesus actually stops and cares if the woman
and her children are cast from the home.
He actually cares that they will be looked down upon and sent to a life
of poverty with no means to care for themselves. This is not just a problem of the ancient
world. Even today, one of the leading
indicators of poverty for women and children is divorce. Jesus cares for the weak and broken. Jesus sees them as actual people. Jesus does not see the poor and weak as
property or statistics or self-made failures to be shunned. People cannot simply be dropped from life,
nor can the weak simply be left to suffer.
This up-side-down view of Jesus
could be seen reflected clearly in a small Minnesotan congregation. A woman in the congregation was struggling
after her very public and shaming divorce in a very small town. It was the news of the town, the divorce was
viewed as her fault by everyone, and the woman felt very much looked down upon
and alone. But, then the morning came that she heard the
knock on her kitchen door. Opening the
door, she saw the gray-eyed matriarch of her congregation, standing there,
holding a casserole dish. As if she
needed the same care as someone who had lost their husband to death, she was
given the meal to ease her burden. That
wasn’t the end. This went on for two
weeks, different people each night bringing over a dish. Somehow the women of this congregation were
able to look at the world up-side-down, as Jesus does, and see that life is
about drawing the broken together again.
“Jesus, is it right or wrong to
divorce?” This is the wrong
question. Are there broken people who
need to be healed and put back together through love? This is the right question. This is Jesus’ question. This is the question that allows Jesus to
believe in the holiness and importance of an intact marriage that God put
together and, at the same time, believe in the unconditional care and healing
of the weak, including those who have been broken by divorce. The church has a word of grace to preach to
this taboo subject, maybe we should stop being silent. Maybe, there are a load of broken people who
need to hear the welcoming words of a loving God and a loving community.
