Yesterday someone, in the comments section, asked a good question about divorce.
There are few “issues” more vexing to church leaders than this one. We’re wanting more than anything to be faithful to Christ. And we’re working with hurting, broken people.
There are two things that cause so much pain:
1. Marriages so broken that they wind up in divorce; and
2. Marriages equally broken where forgiveness, service, compassion, and love (basic Christian tools of ministry) seem absent.
Here are some practical things:
First, let us continue to place marriage within the realm of Christian discipleship. That’s what Mark’s gospel does. Right in the middle of teachings about what it means to follow him, we’re told that what God has yoked together people aren’t to pull apart. If there is anyplace where we need to practice the tools mentioned above, it’s here.
Second, let us be honest with our children and young adults about marriage. Let’s continue to remind them that marriage is not a state of ecstasy. It is a place where we commit ourselves despite the disappointments that may come. It is “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.”
Third, let’s continue to encourage all the communication and discussion we can before the wedding date — through premarital counseling (which our church requires for any ceremony performed by one of the ministers or elders) and through mentoring with older couples.
Fourth, let’s do our best to get people into small groups where they are safe to share their struggles. We need others in our lives who are for us, who can listen to us, pray with us, comfort us, and encourage us.
The teachings on divorce are difficult. You can sense the early church wrestling with the words of Jesus as they dealt with real, live people. (Let me recommend again the section on divorce in Richard Hays’ s The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation, A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics
It seems to me that the church is too easy on divorce and too hard on divorced people.
That’s the gist of these words from Hays:
“The collapse of cultural strictures against divorce has left the church in serious need of fresh theological and pastoral reflection about divorce and remarriage. The pain and complications of divorce cast their shadows across almost every congregation, yet the church often fails to address the issue forthrightly. In some churches divorce remains a taboo, and divorced persons are ostracized. In other churches, however, divorce is treated almost casually, and members are not in any serious way held accountable to their marriage vows.”
He adds this:
“In some cases, the church’s practice of accepting divorce has become so lax that the New Testament witness must be read primarily as a word of judgment on and correction for the church. In other cases, the church’s rigid legalism in applying the New Testament teaching must be challenged by the New Testament’s own modeling of flexibility in adapting Jesus’ word to new situations.”
We must continue to encourage people to keep their marriage vows.
Of course, there are lots of ways that marriage vows can be broken. When we fail to love, to support, to cherish, and to serve — in what sense have vows been kept?
So while divorce is a tragedy, so are damaging marriages. The church has little time for the selfish ways in which some swap partners because they’re more sexually attracted or because they “just weren’t happy.” But the church also knows that there are times when people come broken and hurting.
It isn’t our job to step on the hurting. It wasn’t the way of Christ. Divorced believers share in the fellowship of Christ the way all of us do: by his incredible mercy. They aren’t second class citizens. They aren’t “balcony Christians.”
So the church continues to nurture marriage and it continues to call for endurance of marriages as a part of discipleship. But it also recognizes that in this fallen world, there are marriage failures. That isn’t the unforgivable sin.
In an earlier blog, I made these brief suggestions about ways we might encourage our marital relationships:
1. By faithfully holding marriage in the realm of discipleship (i.e., we keep our vows as a part of living out the deep inner goodness that comes from following the Way of Christ — Mt. 5:31-32);
2. By refusing to make marriage a place where all needs are supposed to be met (which is idolatrous and forces it to bear a load it can’t);
3. By learning to be more open with one another — confessing, sharing, and praying — so that we aren’t afraid to say “we need some help”;
4. By fostering a greater sense of “first family” where the church — married, divorced, single, children — is seen as our primarily relationship;
5. By reminding each other that we relate to each other in marriage as brother and sister in Christ as well as husband and wife;
6. By offering whatever resources are available for prevention and intervention: wise elders, insightful therapists, caring friends and guides;
7. By encouraging each other openly to resist materialism and out-of-control debt;
8. By opening ways for conflict and conflict resolution that involve true listening, affirming, exploring, and forgiving;
9. By helping people to pursue a path of spiritual formation, expecting people to change through time into the image of Christ; and
10. By keeping alive and open the stories of older believers who can share their journey, thereby offering hope and guidance for troubled times.
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