What's A Marriage For?
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
Dear Fellow Preacher,
To a great extent, attitudes toward marriage and divorce can define a culture. Changing patterns in family life and the relationship between the sexes seem liberating to some and disturbing to many others. What is marriage? How can marriages be improved and sustained? What should be our churches' practice on divorce? Can traditional marriage survive in the twenty-first century? Should it? And how can pastors nurture healthy relationships and deal with the guilt that is so often experienced in parishioners' marriages?
In this issue of The Immediate Word, team member James Evans gives a close look at the two lectionary texts assigned for October 5 that deal with marriage and divorce, asking not only "What's a marriage for?" but also "What's a divorce for?" Team members respond with their own perspectives. Today's illustrations, worship materials, and children's sermon all relate to this theme.
Contents
What's a Marriage For?
Team Comments
Related Illustrations
Worship Resources
Children's Sermon
What's a Marriage For?
by James L. Evans
Mark 10:2-16
Genesis 2:18-24 (the alternate Old Testament lectionary reading)
For weeks now, celebrity icons Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez (J Lo) have been playing duck and dodge with the entertainment media with their on-again off-again wedding plans. Marriages among superstars often garner this sort of interest. Celebrities and politicians are the nearest thing to royalty we have in American culture. When they marry, the weddings often become spectacles taking on a certain "fairy tale" status. If this is so, it must be very disappointing to the many fans who follow celebrity marriages that many of them often fail to achieve a "happily ever after" outcome.
Of course, celebrity marriages are not the only marriages in the news. There is growing momentum for a so-called marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define specifically that marriage is only between a man and a woman. Additionally, several states have adopted provisions for what is known as a "covenant marriage" that seeks to limit the grounds on which couples may divorce.
Obviously, our culture cares about the nature and purpose of marriage. We think about it, we talk about it, and in the case of Ben and J Lo, some watch it with a sense of enchanted wonder. But what do we really understand about marriage. What's a marriage for?
The Christian tradition has a long-standing concern about the nature and purpose of marriage. While particulars vary from one tradition to another, there is not a Christian group that does not have a theological position on the matter of marriage, divorce, and remarriage. In fact, the lectionary Gospel reading for this week (Mark 10:2-16) indicates that questions concerning the meaning of marriage and the role of divorce were active issues in Judaism prior to the appearance of Christianity.
With so many questions and so many varying expectations about marriage, it makes sense for Christians to spend some time reflecting on the biblical meaning of marriage, as well as biblical teaching about divorce. In fact, in the Gospel reading, Jesus takes a question about divorce and turns it into a discussion about the meaning of marriage.
In what must have been something of a shock, Jesus bypasses the law and brings to bear on the issue of marriage an expectation that precedes the law, at least in the canon (Genesis 2:18-24). Jesus recalls the Genesis command for a man and woman to become "one flesh." As we search for a biblical norm concerning marriage, it seems wise to follow Jesus' lead and unpack the meaning of that phrase. It would appear, for Jesus anyway, that the purpose and meaning of marriage are to be found in there.
A related issue is the meaning of divorce. Jesus' response to questions concerning marriage and divorce has served as the basis for much of the church's teaching on the issue. Jesus' statement that "whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her" (Mark 10:11) has been taken by many throughout the centuries in a direct prescriptive sense. Jesus' words are interpreted to mean that once a couple enters the marriage relationship they are joined together permanently. And since couples are married forever, if they divorce and marry another, the new relationship exists as an ongoing state of adultery. This is the basis for many conservative churches' refusal to ordain divorced men as either deacons or ministers. The Southern Baptist Convention will not authorize missionaries who have been married and divorced, even if they are not remarried. While not all traditions take the matter this far, reading the texts in this way has resulted in varying degrees of exclusion of divorced people in the life of the church.
As we examine Jesus' statement on the meaning of marriage, it may become possible to hear his words about divorce in a slightly different fashion.
The Biblical Ideal of Marriage
The importance of marriage in the lives of human beings is clearly illustrated by its continuing presence throughout history. While practiced in many forms, and for many different reasons, marriage as an institution persists. This is true for both Hebrew and Christian traditions. The book of Genesis, for example, recounts the process of creation. God acts to bring order to chaos, to bring light out of darkness, and creates life as the gracious culmination of his creative efforts. The centerpiece of this gift of life, according to Genesis, is the creation of humankind. The text of Genesis makes it very clear that God created male and female humans as equals. "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them: male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27).
These verses state that male and female together are created in the image of God. There is no sense of superiority of one gender over the other. They are equal in their image of God. This equality is expanded in the verses that follow.
"God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it' " (Genesis 1:28).
The combined themes of equality and fruitful increase set the stage for the climactic command in Genesis, "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife and they become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). "One flesh" is clearly an archaic reference to what moderns call "intimacy." In marriage, God provides a way for humans to partially overcome their existential aloneness and estrangement by encountering "an other" who is both equal and partner. In relationship with this "other," humans are able to experience oneness of mind, heart, spirit, and body. While it is not proper to say that humans are incomplete outside of marriage, the Bible does affirm a unique wholeness that occurs between two people as the result of becoming "one flesh." 1
This is the vision of marriage to which Jesus resorts. When pressed by opponents to explain the nature and function of divorce within the Law of Moses, Jesus refers to the earlier-than-Moses covenant of marriage found in Genesis. Jesus does not nullify the legitimate place of divorce. However, he places the "one flesh" ideal of Genesis above the more legalistic concerns of Torah.
The Biblical View of Divorce
The biblical view of divorce must be understood in connection with this idealistic statement of the purpose of marriage. To seek to extract an autonomous, legalistic view of divorce results in a dependence on the Old Testament that pits "works of the law" against "faith."
The problem, however, is rooted firmly in the teaching of Jesus. There are four places in the Gospels where Jesus addresses the issue of marriage and divorce: Mark 10:1-12; Matthew 5:31; 19:1-12 (which parallels Mark 10); and Luke 16:18. Scholars regard Mark 10 and Matthew 19 as the principal passages for dealing with the divorce issue. 2
These two passages have yielded four different views concerning divorce and remarriage. The first is rigid and fixed: no divorce, no remarriage. Divorce is never allowed under any circumstances, and remarriage after divorce is adultery.
The second position allows for divorce but no remarriage. This view holds that the Bible allows for divorce in certain instances of sexual infidelity. However, even though divorce is allowed, remarriage is not allowed. Even a person who legitimately divorces a spouse because of unfaithful behavior, must remain single or be guilty of committing adultery through the act of remarriage.
The third position asserts divorce with remarriage under certain specific circumstances. Persons who hold this view believe that divorce is allowed when infidelity or sexual impurity occurs, and in these cases the offended member is free to remarry.
The fourth view asserts that divorce and remarriage are allowed for a variety of causes. This view holds that God in his gracious will allows for the fact that sometimes humans make very poor choices of life partners. This "hardness of heart" (Mark 10:5) results in poor choices either in choosing a mate, or choices involving behavior within a relationship. While divorce is not the ideal, humans fall short of all of God's ideals.
There is another way of reading the issues raised in these passages. The issue put to Jesus (Mark 10; Matthew 19) was posed in the context of a specific question. "What does the law require?" Under Jewish law of the first century the issue was not when was a person allowed to divorce his spouse. The question was under what circumstances he must divorce her. The strict conservative Shammai school insisted that adultery was the only offense in which a man was compelled to divorce his wife in order to maintain the purity of the community. An example of this can be seen in the story of Joseph and Mary. Joseph, a "righteous man," is compelled by the law to divorce Mary, but chooses to do so privately. He does not seem to entertain the possibility of not divorcing her until an angelic presence persuades him otherwise (Matthew 1:18-25).
The more liberal Hillel school of rabbinic thinking taught that any displeasure brought by the woman to the man that disrupted the harmony of marriage and prevented the marriage from fulfilling its true purpose must be put to an end. The most common complaint here would be the failure to bear male children.
Jesus moved the discussion from the Law of Moses as the locus for establishing the purpose of marriage to the covenant of Genesis. The goal of marriage is not to make the husband happy. The goal of marriage is for two equals to achieve "one flesh."
The discussion of adultery occurs when the disciples seek additional clarification of the issue (Mark 10:10). Jesus makes clear his real complaint with the law. If a man found another woman he wanted to marry, all he needed to do was to trump up a charge against his wife and then say, "I am forced by law to divorce you." Freed from his first wife, he would then be able to pursue the other woman of his affection. It is to this situation that Jesus addresses his charge, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her."
The attempt to cover a man's desire for another woman by using the divorce law to free himself from his marriage might satisfy the lawyers, but not God. God who knows the intent of the heart judges the man to be guilty of adultery. The law does not excuse his motive.
This reading of the text makes it clear that Jesus was not imposing a life sentence of adultery on anyone who divorces and remarries. He was criticizing an abuse of the law that made it possible for a man to commit adultery using the law to cover his lust. 3
So, What's a Marriage For?
The Bible does not command that humans marry. As humans we may choose to live full and meaningful lives as single persons. For those who choose to marry, however, the goal of marriage can take many forms. Marriage is clearly the best relationship from which to establish and maintain a nuclear family. Studies abound which demonstrate that good marriages create stable homes that allow children to thrive emotionally, socially, and intellectually. This is not to say that single parents are not fully capable of raising healthy children. The fact is many single parents are very effective. But for practical matters of economics, as well psychological factors, a marriage is the optimum relationship.
Marriages that achieve the biblical ideal of "one flesh" create opportunities for couples to experience a shared life with a partner that is both satisfying and enriching. This is true sexually, but also emotionally and psychologically.
Marriage and family therapist John Howell describes the process by which couples may achieve what he calls a "biblical one-flesh relationship." He believes there are three dimensions to this process: commitment, communion, and consummation. 4
Commitment describes the process of two people leaving their families of origin and creating a new family. The man and woman commit themselves to one another in a new relationship that transcends and takes priority over all others. This is a remarkable accomplishment considering the powerful hold families of origin have on all people.
The aspect of the one flesh process that makes this commitment more powerful than families of origin is communion. Communion implies the sharing of all things. Two people make a covenant commitment to one another to share a life together. This sharing takes in every dimension of their existence. They share dreams. They share good and bad times. They share responsibility and blame. They share love. It is the sharing element that brings two people from two different families to the place where they become one new family.
The final element of Howell's one flesh process is consummation. Consummation refers primarily to the sexual relationship that exists between a man and a woman. The bonds that are born and nurtured in communion are taken to even greater depths of emotional fulfillment in the physical relationship.
Through this process of commitment, communion, and consummation, two people become one. They don't become one or the other. They become a new creation. They are still individuals, but they are more than merely two people. In marriage, a couple can become a profound unity, a unity that transcends the lonely "I" and becomes the fulfilled and joyful "us."
So, What's a Divorce For?
We cannot overlook the fact that Jesus' affirmation of the Genesis "one flesh" ideal for marriage came in the context of a question about divorce. In fact, it is not possible at all to discuss marriage without divorce, especially in our culture. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 43 percent of first marriages end in separation or divorce within 15 years. The study is based on the National Survey of Family Growth, a nationally representative sample of women age 15 to 44 in 1995. 5
The church faces something of a tricky tightrope with this issue. On the one hand, we want to promote healthy and successful marriages for those who choose to marry. At the same time, we want to offer caring assistance for those who experience what can be the devastating effects of divorce. It has proved difficult for some faith communities in the past to do both things.
There may be some help in Jesus' saying that divorce as a provision in the law was the result of "hardness of heart." We may be tempted to hear this expression through the lens of our culture in which the heart is the seat of emotion. We use the expression "hardhearted" to describe persons who lack feeling or compassion.
But in the ancient world the heart was not the seat of emotions but rather the seat of the will. With that reading, a hardhearted person would be someone who makes poor decisions. Those decisions might include marrying the wrong person, for the wrong reason, or simply choosing not to do the work that marriage requires.
Whatever the exact nature of the wrong decision, the church has a long-standing remedy for bad choices -- forgiveness. For those whose marriages fail, the church can offer grace and support. For those whose marriages succeed, the church can celebrate the blessings that strong families contribute to faith communities.
Notes
1Diane S. Richmond Garland and Diane L. Pancoast, The Church's Ministry with Families: A Practical Guide (Waco: Word, 1990), pp. 21-22.
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2H. Wayne House, Divorce and Remarriage: Four Christian Views (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 1990), pp. 31-37.
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3Stephen Westerholm, Jesus and Scribal Authority (Lund, Sweden, 1978).
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4John C. Howell, Christian Marriage (Nashville: Convention Press, 1983).
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5Matthew Bramlett and William Mosher. "First Marriage Dissolution, Divorce, and Remarriage: United States," Advance Data from Vital and Health Statistics, no. 323 (Hyattsville Md.: National Center for Health Statistics), 2/1.
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Team Comments
Carter Shelley responds: Jim, I appreciate the way you link God's initial plan for companionship and partnership in Genesis with Jesus' own emphasis on marriage as a serious lifelong commitment not to be ended due to frivolous or selfish motives. Jesus often seems to overstate a thing in order to be sure his audience grasps God's call to be loving, selfless, and obedient, before then allowing for forgiveness and grace when we fail to live up to the ideal.
The first time I preached about Jesus' view of divorce back in 1983, I had numerous church members calling me to ask if they should stay away that Sunday. Their fear was that a minister preaching on marriage and divorce would make them feel guilty about their own divorces. In point of fact, it seems the one who feels the most guilt often is the one most injured, because he or she has served previously as the moral conscience for the couple, and so feels the failure more keenly. What I said to parishioners that Saturday was, "Please do come to church tomorrow. In my experience, no one is harder on a divorced person than that person himself or herself." There's no need to make a person feel guilty when he or she is already overwhelmed by guilt.
So I appreciate the careful and sensitive balance you've provided in this week's entry on marriage. I also share your reading of Jesus' words about marriage and divorce. Jesus wants to take a stand against frivolous divorces -- a burnt dinner, an aging face and body, or boredom.
Apparently, there were some pretty shallow divorce proceedings in that day and age that were the equivalent of the quickie Reno divorce of the modern era. In fact, it's hard for me not to classify the J Lo and Ben courtship and wedding plans in this category. J Lo was married to her second husband -- someone she's married after knowing him a very short time -- and before the ink had dried on the document, she was in love with her new costar and beginning divorce proceedings. I mention this example because I do not view their romance with wonder but rather with cynicism. I can't imagine these two still successfully married to each other ten years from now. I hope they prove me wrong.
The theologian Karl Barth said the traditional church is not concerned with marriage, only with weddings. In fact, he said that no matter how miserable the couple are together, as long as the husband and wife maintain the outward appearance of a secure and stable marriage, that is all that matters. Barth points his finger squarely at Christians who attend weddings, but rarely offer love or assistance to young couples as they struggle to negotiate the hard times and the good times which all marriages experience. Instead of standing with them at the wedding, Barth said we should stand beside them in their daily lives together supporting them, loving them, helping them in whatever ways we can so that their marriage can weather the stormy bits with the external encouragement of their church community. To witness their marriage and then to remove themselves from their married lives is to fail in our Christian calling to be a community and to stay in relationship with one another. The idea that there is only one person perfect for every individual and that once you or I have found that person, we will not need the love and support of parents, friends, siblings, and our church community is a Hollywood fairy tale that is neither biblical nor viable.
The vows that we make in the marriage covenant --"to love and to cherish ... in sickness and in health ... for better, for worse ... as long as we both shall live" -- recognize that marriage is not a state to be entered into lightly or dismissed lightly. If we as a church community are to help make marriages work, our commitment to the couple cannot stop at attending the ceremony and sending a gift. It's a covenant, in essence, made among many people, acknowledging that two people cannot be all and the end-all for each other. For our marriage relationships are connected to the many other relationships we have with our children, friends, parents, our church, and our God.
The biblical view of divorce is a subject that never goes out of style; it deserves regular repetitions. I'm sure I'm not the only minister who wishes it was harder for people to get married than it is currently. There's a wonderful quote in Ron Howard's movie Parenthood that I've probably quoted before. The teenage airhead boyfriend (played by a much younger Keanu Reeves) comments to the mother of his girlfriend (Dianne Wiest). "You have to take a test to drive a car, but any ol' a ...... can be a parent." The same applies to marriage. It's a whole lot easier to get married than it is to stay married. And with the television and media ways to present love and marriage, it's no wonder people think it's supposed to be easy and fabulous all the time. When the movie Love Story appeared, its advertising had the following tag line: "Love means never having to say you're sorry." Several people with long years experience as marital partners commented, "Love means saying you're sorry, when you're not." Aside from the humor of the statement, what I see in that statement is marital love and commitment mean not always winning, sometimes giving more than you think you're getting back, negotiations, relinquishment of self to some extent to the success of the partnership and marital covenant.
The Presbyterian Women's Bible Study this year looks at "Nine Unnamed Women of the Bible." It's an excellent study and well worth a year's course of meetings. I got to teach one of the leadership sessions for the study and had a young woman approach me afterwards and ask, "Are you a feminist?" "Yes," I replied, "but I'm also a Calvinist."
"What does that mean?" she asked. "It means I believe women are just as prone to sinfulness and selfishness as their male counterparts; therefore, I participate in feminist advocacies, legislation, and integration into the daily life of church and my family, but I do not assume women are free of sin due to their historically subjugated status."
Thus, I do not think women are all about virtue, selflessness, loyalty, and self-effacement (though all of us possess elements of all these things) while men are selfish, greedy, domineering, and evil. It wasn't that simple when God created the earth and all its inhabitants. It's not that simple now.
George Murphy responds: Genesis 2:18-24, the alternate First Reading for this Sunday from the Revised Common Lectionary, gives a theological account of the first wedding, one in which God escorts the bride down the aisle. How the institution of marriage evolved historically is, of course, more complex. But the biblical text gives us an insight into God's intention "from the beginning," as Jesus says.
We have become aware that the Bible developed in a primarily patriarchal culture, and this certainly has influenced biblical views of marriage. But the Genesis text has a surprise in store for us. There it is not the woman but the man who leaves his family of origin (father and mother) to become "one flesh" with his wife. There seems to be at least some trace of matriarchal customs behind the way in which this crucial text has come to us.
It's unfortunate in a way that the lectionary (as well as most lists of suggested readings for weddings) omits the closing verse of Genesis 2: "And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed." I suppose somebody thought that that might be too embarrassing to read in church, but the omission means an unfortunate flinching at a critical moment. The possibilities of sexual intimacy which nakedness reveals are not a problem -- until sin comes into the picture. It is only when that happens that the man and woman feel that they have to cover themselves (Genesis 3:7).
The picture of marriage given here and the concept of becoming "one flesh" has to do with a relationship between a man and a woman. There is no justification for the claim that the genders of the participants in the Genesis story are irrelevant, as some have done in arguing for same-sex marriages. It is a story about man and woman, not about two human individuals in the abstract. Some appropriate recognition could be given to same-sex partnerships (as I suggested in my article for the August 10 issue of The Immediate Word this year), but they would not be marriages in the biblical sense.
This passage in the second creation story of Genesis complements the first creation account in Genesis 1, which emphasizes that God created humanity "male and female." They stand together at the beginning of torah, and thus form the precondition for any other torah regulations about how marriage is to be dealt with in particular cases. Jesus can thus cite both of the creation stories to express God's fundamental intention for marriage when the question is posed to him in our Gospel reading about divorce.
Jesus' statement here that "what God has joined together, let no one separate" can and has been read as a new and stricter law. "You have to stay married." But there is another way of hearing it: "You can stay married." There are not many relationships that have a real possibility of permanence, but this one does because that is God intention. Jesus' words are not just prohibition but also promise.
But divorce has been a reality "because of your hardness of heart" -- and it is a hardness of heart that was not just a peculiarity of ancient Israel but persists today. The early church found that it had to take this reality into account. While Mark represents Jesus simply forbidding divorce period, Matthew's parallel account has him make the exception "except for unchastity." The usual understanding of the relationship between these two Gospels is that Matthew made use of Mark. If this is the case, it seems likely that the community for which Matthew wrote had had to struggle anew with this question of divorce, and that evangelist felt inspired to make this change.
Exactly what does it mean? There is a sense in which "unchastity" (porneia) is an unfaithfulness that destroys the basic "one flesh" character of marriage. One can then go on to argue that anything else that has the same effect -- e.g., malicious desertion -- should also be considered legitimate grounds for divorce.
There is some validity in this argument. But it does not mean simply that anything goes, that a couple can get a divorce whenever one of them gets tired of the relationship. In spite of human weariness and human failings, there is a real possibility of permanence in marriage because -- as Genesis and Jesus say -- that is what God wants marriage to be.
There are some words in the marriage service of the Lutheran Book of Worship which, I'm sure, come as something of a shock to guests at some weddings. They speak about sin as a threat to marriage, and people probably wonder why we have to bring that up at a time of celebration. But weddings take place in the real world, with real people, not in the pages of bridal magazines. And our hope for marriage, as for all things, is not simply in our own strength or resolve or ability to love but in God.
The Lord God in his goodness created us male and female, and by the gift of marriage founded human community in a joy that begins now and is brought to perfection in the life to come. Because of sin, our age-old rebellion, the gladness of marriage can be overcast and the gift of the family can become a burden. But because God, who established marriage, continues still to bless it with his abundant and ever-present support, we can be sustained in our weariness and have our joy restored. (Lutheran Book of Worship, p. 203)
Carlos Wilton responds: Jim, I concur with Carter that you deal with these difficult subjects sensitively and with good scholarship. I find your discussion of remarriage after divorce to be particularly valuable -- for, as Carter points out, it's a subject of ongoing pain to many of our people who are themselves in second marriages. Even those who have successfully made the transition to a new marriage are often plagued by guilt.
Like many ministers, when I do premarital counseling with couples, I hand out a list of scripture passages traditionally read at weddings, and ask them to choose which ones they would like to have in their ceremony. As I hand them the sheet of paper, I often tell them that, while the passages cited are traditionally associated with weddings, few of them are explicitly about marriage. I then go on to tell them that the Bible has comparatively little to say about marriage, theologically. Even 1 Corinthians 13 -- the famed "hymn to love" that the vast majority of couples choose for their ceremony -- is not about marital love at all. Many couples seem genuinely surprised when I tell them Paul wrote those beautiful words to help the members of a conflicted church learn to get along with each other.
The Bible has plenty of passages that mention marriage, but almost none that step back and consider it in a theoretical way. Marriage is a given for the biblical writers; no one questions its value to society, but no one seems compelled to make a detailed case for it either. Not only that, but the institution of marriage very clearly changes over the course of the many centuries of the biblical witness. Polygamy, concubinage, levirate marriage -- all these are accepted for a time in the scriptures, but ultimately discarded. Even the classic biblical passages that have long been understood as the divine justification for marriage -- this week's Hebrew scripture, Genesis 2:18-24, and the Mark 10:2-16 passage in which Jesus interprets it -- seem to lose some of their authority when we consider that the society which first recorded and preserved them had such a different conception of marriage.
Yet, having said this, I'd be quick to point out that our society needs, as never before, to hear a strong word from the church in favor of marriage. The institution is under attack today, from many fronts -- although there seems also to be a growing realization that the overall health of society tends to deteriorate in direct proportion to the extent that the bonds of matrimony unravel. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who died this past March) received a lot of flak for his 1960s report, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," popularly called the Moynihan Report. In that paper he directly attributed poverty to the decline of marriage in minority populations. Some called him racist at the time, but today no responsible sociologist would question his findings. No matter the race, one of the greatest predictors of economic stability is marriage.
Quite apart from matters of economics, strong marriages are good for the general health of society. Marriage at its best is a sort of greenhouse in which ethical behavior is nurtured. When a bride walks down the church aisle to meet her beloved, not many people think of the two of them as establishing a basic unit of Christian mission -- but that's exactly what's going on (or what's meant to). When a family gathers around a dinner table to talk with each other and share news of the day, few would identify that gathering as a school of virtue -- but, again, that's how God views it. Those committed love-relationships in which we find ourselves all have a higher purpose, in the Christian sense: God has given those special people to us so together we may hate what is evil, and hold fast to what is good" (Romans 12:9).
Every pastor or marital therapist has seen divorces that, as painful as they may be, help one or both parties escape from dreadfully destructive situations. Far more troubling, however, are the divorces that seem to happen almost casually, for no compelling reason. Something like 55-60 per cent of divorces, according to Penn State sociologist Paul Amato, could be called "low-conflict divorces" (cited by Karen S. Peterson, in "The Good in a Bad Marriage: Studies Say Many Can Be Salvaged," USA Today, 6/21/2001). These take place when one partner in a marriage simply wakes up one day and realizes that he or she wants out.
There's no abuse or infidelity worth mentioning, no glaring personal betrayal -- just a soul-chilling weariness with day-to-day cares and conflicts, coupled with a lack of desire to do anything about it. The marriage has become bogged down in the sheer dailyness of life. As an Irish proverb puts it, "Marriages are all happy. It's having breakfast together that causes all the trouble."
Many of these distressed marriages, an increasing number of psychologists are saying, can be saved -- if only the partners will agree to work together in therapy, learning practical skills for communication and emotional support. Yes, marital therapy is a hard road, and it may lead to conflict at times; but that should come as no surprise to anyone. The leading indicator of divorce, the experts are now telling us, is not conflict but habitual avoidance of conflict: an overwhelming despair and apathy that slowly saps the will to do the essential work of being married.
Christian love is a decision, not an emotional state. The simple, seemingly paradoxical truth is that the way to find the love we all want in a committed relationship is to practice loving behaviors. We may not choose our feelings, but we do choose our behaviors. The trouble comes, in marriage, when one or both partners feel the quality of their relationship starting to slide, and begin practicing destructive behaviors. They withhold affection. They yell and intimidate. They pout. They leave the house. They play the "blame game."
If even one partner is able, intentionally, to practice loving behaviors, the relationship can be transformed. Instead of criticizing, she listens. Instead of pouting, he learns to share his feelings. Instead of blaming, she accepts responsibility. Instead of taking his wife for granted, he practices gratitude. There's no guarantee, but it does happen more often than not: if you practice love, you will find it.
For those who doubt the truth of this claim -- for those who parrot popular culture's belief that it simply happens, at random, that it's something we "fall" into (or out of) -- here's another statistic. Fully 60 per cent of marriages throughout the world are arranged by persons other than the bride and groom (usually their parents). Men and women who hardly know each other are thrown together, usually for practical reasons, and the divorce rate for those marriages is no higher than it is in our society; in some places, it's actually lower. Researchers have found that the same numbers apply to immigrant communities here in the U.S., where presumably divorce is readily available.
A very large percentage of husbands and wives in arranged marriages do somehow learn to love each other, over time. A man from India tried to explain to a foreign visitor how this works. Love, he said, is like a bowl of soup: "You Westerners put a hot bowl on a cold plate and slowly it grows cool. We Indians put a cold bowl on a hot plate and slowly it warms up." East or West, success in marriage doesn't just happen. You have to work at it.
Chuck Cammarata responds: I love everything you say up until the final two paragraphs. I think you let us all off too easy in interpreting hardness of heart to mean bad choices. It seems to me that the hardness of heart or hardness of will that he is pointing to is not simply making a bad choice when it comes to partners (especially in light of the fact that marriages at that time were arranged) but rather a willful rejection of the hard work it takes to make a marriage work. I think he is saying that men gave up on marriages far too easily. The force of the statement is to challenge men to stay in relationships that may not feel good or may have become difficult and to work at them. Real love is not just an emotion we get when someone is making us feel good; real love is covenantal. In other words we love despite the other's unlovableness. We are to love as God loves -- sacrificially and graciously and enduringly. The tragedy of marriage in our culture is that we have the same easy approach to divorce. That, coupled with the cultural idea that marriage ought to be all romance and sweetness and passion, makes a volatile stew of dismay with the state of our marriages and it makes it easy to jettison the partner when things don't go well.
None of this is to say that the church ought to be judgmental toward those who have gotten divorced, but we definitely ought to help people to better understand the purpose of marriage, which in my mind has to do with partnering with one another in the journey toward holiness. Marriage is a commitment to help (for me this is where the idea of help-meet comes in -- and it applies to Adam as well as Eve) the other become all that God made him or her to be. Two Christlike souls is the goal of marriage. And that cannot be achieved if we don't help people understand the realities of relationships. Realities like it ain't always easy, the feelings come and go over the years, and we have to work at it. In this regard I point couples to 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul tells us about real love, and the description is not easy. Really loving someone involves being patient with them and kind to them. It involves humility, sensitivity, selflessness, forgiveness, tolerance, hopefulness, seeing the best in the other, never giving up.
If we as Christians are to be striving to live in love, there is no relationship in our lives where that love ought to be more apparent than in our marriages. And, quite simply, manifesting the love of 1 Corinthians 13 takes work.
We must forgive and love those who have been through divorce. But we must also make teaching the realities of love and marriage a major part of our ministries. And we must aid and support those in marriages so they can climb over the obstacles of self and culture to arrive at the place of true and abiding love.
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Related Illustrations
Divorces don't just happen in marriage but in every relationship in which we establish a trust relationship.
While this is true in our understanding of "divorce," the Greek word used in our text presents a bit of a different picture (and a different understanding of marriage).
The word used in Mark 10:2, 4, 11, 12 is apoluo. The basic meaning of this word is "release" or "set free." Besides "divorce" in our verses, it is used in two other senses in Mark: to "dismiss" or "release" or "send away" the crowd (6:36, 45; 8:3, 9); and to "release" a prisoner (15:6, 9, 11, 15). In addition to these meanings, Matthew 18:27 uses it in reference to "releasing" a slave. Luke 6:37 for "forgiveness"("releasing" sins?) and in 13:12 for "setting free" from an ailment.
Apoluo is based on the root word luo, which basically refers to untying someone or something that is tied up; to free from bonds, e.g., untying a horse or donkey, setting Lazarus free from his grave cloths.
What might the use of this word imply about the understanding of a husband/wife relationship? When, as Christians, is it our duty to free those who are bound? Can the bonds of matrimony become bondage?
We talk about marriage as "tying the knot." Having been married for 32 years, being "tied" to one, loving person can be life-affirming. It can make one a better and more whole person to be connected to such a help-mate.
At the same time, being "tied" to another can feel like bondage -- being a prisoner in one's own home.
A basic tension in family systems thinking is that between being "we" (connected to a group, e.g., spouse or family) and being "me" (being an individual, differentiated from the group). Both are needs. Both are necessary for health. However, being stuck at either end is defined as unhealth. (Healthy pastors need to have an identity separate from being pastor of the congregation.) How do we manage being free from the group, and yet covenantly connected to the group? Specifically, husbands and wives; and pastors and congregations?
-- Linda Kraft, "Gospel Notes for Next Sunday," cited by Brian Stoffregen on the website ecunet.org
***
There is an old Jewish folk tale of a husband who considers giving up on his marriage. He's upset that, after ten years, he and his wife have no children, so he goes to the rabbi to see if there is some way he can trade his wife in on a new model.
These are the days when a Jewish man could divorce his wife for no reason at all, simply by saying the words, "I divorce you," three times. The rabbi knows the law, but still he thinks his parishioner is being far too impulsive. And so he convinces him, before sending his wife away, to put on a huge feast to thank her for all her hard work in keeping his household. The husband has no complaint against his wife other than this matter of children, and so he agrees to the rabbi's suggestion.
At the feast, he has a lot to eat and drink; before long he's quite drunk. He stands up and thanks his wife for all she has done for him and, overcome with feelings of generosity, he says to her that in return for all her hard work, she may take with her the one thing from his house that she considers most valuable.
It isn't long before the husband passes out, from all he's had to drink. The guests go home, and the wife immediately orders the servants to pick her husband up, load him on a cart, and drive him to her father's house.
There he awakes the next morning, with a splitting headache, wondering where on earth he is. His wife supplies the explanation: "I am only fulfilling your command," she says. "Last night you offered me the most precious thing in the house. You, dear husband, are far more precious to me than any item of furniture; and so it is you that I have carried to the house of my father."
The man is deeply moved, and reconciles with his wife. And, the story goes, it is not long before they have the children he craves.
***
When it comes to the sort of love that sustains marriage, a celibate Roman Catholic nun -- Mother Teresa of Calcutta -- gave some of the best advice ever. She compares the sort of love that makes marriage last to the drops of oil in an old-fashioned lamp:
"How does a lamp burn? Through the continuous input of small drops of oil.
"In Matthew, it is said 'If the drops of oil run out, the light of the lamp will cease, and the bridegroom will say, "I do not know you." '
"What are these drops of oil in our lamps? They are the small things of daily life: faithfulness, small words of kindness, a thought for others; our way of being silent, of looking, of speaking, and of acting. These are the true drops of love.
"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."
Mother Teresa has the idea that strength in marriage -- and indeed, strength in any meaningful human relationship -- comes from the daily decision to be there for the other, to do for the other. Every day that dawns upon a marriage is a day in which the marriage can either die, or be reborn -- and it is reborn in these small, daily actions that speak of affection and caring. It is not, ultimately, the laws of marriage -- or divorce -- that keep the flame of love alive, but a daily determination to live for the other in a Christlike way.
***
Dr. Richard Selzer is a surgeon who has reflected on his medical practice in a book, Mortal Lessons. In it, he tells the story of a young couple who have managed to intuitively master the grace of sharing love in small, intimate ways. The setting is a hospital room, following an operation Dr. Selzer performed on the wife:
"I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had cut the little nerve.
"Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily?
"The young woman speaks. 'Will my mouth always be like this?' she asks.
" 'Yes,' I say, 'it will. It is because the nerve was cut.'
"She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles.
" 'I like it,' he says. 'It is kind of cute.'
"All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works."
***
When a couple publicly declare their love for each other in marriage, and promise a lifetime of being there for each other, they don't just do something for themselves. They make a great gift to the whole of society, telling everyone what it is that love makes possible. This is a gift to celebrate....
-- Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, "Three Cheers for Marriage: Data Prove the Value of a Beleaguered Institution," March 1, 2003, Zenit.org; Cited by Smartmarriages.org in their online newsletter, 3/3/03.
***
In a classic Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown kicks a football while saying, "My grampa and gramma have been married for 50 years."
To which his playmate replies, "They're lucky, aren't they?"
Charlie responds, "Grampa says it isn't luck ... it's skill."
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Worship Resources
by George Reed
OPENING
Music
Hymns
"Great Is Thy Faithfulness." Words: Thomas O. Chisholm, 1923; music: William M. Runyan, 1923. (c) 1923, renewed 1951 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 140; TPH 276; AAHH 158; TNNBH 45.
"Children of the Heavenly Father." Words: Caroline V. Sandell-Berg, 1855; trans. Ernst W. Olson, 1925; music: Swedish melody. Trans. (c) 1925, renewed 1953, Augsburg. As found in UMH 141; LBOW 474.
"There's a Wideness in God's Mercy." Words: Frederick W. Faber, 1854; music: Lizzie S. Tourjee, 1877; harm. Charles H. Webb, 1988. Harm. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 121; Hymnal '82 469, 470; LBOW 290; TPH 298.
Songs
"You Are So Faithful." Words: Lenny LeBlanc and Greg Gulley; music: (c) 1989 Doulos Publishing. As found in PMMCH3 254.
"The Steadfast Love of the Lord." Words: Edith McNeill; music: (c) 1974, 1975 and this arr. (c) 1986 by Celebration. As found in PMMCH3 306.
"I Will Trust In You." Words: Danny Daniels; music: (c) 1987 by Mercy Publishing. As found in PMMCH3 315.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: God created us for each other.
People: We are called to faithfulness.
Leader: Christ loves us and never fails us.
People: This is our example for how to live with one another.
Leader: Let us praise the God of our eternal covenant.
People: We worship the God of faithfulness; the God of Abraham and Sarah, of Miriam and Moses, of Joseph and Mary.
COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER
O God who is always faithful in covenant: Grant us the grace to be faithful to one another in all our relationships; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
God, you are the ever faithful One. You call us into relationship with you and you never desert us or fail us. You call us into relationships with other people and invite us to reflect your faithfulness. Help us to be true to your image within us that all our relationships may honor you. Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"Your Love, O God, Has Called Us Here." Words: Russell Schultz-Widmar, 1982; music: M. Lee Suitor, 1984. Words (c) 1982 Russell Schultz-Widmar; music (c) 1984 M. Lee Suitor. As found in UMH 647; Hymnal '82 353.
"O Perfect Love." Words: Dorothy B. Gurney, 1883; music: Joseph Barnby, 1890. Public domain. As found in UMH 645; LBOW 287; TPH 533; AAHH 520; TNNBH 361.
"Our Parent, by Whose Name." Words: F. Bland Tucker, 1939; alt.; music: John David Edwards, ca. 1838. Words (c) 1940, 1943, renewed 1971 The Church Pension Fund. As found in UMH 447.
Songs
"I Am Loved." Words: William J. Gaither and Gloria Gaither; music: William J. Gaither. (c) 1978 William J. Gaither. As found in CCB 80.
"They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love." Words and music: Peter Scholtes. (c) 1966 F. E. L. Publications. As found in CCB 78.
"Unity." Words: Tim Reynolds; music: Tim Reynolds; arr. J. Michael Bryan. Arr. (c) 1996 Abingdon Press. As found in CCB 59.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION / PARDON
Leader: Let us confess the state of our lives.
People: God, you are the One who breathed into us your own breath and life. You walked in the cool of the day with our earth parents. Throughout the Bible we read how you have sought to be with us. Before our brothers and sisters and to you, O God, we confess that we have not faithfully responded to your gracious love. We have sought to fulfill our need for intimacy by masking our hunger with busyness, greed, substance abuse, and lust. Instead of sharing intimacy with others as signs of your love, we have used and abused those who trust us. Forgive us, Gracious One, and by the power of the Spirit of Jesus who dwells in us, draw us into your intimate love and help us to share that with others. Amen.
Leader: Our God is a gracious god forgiving our sins and blessing us evermore. In the Name of Jesus, you are forgiven and freed to live intimately with God and with others.
GENERAL PRAYERS
You, O God, are closer to us than our own breath. It is in you that we live and move and have our being. Only by the closeness of your presence do we have life. Your grace sustains us and your power enlivens us.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We often act as if we had no need for God. We spurn the Lover who comes to bring us life and we choose instead those things that destroy us and bring us death. We hunger for God but are too dull to know that it is God we want and need. We seek to fill the emptiness within with things that do not satisfy. We take the good gifts of God and use them in destructive ways trying substitute the gifts for the Giver. Forgive us, O God, and by the power of Spirit, draw us into your warm embrace and send us out to draw others into your love. We thank you for all your faithfulness to us. From the very beginning of our journey upon this planet, you have sought us and offered yourself to us. You gave us your life and Spirit; you gave us your Torah to guide us. You sent us judges, prophets, seers and psalmists to teach us about your love and care for us. All of creation is filled with your love and grace. We thank you for family and friends. We thank you for those who are called into marriage as a means of living out the intimacy of love that you designed us to share. We ask your blessings on them that in your love they may learn to share that intimacy with their marriage partner. We thank you for those who are called to share your love in a life of singleness. Some have chosen it; some have had it thrust upon them by divorce, separation or death. We thank you for your love which binds us to you and to each other.
(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We are aware that there are those who are struggling to find ways to live our your call to love and intimacy. There are those who have not learned to share love because they have received hatred and abuse instead of love. There are those who because of illness, oppression or poverty are unable to understand love and your call to enter into an intimate relationship with you. We pray that through our faithfulness in prayer and in life, they may find your love and grace present to them.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
All these things we offer to you in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray, saying, "Our Father...."
Hymnal and Songbook Abbreviations
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd Edition
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A Children's Sermon
by Wesley Runk
Mark 10:2-16
Text: "Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." (v. 9)
Object: a clock
Good morning, boys and girls. Today we want to share some ideas on marriage. Are any of you planning to get married pretty soon? (let them answer) How many of you hope to be married someday? (let them answer) What kind of a husband or wife would you like? What would be the most important thing to you in a husband or wife? (let several of them answer) This is a pretty important thing in our life. We want to make sure that we choose the right person, for whomever we choose should last us for the rest of our lives. The Bible teaches us that we should be married for as long as both people live, but that if one of the two people die, then we can marry again.
One day, Jesus taught some people that when someone marries someone else, the two people become one person. Let me show you what I mean. I have a clock with me, and it is a good clock. It tells me the right time all of the time. I like this clock. It has two hands, doesn't it? (let t
To a great extent, attitudes toward marriage and divorce can define a culture. Changing patterns in family life and the relationship between the sexes seem liberating to some and disturbing to many others. What is marriage? How can marriages be improved and sustained? What should be our churches' practice on divorce? Can traditional marriage survive in the twenty-first century? Should it? And how can pastors nurture healthy relationships and deal with the guilt that is so often experienced in parishioners' marriages?
In this issue of The Immediate Word, team member James Evans gives a close look at the two lectionary texts assigned for October 5 that deal with marriage and divorce, asking not only "What's a marriage for?" but also "What's a divorce for?" Team members respond with their own perspectives. Today's illustrations, worship materials, and children's sermon all relate to this theme.
Contents
What's a Marriage For?
Team Comments
Related Illustrations
Worship Resources
Children's Sermon
What's a Marriage For?
by James L. Evans
Mark 10:2-16
Genesis 2:18-24 (the alternate Old Testament lectionary reading)
For weeks now, celebrity icons Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez (J Lo) have been playing duck and dodge with the entertainment media with their on-again off-again wedding plans. Marriages among superstars often garner this sort of interest. Celebrities and politicians are the nearest thing to royalty we have in American culture. When they marry, the weddings often become spectacles taking on a certain "fairy tale" status. If this is so, it must be very disappointing to the many fans who follow celebrity marriages that many of them often fail to achieve a "happily ever after" outcome.
Of course, celebrity marriages are not the only marriages in the news. There is growing momentum for a so-called marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define specifically that marriage is only between a man and a woman. Additionally, several states have adopted provisions for what is known as a "covenant marriage" that seeks to limit the grounds on which couples may divorce.
Obviously, our culture cares about the nature and purpose of marriage. We think about it, we talk about it, and in the case of Ben and J Lo, some watch it with a sense of enchanted wonder. But what do we really understand about marriage. What's a marriage for?
The Christian tradition has a long-standing concern about the nature and purpose of marriage. While particulars vary from one tradition to another, there is not a Christian group that does not have a theological position on the matter of marriage, divorce, and remarriage. In fact, the lectionary Gospel reading for this week (Mark 10:2-16) indicates that questions concerning the meaning of marriage and the role of divorce were active issues in Judaism prior to the appearance of Christianity.
With so many questions and so many varying expectations about marriage, it makes sense for Christians to spend some time reflecting on the biblical meaning of marriage, as well as biblical teaching about divorce. In fact, in the Gospel reading, Jesus takes a question about divorce and turns it into a discussion about the meaning of marriage.
In what must have been something of a shock, Jesus bypasses the law and brings to bear on the issue of marriage an expectation that precedes the law, at least in the canon (Genesis 2:18-24). Jesus recalls the Genesis command for a man and woman to become "one flesh." As we search for a biblical norm concerning marriage, it seems wise to follow Jesus' lead and unpack the meaning of that phrase. It would appear, for Jesus anyway, that the purpose and meaning of marriage are to be found in there.
A related issue is the meaning of divorce. Jesus' response to questions concerning marriage and divorce has served as the basis for much of the church's teaching on the issue. Jesus' statement that "whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her" (Mark 10:11) has been taken by many throughout the centuries in a direct prescriptive sense. Jesus' words are interpreted to mean that once a couple enters the marriage relationship they are joined together permanently. And since couples are married forever, if they divorce and marry another, the new relationship exists as an ongoing state of adultery. This is the basis for many conservative churches' refusal to ordain divorced men as either deacons or ministers. The Southern Baptist Convention will not authorize missionaries who have been married and divorced, even if they are not remarried. While not all traditions take the matter this far, reading the texts in this way has resulted in varying degrees of exclusion of divorced people in the life of the church.
As we examine Jesus' statement on the meaning of marriage, it may become possible to hear his words about divorce in a slightly different fashion.
The Biblical Ideal of Marriage
The importance of marriage in the lives of human beings is clearly illustrated by its continuing presence throughout history. While practiced in many forms, and for many different reasons, marriage as an institution persists. This is true for both Hebrew and Christian traditions. The book of Genesis, for example, recounts the process of creation. God acts to bring order to chaos, to bring light out of darkness, and creates life as the gracious culmination of his creative efforts. The centerpiece of this gift of life, according to Genesis, is the creation of humankind. The text of Genesis makes it very clear that God created male and female humans as equals. "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them: male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27).
These verses state that male and female together are created in the image of God. There is no sense of superiority of one gender over the other. They are equal in their image of God. This equality is expanded in the verses that follow.
"God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it' " (Genesis 1:28).
The combined themes of equality and fruitful increase set the stage for the climactic command in Genesis, "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife and they become one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). "One flesh" is clearly an archaic reference to what moderns call "intimacy." In marriage, God provides a way for humans to partially overcome their existential aloneness and estrangement by encountering "an other" who is both equal and partner. In relationship with this "other," humans are able to experience oneness of mind, heart, spirit, and body. While it is not proper to say that humans are incomplete outside of marriage, the Bible does affirm a unique wholeness that occurs between two people as the result of becoming "one flesh." 1
This is the vision of marriage to which Jesus resorts. When pressed by opponents to explain the nature and function of divorce within the Law of Moses, Jesus refers to the earlier-than-Moses covenant of marriage found in Genesis. Jesus does not nullify the legitimate place of divorce. However, he places the "one flesh" ideal of Genesis above the more legalistic concerns of Torah.
The Biblical View of Divorce
The biblical view of divorce must be understood in connection with this idealistic statement of the purpose of marriage. To seek to extract an autonomous, legalistic view of divorce results in a dependence on the Old Testament that pits "works of the law" against "faith."
The problem, however, is rooted firmly in the teaching of Jesus. There are four places in the Gospels where Jesus addresses the issue of marriage and divorce: Mark 10:1-12; Matthew 5:31; 19:1-12 (which parallels Mark 10); and Luke 16:18. Scholars regard Mark 10 and Matthew 19 as the principal passages for dealing with the divorce issue. 2
These two passages have yielded four different views concerning divorce and remarriage. The first is rigid and fixed: no divorce, no remarriage. Divorce is never allowed under any circumstances, and remarriage after divorce is adultery.
The second position allows for divorce but no remarriage. This view holds that the Bible allows for divorce in certain instances of sexual infidelity. However, even though divorce is allowed, remarriage is not allowed. Even a person who legitimately divorces a spouse because of unfaithful behavior, must remain single or be guilty of committing adultery through the act of remarriage.
The third position asserts divorce with remarriage under certain specific circumstances. Persons who hold this view believe that divorce is allowed when infidelity or sexual impurity occurs, and in these cases the offended member is free to remarry.
The fourth view asserts that divorce and remarriage are allowed for a variety of causes. This view holds that God in his gracious will allows for the fact that sometimes humans make very poor choices of life partners. This "hardness of heart" (Mark 10:5) results in poor choices either in choosing a mate, or choices involving behavior within a relationship. While divorce is not the ideal, humans fall short of all of God's ideals.
There is another way of reading the issues raised in these passages. The issue put to Jesus (Mark 10; Matthew 19) was posed in the context of a specific question. "What does the law require?" Under Jewish law of the first century the issue was not when was a person allowed to divorce his spouse. The question was under what circumstances he must divorce her. The strict conservative Shammai school insisted that adultery was the only offense in which a man was compelled to divorce his wife in order to maintain the purity of the community. An example of this can be seen in the story of Joseph and Mary. Joseph, a "righteous man," is compelled by the law to divorce Mary, but chooses to do so privately. He does not seem to entertain the possibility of not divorcing her until an angelic presence persuades him otherwise (Matthew 1:18-25).
The more liberal Hillel school of rabbinic thinking taught that any displeasure brought by the woman to the man that disrupted the harmony of marriage and prevented the marriage from fulfilling its true purpose must be put to an end. The most common complaint here would be the failure to bear male children.
Jesus moved the discussion from the Law of Moses as the locus for establishing the purpose of marriage to the covenant of Genesis. The goal of marriage is not to make the husband happy. The goal of marriage is for two equals to achieve "one flesh."
The discussion of adultery occurs when the disciples seek additional clarification of the issue (Mark 10:10). Jesus makes clear his real complaint with the law. If a man found another woman he wanted to marry, all he needed to do was to trump up a charge against his wife and then say, "I am forced by law to divorce you." Freed from his first wife, he would then be able to pursue the other woman of his affection. It is to this situation that Jesus addresses his charge, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her."
The attempt to cover a man's desire for another woman by using the divorce law to free himself from his marriage might satisfy the lawyers, but not God. God who knows the intent of the heart judges the man to be guilty of adultery. The law does not excuse his motive.
This reading of the text makes it clear that Jesus was not imposing a life sentence of adultery on anyone who divorces and remarries. He was criticizing an abuse of the law that made it possible for a man to commit adultery using the law to cover his lust. 3
So, What's a Marriage For?
The Bible does not command that humans marry. As humans we may choose to live full and meaningful lives as single persons. For those who choose to marry, however, the goal of marriage can take many forms. Marriage is clearly the best relationship from which to establish and maintain a nuclear family. Studies abound which demonstrate that good marriages create stable homes that allow children to thrive emotionally, socially, and intellectually. This is not to say that single parents are not fully capable of raising healthy children. The fact is many single parents are very effective. But for practical matters of economics, as well psychological factors, a marriage is the optimum relationship.
Marriages that achieve the biblical ideal of "one flesh" create opportunities for couples to experience a shared life with a partner that is both satisfying and enriching. This is true sexually, but also emotionally and psychologically.
Marriage and family therapist John Howell describes the process by which couples may achieve what he calls a "biblical one-flesh relationship." He believes there are three dimensions to this process: commitment, communion, and consummation. 4
Commitment describes the process of two people leaving their families of origin and creating a new family. The man and woman commit themselves to one another in a new relationship that transcends and takes priority over all others. This is a remarkable accomplishment considering the powerful hold families of origin have on all people.
The aspect of the one flesh process that makes this commitment more powerful than families of origin is communion. Communion implies the sharing of all things. Two people make a covenant commitment to one another to share a life together. This sharing takes in every dimension of their existence. They share dreams. They share good and bad times. They share responsibility and blame. They share love. It is the sharing element that brings two people from two different families to the place where they become one new family.
The final element of Howell's one flesh process is consummation. Consummation refers primarily to the sexual relationship that exists between a man and a woman. The bonds that are born and nurtured in communion are taken to even greater depths of emotional fulfillment in the physical relationship.
Through this process of commitment, communion, and consummation, two people become one. They don't become one or the other. They become a new creation. They are still individuals, but they are more than merely two people. In marriage, a couple can become a profound unity, a unity that transcends the lonely "I" and becomes the fulfilled and joyful "us."
So, What's a Divorce For?
We cannot overlook the fact that Jesus' affirmation of the Genesis "one flesh" ideal for marriage came in the context of a question about divorce. In fact, it is not possible at all to discuss marriage without divorce, especially in our culture. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 43 percent of first marriages end in separation or divorce within 15 years. The study is based on the National Survey of Family Growth, a nationally representative sample of women age 15 to 44 in 1995. 5
The church faces something of a tricky tightrope with this issue. On the one hand, we want to promote healthy and successful marriages for those who choose to marry. At the same time, we want to offer caring assistance for those who experience what can be the devastating effects of divorce. It has proved difficult for some faith communities in the past to do both things.
There may be some help in Jesus' saying that divorce as a provision in the law was the result of "hardness of heart." We may be tempted to hear this expression through the lens of our culture in which the heart is the seat of emotion. We use the expression "hardhearted" to describe persons who lack feeling or compassion.
But in the ancient world the heart was not the seat of emotions but rather the seat of the will. With that reading, a hardhearted person would be someone who makes poor decisions. Those decisions might include marrying the wrong person, for the wrong reason, or simply choosing not to do the work that marriage requires.
Whatever the exact nature of the wrong decision, the church has a long-standing remedy for bad choices -- forgiveness. For those whose marriages fail, the church can offer grace and support. For those whose marriages succeed, the church can celebrate the blessings that strong families contribute to faith communities.
Notes
1Diane S. Richmond Garland and Diane L. Pancoast, The Church's Ministry with Families: A Practical Guide (Waco: Word, 1990), pp. 21-22.
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2H. Wayne House, Divorce and Remarriage: Four Christian Views (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP, 1990), pp. 31-37.
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3Stephen Westerholm, Jesus and Scribal Authority (Lund, Sweden, 1978).
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4John C. Howell, Christian Marriage (Nashville: Convention Press, 1983).
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5Matthew Bramlett and William Mosher. "First Marriage Dissolution, Divorce, and Remarriage: United States," Advance Data from Vital and Health Statistics, no. 323 (Hyattsville Md.: National Center for Health Statistics), 2/1.
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Team Comments
Carter Shelley responds: Jim, I appreciate the way you link God's initial plan for companionship and partnership in Genesis with Jesus' own emphasis on marriage as a serious lifelong commitment not to be ended due to frivolous or selfish motives. Jesus often seems to overstate a thing in order to be sure his audience grasps God's call to be loving, selfless, and obedient, before then allowing for forgiveness and grace when we fail to live up to the ideal.
The first time I preached about Jesus' view of divorce back in 1983, I had numerous church members calling me to ask if they should stay away that Sunday. Their fear was that a minister preaching on marriage and divorce would make them feel guilty about their own divorces. In point of fact, it seems the one who feels the most guilt often is the one most injured, because he or she has served previously as the moral conscience for the couple, and so feels the failure more keenly. What I said to parishioners that Saturday was, "Please do come to church tomorrow. In my experience, no one is harder on a divorced person than that person himself or herself." There's no need to make a person feel guilty when he or she is already overwhelmed by guilt.
So I appreciate the careful and sensitive balance you've provided in this week's entry on marriage. I also share your reading of Jesus' words about marriage and divorce. Jesus wants to take a stand against frivolous divorces -- a burnt dinner, an aging face and body, or boredom.
Apparently, there were some pretty shallow divorce proceedings in that day and age that were the equivalent of the quickie Reno divorce of the modern era. In fact, it's hard for me not to classify the J Lo and Ben courtship and wedding plans in this category. J Lo was married to her second husband -- someone she's married after knowing him a very short time -- and before the ink had dried on the document, she was in love with her new costar and beginning divorce proceedings. I mention this example because I do not view their romance with wonder but rather with cynicism. I can't imagine these two still successfully married to each other ten years from now. I hope they prove me wrong.
The theologian Karl Barth said the traditional church is not concerned with marriage, only with weddings. In fact, he said that no matter how miserable the couple are together, as long as the husband and wife maintain the outward appearance of a secure and stable marriage, that is all that matters. Barth points his finger squarely at Christians who attend weddings, but rarely offer love or assistance to young couples as they struggle to negotiate the hard times and the good times which all marriages experience. Instead of standing with them at the wedding, Barth said we should stand beside them in their daily lives together supporting them, loving them, helping them in whatever ways we can so that their marriage can weather the stormy bits with the external encouragement of their church community. To witness their marriage and then to remove themselves from their married lives is to fail in our Christian calling to be a community and to stay in relationship with one another. The idea that there is only one person perfect for every individual and that once you or I have found that person, we will not need the love and support of parents, friends, siblings, and our church community is a Hollywood fairy tale that is neither biblical nor viable.
The vows that we make in the marriage covenant --"to love and to cherish ... in sickness and in health ... for better, for worse ... as long as we both shall live" -- recognize that marriage is not a state to be entered into lightly or dismissed lightly. If we as a church community are to help make marriages work, our commitment to the couple cannot stop at attending the ceremony and sending a gift. It's a covenant, in essence, made among many people, acknowledging that two people cannot be all and the end-all for each other. For our marriage relationships are connected to the many other relationships we have with our children, friends, parents, our church, and our God.
The biblical view of divorce is a subject that never goes out of style; it deserves regular repetitions. I'm sure I'm not the only minister who wishes it was harder for people to get married than it is currently. There's a wonderful quote in Ron Howard's movie Parenthood that I've probably quoted before. The teenage airhead boyfriend (played by a much younger Keanu Reeves) comments to the mother of his girlfriend (Dianne Wiest). "You have to take a test to drive a car, but any ol' a ...... can be a parent." The same applies to marriage. It's a whole lot easier to get married than it is to stay married. And with the television and media ways to present love and marriage, it's no wonder people think it's supposed to be easy and fabulous all the time. When the movie Love Story appeared, its advertising had the following tag line: "Love means never having to say you're sorry." Several people with long years experience as marital partners commented, "Love means saying you're sorry, when you're not." Aside from the humor of the statement, what I see in that statement is marital love and commitment mean not always winning, sometimes giving more than you think you're getting back, negotiations, relinquishment of self to some extent to the success of the partnership and marital covenant.
The Presbyterian Women's Bible Study this year looks at "Nine Unnamed Women of the Bible." It's an excellent study and well worth a year's course of meetings. I got to teach one of the leadership sessions for the study and had a young woman approach me afterwards and ask, "Are you a feminist?" "Yes," I replied, "but I'm also a Calvinist."
"What does that mean?" she asked. "It means I believe women are just as prone to sinfulness and selfishness as their male counterparts; therefore, I participate in feminist advocacies, legislation, and integration into the daily life of church and my family, but I do not assume women are free of sin due to their historically subjugated status."
Thus, I do not think women are all about virtue, selflessness, loyalty, and self-effacement (though all of us possess elements of all these things) while men are selfish, greedy, domineering, and evil. It wasn't that simple when God created the earth and all its inhabitants. It's not that simple now.
George Murphy responds: Genesis 2:18-24, the alternate First Reading for this Sunday from the Revised Common Lectionary, gives a theological account of the first wedding, one in which God escorts the bride down the aisle. How the institution of marriage evolved historically is, of course, more complex. But the biblical text gives us an insight into God's intention "from the beginning," as Jesus says.
We have become aware that the Bible developed in a primarily patriarchal culture, and this certainly has influenced biblical views of marriage. But the Genesis text has a surprise in store for us. There it is not the woman but the man who leaves his family of origin (father and mother) to become "one flesh" with his wife. There seems to be at least some trace of matriarchal customs behind the way in which this crucial text has come to us.
It's unfortunate in a way that the lectionary (as well as most lists of suggested readings for weddings) omits the closing verse of Genesis 2: "And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed." I suppose somebody thought that that might be too embarrassing to read in church, but the omission means an unfortunate flinching at a critical moment. The possibilities of sexual intimacy which nakedness reveals are not a problem -- until sin comes into the picture. It is only when that happens that the man and woman feel that they have to cover themselves (Genesis 3:7).
The picture of marriage given here and the concept of becoming "one flesh" has to do with a relationship between a man and a woman. There is no justification for the claim that the genders of the participants in the Genesis story are irrelevant, as some have done in arguing for same-sex marriages. It is a story about man and woman, not about two human individuals in the abstract. Some appropriate recognition could be given to same-sex partnerships (as I suggested in my article for the August 10 issue of The Immediate Word this year), but they would not be marriages in the biblical sense.
This passage in the second creation story of Genesis complements the first creation account in Genesis 1, which emphasizes that God created humanity "male and female." They stand together at the beginning of torah, and thus form the precondition for any other torah regulations about how marriage is to be dealt with in particular cases. Jesus can thus cite both of the creation stories to express God's fundamental intention for marriage when the question is posed to him in our Gospel reading about divorce.
Jesus' statement here that "what God has joined together, let no one separate" can and has been read as a new and stricter law. "You have to stay married." But there is another way of hearing it: "You can stay married." There are not many relationships that have a real possibility of permanence, but this one does because that is God intention. Jesus' words are not just prohibition but also promise.
But divorce has been a reality "because of your hardness of heart" -- and it is a hardness of heart that was not just a peculiarity of ancient Israel but persists today. The early church found that it had to take this reality into account. While Mark represents Jesus simply forbidding divorce period, Matthew's parallel account has him make the exception "except for unchastity." The usual understanding of the relationship between these two Gospels is that Matthew made use of Mark. If this is the case, it seems likely that the community for which Matthew wrote had had to struggle anew with this question of divorce, and that evangelist felt inspired to make this change.
Exactly what does it mean? There is a sense in which "unchastity" (porneia) is an unfaithfulness that destroys the basic "one flesh" character of marriage. One can then go on to argue that anything else that has the same effect -- e.g., malicious desertion -- should also be considered legitimate grounds for divorce.
There is some validity in this argument. But it does not mean simply that anything goes, that a couple can get a divorce whenever one of them gets tired of the relationship. In spite of human weariness and human failings, there is a real possibility of permanence in marriage because -- as Genesis and Jesus say -- that is what God wants marriage to be.
There are some words in the marriage service of the Lutheran Book of Worship which, I'm sure, come as something of a shock to guests at some weddings. They speak about sin as a threat to marriage, and people probably wonder why we have to bring that up at a time of celebration. But weddings take place in the real world, with real people, not in the pages of bridal magazines. And our hope for marriage, as for all things, is not simply in our own strength or resolve or ability to love but in God.
The Lord God in his goodness created us male and female, and by the gift of marriage founded human community in a joy that begins now and is brought to perfection in the life to come. Because of sin, our age-old rebellion, the gladness of marriage can be overcast and the gift of the family can become a burden. But because God, who established marriage, continues still to bless it with his abundant and ever-present support, we can be sustained in our weariness and have our joy restored. (Lutheran Book of Worship, p. 203)
Carlos Wilton responds: Jim, I concur with Carter that you deal with these difficult subjects sensitively and with good scholarship. I find your discussion of remarriage after divorce to be particularly valuable -- for, as Carter points out, it's a subject of ongoing pain to many of our people who are themselves in second marriages. Even those who have successfully made the transition to a new marriage are often plagued by guilt.
Like many ministers, when I do premarital counseling with couples, I hand out a list of scripture passages traditionally read at weddings, and ask them to choose which ones they would like to have in their ceremony. As I hand them the sheet of paper, I often tell them that, while the passages cited are traditionally associated with weddings, few of them are explicitly about marriage. I then go on to tell them that the Bible has comparatively little to say about marriage, theologically. Even 1 Corinthians 13 -- the famed "hymn to love" that the vast majority of couples choose for their ceremony -- is not about marital love at all. Many couples seem genuinely surprised when I tell them Paul wrote those beautiful words to help the members of a conflicted church learn to get along with each other.
The Bible has plenty of passages that mention marriage, but almost none that step back and consider it in a theoretical way. Marriage is a given for the biblical writers; no one questions its value to society, but no one seems compelled to make a detailed case for it either. Not only that, but the institution of marriage very clearly changes over the course of the many centuries of the biblical witness. Polygamy, concubinage, levirate marriage -- all these are accepted for a time in the scriptures, but ultimately discarded. Even the classic biblical passages that have long been understood as the divine justification for marriage -- this week's Hebrew scripture, Genesis 2:18-24, and the Mark 10:2-16 passage in which Jesus interprets it -- seem to lose some of their authority when we consider that the society which first recorded and preserved them had such a different conception of marriage.
Yet, having said this, I'd be quick to point out that our society needs, as never before, to hear a strong word from the church in favor of marriage. The institution is under attack today, from many fronts -- although there seems also to be a growing realization that the overall health of society tends to deteriorate in direct proportion to the extent that the bonds of matrimony unravel. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (who died this past March) received a lot of flak for his 1960s report, "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action," popularly called the Moynihan Report. In that paper he directly attributed poverty to the decline of marriage in minority populations. Some called him racist at the time, but today no responsible sociologist would question his findings. No matter the race, one of the greatest predictors of economic stability is marriage.
Quite apart from matters of economics, strong marriages are good for the general health of society. Marriage at its best is a sort of greenhouse in which ethical behavior is nurtured. When a bride walks down the church aisle to meet her beloved, not many people think of the two of them as establishing a basic unit of Christian mission -- but that's exactly what's going on (or what's meant to). When a family gathers around a dinner table to talk with each other and share news of the day, few would identify that gathering as a school of virtue -- but, again, that's how God views it. Those committed love-relationships in which we find ourselves all have a higher purpose, in the Christian sense: God has given those special people to us so together we may hate what is evil, and hold fast to what is good" (Romans 12:9).
Every pastor or marital therapist has seen divorces that, as painful as they may be, help one or both parties escape from dreadfully destructive situations. Far more troubling, however, are the divorces that seem to happen almost casually, for no compelling reason. Something like 55-60 per cent of divorces, according to Penn State sociologist Paul Amato, could be called "low-conflict divorces" (cited by Karen S. Peterson, in "The Good in a Bad Marriage: Studies Say Many Can Be Salvaged," USA Today, 6/21/2001). These take place when one partner in a marriage simply wakes up one day and realizes that he or she wants out.
There's no abuse or infidelity worth mentioning, no glaring personal betrayal -- just a soul-chilling weariness with day-to-day cares and conflicts, coupled with a lack of desire to do anything about it. The marriage has become bogged down in the sheer dailyness of life. As an Irish proverb puts it, "Marriages are all happy. It's having breakfast together that causes all the trouble."
Many of these distressed marriages, an increasing number of psychologists are saying, can be saved -- if only the partners will agree to work together in therapy, learning practical skills for communication and emotional support. Yes, marital therapy is a hard road, and it may lead to conflict at times; but that should come as no surprise to anyone. The leading indicator of divorce, the experts are now telling us, is not conflict but habitual avoidance of conflict: an overwhelming despair and apathy that slowly saps the will to do the essential work of being married.
Christian love is a decision, not an emotional state. The simple, seemingly paradoxical truth is that the way to find the love we all want in a committed relationship is to practice loving behaviors. We may not choose our feelings, but we do choose our behaviors. The trouble comes, in marriage, when one or both partners feel the quality of their relationship starting to slide, and begin practicing destructive behaviors. They withhold affection. They yell and intimidate. They pout. They leave the house. They play the "blame game."
If even one partner is able, intentionally, to practice loving behaviors, the relationship can be transformed. Instead of criticizing, she listens. Instead of pouting, he learns to share his feelings. Instead of blaming, she accepts responsibility. Instead of taking his wife for granted, he practices gratitude. There's no guarantee, but it does happen more often than not: if you practice love, you will find it.
For those who doubt the truth of this claim -- for those who parrot popular culture's belief that it simply happens, at random, that it's something we "fall" into (or out of) -- here's another statistic. Fully 60 per cent of marriages throughout the world are arranged by persons other than the bride and groom (usually their parents). Men and women who hardly know each other are thrown together, usually for practical reasons, and the divorce rate for those marriages is no higher than it is in our society; in some places, it's actually lower. Researchers have found that the same numbers apply to immigrant communities here in the U.S., where presumably divorce is readily available.
A very large percentage of husbands and wives in arranged marriages do somehow learn to love each other, over time. A man from India tried to explain to a foreign visitor how this works. Love, he said, is like a bowl of soup: "You Westerners put a hot bowl on a cold plate and slowly it grows cool. We Indians put a cold bowl on a hot plate and slowly it warms up." East or West, success in marriage doesn't just happen. You have to work at it.
Chuck Cammarata responds: I love everything you say up until the final two paragraphs. I think you let us all off too easy in interpreting hardness of heart to mean bad choices. It seems to me that the hardness of heart or hardness of will that he is pointing to is not simply making a bad choice when it comes to partners (especially in light of the fact that marriages at that time were arranged) but rather a willful rejection of the hard work it takes to make a marriage work. I think he is saying that men gave up on marriages far too easily. The force of the statement is to challenge men to stay in relationships that may not feel good or may have become difficult and to work at them. Real love is not just an emotion we get when someone is making us feel good; real love is covenantal. In other words we love despite the other's unlovableness. We are to love as God loves -- sacrificially and graciously and enduringly. The tragedy of marriage in our culture is that we have the same easy approach to divorce. That, coupled with the cultural idea that marriage ought to be all romance and sweetness and passion, makes a volatile stew of dismay with the state of our marriages and it makes it easy to jettison the partner when things don't go well.
None of this is to say that the church ought to be judgmental toward those who have gotten divorced, but we definitely ought to help people to better understand the purpose of marriage, which in my mind has to do with partnering with one another in the journey toward holiness. Marriage is a commitment to help (for me this is where the idea of help-meet comes in -- and it applies to Adam as well as Eve) the other become all that God made him or her to be. Two Christlike souls is the goal of marriage. And that cannot be achieved if we don't help people understand the realities of relationships. Realities like it ain't always easy, the feelings come and go over the years, and we have to work at it. In this regard I point couples to 1 Corinthians 13, where Paul tells us about real love, and the description is not easy. Really loving someone involves being patient with them and kind to them. It involves humility, sensitivity, selflessness, forgiveness, tolerance, hopefulness, seeing the best in the other, never giving up.
If we as Christians are to be striving to live in love, there is no relationship in our lives where that love ought to be more apparent than in our marriages. And, quite simply, manifesting the love of 1 Corinthians 13 takes work.
We must forgive and love those who have been through divorce. But we must also make teaching the realities of love and marriage a major part of our ministries. And we must aid and support those in marriages so they can climb over the obstacles of self and culture to arrive at the place of true and abiding love.
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Related Illustrations
Divorces don't just happen in marriage but in every relationship in which we establish a trust relationship.
While this is true in our understanding of "divorce," the Greek word used in our text presents a bit of a different picture (and a different understanding of marriage).
The word used in Mark 10:2, 4, 11, 12 is apoluo. The basic meaning of this word is "release" or "set free." Besides "divorce" in our verses, it is used in two other senses in Mark: to "dismiss" or "release" or "send away" the crowd (6:36, 45; 8:3, 9); and to "release" a prisoner (15:6, 9, 11, 15). In addition to these meanings, Matthew 18:27 uses it in reference to "releasing" a slave. Luke 6:37 for "forgiveness"("releasing" sins?) and in 13:12 for "setting free" from an ailment.
Apoluo is based on the root word luo, which basically refers to untying someone or something that is tied up; to free from bonds, e.g., untying a horse or donkey, setting Lazarus free from his grave cloths.
What might the use of this word imply about the understanding of a husband/wife relationship? When, as Christians, is it our duty to free those who are bound? Can the bonds of matrimony become bondage?
We talk about marriage as "tying the knot." Having been married for 32 years, being "tied" to one, loving person can be life-affirming. It can make one a better and more whole person to be connected to such a help-mate.
At the same time, being "tied" to another can feel like bondage -- being a prisoner in one's own home.
A basic tension in family systems thinking is that between being "we" (connected to a group, e.g., spouse or family) and being "me" (being an individual, differentiated from the group). Both are needs. Both are necessary for health. However, being stuck at either end is defined as unhealth. (Healthy pastors need to have an identity separate from being pastor of the congregation.) How do we manage being free from the group, and yet covenantly connected to the group? Specifically, husbands and wives; and pastors and congregations?
-- Linda Kraft, "Gospel Notes for Next Sunday," cited by Brian Stoffregen on the website ecunet.org
***
There is an old Jewish folk tale of a husband who considers giving up on his marriage. He's upset that, after ten years, he and his wife have no children, so he goes to the rabbi to see if there is some way he can trade his wife in on a new model.
These are the days when a Jewish man could divorce his wife for no reason at all, simply by saying the words, "I divorce you," three times. The rabbi knows the law, but still he thinks his parishioner is being far too impulsive. And so he convinces him, before sending his wife away, to put on a huge feast to thank her for all her hard work in keeping his household. The husband has no complaint against his wife other than this matter of children, and so he agrees to the rabbi's suggestion.
At the feast, he has a lot to eat and drink; before long he's quite drunk. He stands up and thanks his wife for all she has done for him and, overcome with feelings of generosity, he says to her that in return for all her hard work, she may take with her the one thing from his house that she considers most valuable.
It isn't long before the husband passes out, from all he's had to drink. The guests go home, and the wife immediately orders the servants to pick her husband up, load him on a cart, and drive him to her father's house.
There he awakes the next morning, with a splitting headache, wondering where on earth he is. His wife supplies the explanation: "I am only fulfilling your command," she says. "Last night you offered me the most precious thing in the house. You, dear husband, are far more precious to me than any item of furniture; and so it is you that I have carried to the house of my father."
The man is deeply moved, and reconciles with his wife. And, the story goes, it is not long before they have the children he craves.
***
When it comes to the sort of love that sustains marriage, a celibate Roman Catholic nun -- Mother Teresa of Calcutta -- gave some of the best advice ever. She compares the sort of love that makes marriage last to the drops of oil in an old-fashioned lamp:
"How does a lamp burn? Through the continuous input of small drops of oil.
"In Matthew, it is said 'If the drops of oil run out, the light of the lamp will cease, and the bridegroom will say, "I do not know you." '
"What are these drops of oil in our lamps? They are the small things of daily life: faithfulness, small words of kindness, a thought for others; our way of being silent, of looking, of speaking, and of acting. These are the true drops of love.
"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."
Mother Teresa has the idea that strength in marriage -- and indeed, strength in any meaningful human relationship -- comes from the daily decision to be there for the other, to do for the other. Every day that dawns upon a marriage is a day in which the marriage can either die, or be reborn -- and it is reborn in these small, daily actions that speak of affection and caring. It is not, ultimately, the laws of marriage -- or divorce -- that keep the flame of love alive, but a daily determination to live for the other in a Christlike way.
***
Dr. Richard Selzer is a surgeon who has reflected on his medical practice in a book, Mortal Lessons. In it, he tells the story of a young couple who have managed to intuitively master the grace of sharing love in small, intimate ways. The setting is a hospital room, following an operation Dr. Selzer performed on the wife:
"I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had cut the little nerve.
"Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily?
"The young woman speaks. 'Will my mouth always be like this?' she asks.
" 'Yes,' I say, 'it will. It is because the nerve was cut.'
"She nods, and is silent. But the young man smiles.
" 'I like it,' he says. 'It is kind of cute.'
"All at once I know who he is. I understand, and I lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I am so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate to hers, to show her that their kiss still works."
***
When a couple publicly declare their love for each other in marriage, and promise a lifetime of being there for each other, they don't just do something for themselves. They make a great gift to the whole of society, telling everyone what it is that love makes possible. This is a gift to celebrate....
-- Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury, "Three Cheers for Marriage: Data Prove the Value of a Beleaguered Institution," March 1, 2003, Zenit.org; Cited by Smartmarriages.org in their online newsletter, 3/3/03.
***
In a classic Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown kicks a football while saying, "My grampa and gramma have been married for 50 years."
To which his playmate replies, "They're lucky, aren't they?"
Charlie responds, "Grampa says it isn't luck ... it's skill."
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Worship Resources
by George Reed
OPENING
Music
Hymns
"Great Is Thy Faithfulness." Words: Thomas O. Chisholm, 1923; music: William M. Runyan, 1923. (c) 1923, renewed 1951 Hope Publishing Co. As found in UMH 140; TPH 276; AAHH 158; TNNBH 45.
"Children of the Heavenly Father." Words: Caroline V. Sandell-Berg, 1855; trans. Ernst W. Olson, 1925; music: Swedish melody. Trans. (c) 1925, renewed 1953, Augsburg. As found in UMH 141; LBOW 474.
"There's a Wideness in God's Mercy." Words: Frederick W. Faber, 1854; music: Lizzie S. Tourjee, 1877; harm. Charles H. Webb, 1988. Harm. (c) 1989 The United Methodist Publishing House. As found in UMH 121; Hymnal '82 469, 470; LBOW 290; TPH 298.
Songs
"You Are So Faithful." Words: Lenny LeBlanc and Greg Gulley; music: (c) 1989 Doulos Publishing. As found in PMMCH3 254.
"The Steadfast Love of the Lord." Words: Edith McNeill; music: (c) 1974, 1975 and this arr. (c) 1986 by Celebration. As found in PMMCH3 306.
"I Will Trust In You." Words: Danny Daniels; music: (c) 1987 by Mercy Publishing. As found in PMMCH3 315.
CALL TO WORSHIP
Leader: God created us for each other.
People: We are called to faithfulness.
Leader: Christ loves us and never fails us.
People: This is our example for how to live with one another.
Leader: Let us praise the God of our eternal covenant.
People: We worship the God of faithfulness; the God of Abraham and Sarah, of Miriam and Moses, of Joseph and Mary.
COLLECT / OPENING PRAYER
O God who is always faithful in covenant: Grant us the grace to be faithful to one another in all our relationships; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
or
God, you are the ever faithful One. You call us into relationship with you and you never desert us or fail us. You call us into relationships with other people and invite us to reflect your faithfulness. Help us to be true to your image within us that all our relationships may honor you. Amen.
Response Music
Hymns
"Your Love, O God, Has Called Us Here." Words: Russell Schultz-Widmar, 1982; music: M. Lee Suitor, 1984. Words (c) 1982 Russell Schultz-Widmar; music (c) 1984 M. Lee Suitor. As found in UMH 647; Hymnal '82 353.
"O Perfect Love." Words: Dorothy B. Gurney, 1883; music: Joseph Barnby, 1890. Public domain. As found in UMH 645; LBOW 287; TPH 533; AAHH 520; TNNBH 361.
"Our Parent, by Whose Name." Words: F. Bland Tucker, 1939; alt.; music: John David Edwards, ca. 1838. Words (c) 1940, 1943, renewed 1971 The Church Pension Fund. As found in UMH 447.
Songs
"I Am Loved." Words: William J. Gaither and Gloria Gaither; music: William J. Gaither. (c) 1978 William J. Gaither. As found in CCB 80.
"They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love." Words and music: Peter Scholtes. (c) 1966 F. E. L. Publications. As found in CCB 78.
"Unity." Words: Tim Reynolds; music: Tim Reynolds; arr. J. Michael Bryan. Arr. (c) 1996 Abingdon Press. As found in CCB 59.
PRAYER OF CONFESSION / PARDON
Leader: Let us confess the state of our lives.
People: God, you are the One who breathed into us your own breath and life. You walked in the cool of the day with our earth parents. Throughout the Bible we read how you have sought to be with us. Before our brothers and sisters and to you, O God, we confess that we have not faithfully responded to your gracious love. We have sought to fulfill our need for intimacy by masking our hunger with busyness, greed, substance abuse, and lust. Instead of sharing intimacy with others as signs of your love, we have used and abused those who trust us. Forgive us, Gracious One, and by the power of the Spirit of Jesus who dwells in us, draw us into your intimate love and help us to share that with others. Amen.
Leader: Our God is a gracious god forgiving our sins and blessing us evermore. In the Name of Jesus, you are forgiven and freed to live intimately with God and with others.
GENERAL PRAYERS
You, O God, are closer to us than our own breath. It is in you that we live and move and have our being. Only by the closeness of your presence do we have life. Your grace sustains us and your power enlivens us.
(The following paragraph is most suitable if a prayer of confession will not be used elsewhere.)
We often act as if we had no need for God. We spurn the Lover who comes to bring us life and we choose instead those things that destroy us and bring us death. We hunger for God but are too dull to know that it is God we want and need. We seek to fill the emptiness within with things that do not satisfy. We take the good gifts of God and use them in destructive ways trying substitute the gifts for the Giver. Forgive us, O God, and by the power of Spirit, draw us into your warm embrace and send us out to draw others into your love. We thank you for all your faithfulness to us. From the very beginning of our journey upon this planet, you have sought us and offered yourself to us. You gave us your life and Spirit; you gave us your Torah to guide us. You sent us judges, prophets, seers and psalmists to teach us about your love and care for us. All of creation is filled with your love and grace. We thank you for family and friends. We thank you for those who are called into marriage as a means of living out the intimacy of love that you designed us to share. We ask your blessings on them that in your love they may learn to share that intimacy with their marriage partner. We thank you for those who are called to share your love in a life of singleness. Some have chosen it; some have had it thrust upon them by divorce, separation or death. We thank you for your love which binds us to you and to each other.
(Other specific thanksgiving may be offered.)
We are aware that there are those who are struggling to find ways to live our your call to love and intimacy. There are those who have not learned to share love because they have received hatred and abuse instead of love. There are those who because of illness, oppression or poverty are unable to understand love and your call to enter into an intimate relationship with you. We pray that through our faithfulness in prayer and in life, they may find your love and grace present to them.
(Other petitions may be offered.)
All these things we offer to you in the name of Jesus, who taught us to pray, saying, "Our Father...."
Hymnal and Songbook Abbreviations
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
Hymnal '82: The Hymnal 1982, The Episcopal Church
LBOW: Lutheran Book of Worship
TPH: The Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African American Heritage Hymnal
TNNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
PMMCH3: Praise. Maranatha! Music Chorus Book, Expanded 3rd Edition
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A Children's Sermon
by Wesley Runk
Mark 10:2-16
Text: "Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." (v. 9)
Object: a clock
Good morning, boys and girls. Today we want to share some ideas on marriage. Are any of you planning to get married pretty soon? (let them answer) How many of you hope to be married someday? (let them answer) What kind of a husband or wife would you like? What would be the most important thing to you in a husband or wife? (let several of them answer) This is a pretty important thing in our life. We want to make sure that we choose the right person, for whomever we choose should last us for the rest of our lives. The Bible teaches us that we should be married for as long as both people live, but that if one of the two people die, then we can marry again.
One day, Jesus taught some people that when someone marries someone else, the two people become one person. Let me show you what I mean. I have a clock with me, and it is a good clock. It tells me the right time all of the time. I like this clock. It has two hands, doesn't it? (let t
