They Asked Him About Divorce

As Jesus leaves Judea to head to Jerusalem for his last Passover, the heat turns up.  The Pharisees begin asking him questions in front of the crowds about controversial subjects.  They want to derail his mission.  They want to trap him in an answer that will divide the crowd, get factions split up.  The question they start with, the first question they ask, is whether it is “lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?”  They are referring to part of the law of Moses, found in Deuteronomy 24, that says that if a man marries a woman and he finds something objectionable about her, he can write her a certificate of divorce and send her out of the house.  If she goes and marries someone else, and is either divorced or widowed, the first husband cannot come back and marry her.  The issue Moses is addressing is that women’s reputations were ruined when a husband divorced her and then remarried her after she had been the wife of another man, because the community would think that she had never been divorced and had left the first husband or that she had been part of a wife swapping arrangement.

It is important to remember that women were historically considered property.  So, a woman left her father and was married.  The father gave the husband a dowry.  If the husband wanted to divorce her, he could.  If it was for any reason other than that she had done something immoral, then her husband owed her dowry back to her father.  Women could not initiate divorce.  And, it was unlawful for a husband to send her away without granting her a certificate of divorce.

Moses was trying to create safeguards for women when their husbands divorced them.  So, the Pharisees use Moses introductory words on divorce, “Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable about her,”  to ask Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?  Because she doesn’t please him in some way or because there is something he finds objectionable about her?”

Society was changing, and divorce was on the rise.  And there were two schools of thought:  liberals and conservatives.  The liberal group was led by rabbi Hillel, and the conservative group was led by rabbi Shammai.  The liberal rabbis allowed for divorce for any reason, like the wife scorched dinner, or he didn’t like her anymore.  All a man had to say was, “I divorce you,” and she had to leave with what she had on right then and nothing more…that’s where women wearing a lot of jewelry got started.

By Jesus’ day, women were gaining rights, too.  They couldn’t just hand their husband a divorce certificate, but they could sue for divorce in court for reasons like keeping her from going to funerals or wedding parties, having a disease or a job that was nasty, or for making her live in a village when she was used to living in town.

The conservative camp said that unchastity was the only reason that divorce should be allowed.

Rather than choose a side, Jesus responds with God’s desire from the beginning, for marriage to be the uniting of two into one flesh.  “What God has joined together,” said Jesus, “let no one separate.”

The Pharisees come with another question, “Why did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her, then?”

If it isn’t God’s will for us to divorce, why did Moses tell us what the rules were when we divorced?

God does not hope that we will divorce or struggle in our relationships, but in the event we do, the Law of Moses helps us know how to handle it, says Jesus.

A man who divorces his wife because of any reason other than a serious breach of trust and marries another woman, commits adultery.  Women were property.  A man was free to divorce one and marry another because she was a better catch.  Jesus says that is wrong.

I love the analogy N.T. Wright uses.  It’s like buying a new car, and reading the owner’s manuel, and finding there a list of what to do when you have an accident:  call the police, make a note of exactly what happened, where and how, write down registration numbers of the other cars involved, exchange insurance information, and so on.  There are also instructions on what to do if the car begins to skid.

It doesn’t mean that the manufacturer hopes you will skid or have a wreck.  In the event you do, here is how to handle it.

I don’t know anyone who has been through a divorce who would say that God wills us to divorce.  Divorce is painful and difficult.  There are times when it is necessary.  But no one gets married hoping one day to be divorced, just like no one buys a car hoping one day to crash it going 75 miles an hour on the interstate.

And, everyone who has driven very many miles has driven on a rainy day when the roads are slick…and eventually, most of us have experienced what it feels like to skid.

The same is true in our marriages and our relationships with people we love.  We never mean for them to come to a crashing end.  But, sometimes they do.  And if we have been in the relationship very long, there have been some rain storms, and perhaps even some times when we were skidding a bit.

Jesus doesn’t like their question.  God’s will is not about what is lawful, it is about what is ideal.  It is ideal to drive your car with the top down along the highway on day with blue skies and a warm breeze.  It is ideal to live together in marriage, no longer living as two, but as one flesh.

And so, if we are going to live into the ideal, we must commit to seeking sunny days and to driving safely on the rainy days that are sure to come.  Dr. John Gottman has done extensive research on couples, marriages, and divorces.  He says he is able, with 91% accuracy, to predict whether a marriage will end in divorce after listening to a couple argue for 5 minutes.

The first sign, he says, that will predict a couple will eventually divorce, is that when the husband or wife has a problem, they start the discussion harshly.  The interaction that starts negatively usually stays negative, and before long, it moves from negatively pointing out that your dirty dish is on the table instead of rinsed and in the dishwasher.  To criticizing a person who would be satisfied to be a complete lazy slob, leaving filth in your trail everywhere you go.  Never mind, contempt arrives, and I don’t mind at all being your servant.  Why, I’d be honored to remove your filth from the table, serve you in the kitchen, and provide you with an endless supply of clean plates.  To which the defensive reply comes, you are really a nut about cleanliness.  There is nothing wrong with leaving a dirty dish on the table.  And eventually, the stone wall is erected, and no one is listening to the other any more.

In marriages that sustain these kinds of skids, that happen to most of us at one time or another, there is a repair – a laugh, an apology, an ease of the tension.  In marriages that crash, the interactions continue and escalate until the partners become disconnected and interactions become so tense that they start with tension in the air.  At the end of my homily for every wedding I perform, I conclude with a list of blessings.  One of them is “When you fight, may each of you have the good sense to take the first step back.”

Sometimes, we can adjust course by changing our attitude, choosing to love rather than criticize, and sometimes we need outside help to avoid a crash.  I’ll be honest, I am thankful for the automatic brake system in our car.  Because when the car hydroplaned, and we began to skid, I hit the brake and did everything wrong.  But, the system was able to steer us through the situation without a crash.  My friends who are counselors all tell me that their biggest challenge working with couples whose relationships are in a tailspin is that they wait too long to see someone.  They wait until the car is off the road and beginning to flip.  It is much easier to regain control of the car when the skid starts.

Some car crashes are unavoidable.  Some divorces are unavoidable.  Jesus knew it.  When they happen, both the man and the woman need to be treated as persons of value.  However, God’s ideal is that when two persons come together in marriage, they work together to weather the storms and ride out the skids.

One writer said, “Ideals are like stars – we may not be able to reach them, but we can set our course by them.”  What is off course in your life?  How will you drive safely through the storms that come in life?  Where is a relationship beginning to skid?  May you have the good sense to take the first step back.