Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church
Lake Worth, Florida
The Eve of the Fifth Sunday After Pentecost (June 22, 2002)
Canon Richard T. Nolan
Meditation on Divorce - Matt. 19: 1 - 12 (requested topic)
“Divorce As The Right Decision”
Here beginneth a Reading from ….. Barbra Streisand: “People, People who need people, Are the luckiest people in the world…..” Her song is so much more exemplary of human nature understood Christianly than those unwell monastics cowering in their solitary desert huts with invisible friends at best. Equally ailing are those soundless nuns and monks who savor total isolation while they yearn desperately for mystical union (not communion) with the Divine. Only a theological distortion has glorified their diminished lives, which in no way resemble the life of Christ. Monastics living in a truly communicating fellowship are quite another kind.
A little over a year ago, thanks to a brief search on the internet and email, my very first friend, Don, paid us an overnight visit. From grades one through six Don and I sat together on the school bus and hung out often on weekends and summers. Except for a few times in transition I’ve always had a “best friend” close at hand. Although I’m very much a social introvert, I have never been a solitary. If my “best friend” were not available for an extended period, I would need human community, at least where two or three gather in Christ’s Name.
Some might wonder why a priest would need human community. As one lonely widow, a devout worshiper, said to me so wisely, “I have found that God is not enough.” Jesus knew that, too. He was no solitary. He didn’t spend a moment of his life yearning for private, mystical ecstasy. He summarized the Christian life as loving God plus one’s neighbor, and one’s self. He constantly shared life with human friends.
God’s nature has built into you and me the need for visible people, for discernible community, for observable fellowship. When circumstances develop, usually by happenstance, we might discover a “best friendship,” a “significant other” – or “others” - with whom emotional intimacy is fulfilling. And, if conditions are right, usually by coincidence, a person might enter one’s life resulting in a reciprocal commitment of body, mind and spirit.
Among the ordained responsibilities I have taken most seriously is the preparation of couples for such a commitment. (I have taken special satisfaction that only one couple I counseled eventually divorced; one of the two had lied throughout the preparation.) There is no greater personal covenant or legal contract that a man and woman may make with each other than marriage. There is no greater personal covenant that two individuals of the same sex can make than their pledge of mutual love. To enter another’s life – and to welcome the other into one’s own – in trust and mutual affection is both the greatest risk and the most profound relationship possible for human beings.
Yet, such covenants of body, mind, and spirit between persons carry no guarantees. Some are seriously flawed from the outset. For a multitude of reasons some others evolve into indifference or combat. With thorough counseling and prayer, some relationships can be improved well enough to continue the journey. Others are without realistic hope; they cannot be salvaged; they should not continue. If a Christian looks to the Bible for guidance on divorce, what will be found?
As is the case with most human relationship issues in the Bible, there are conflicts in the biblical message on divorce. Some passages require inter-faith couples to divorce. Others say that divorce can be initiated only by the husband and for almost any reason. Others seem to say that divorce is not permitted under any circumstances. Jesus is quoted in tonight’s Matthew reading as permitting divorce only on the grounds of adultery, but in Mark he is quoted as never permitting divorce. The status of remarriage is similarly obscure. There is simply no consensus among Christians as to how all of these biblical ambiguities and contradictions can be interpreted and applied today. One theme within Jesus’ words is clear, though; women are not to be divorced as was too customary in his day: as a possession to be discarded.
I would add parenthetically that there are about 70 statements by Jesus labeled “hard sayings.” In addition to his hard saying about adultery, we hear "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out..." and we don’t anguish over its literal application, either. “Hard sayings” serve as illuminators and challenges, not as inflexible rules of behavior.
If a Christian looks to the Church’s history for guidance on divorce, what will be found? I would say, for the most part until recent times, brutality, insensitivity, and a terrible misreading of the spirit of Christ. Biblical literalists continue to choose their proof texts selectively. Ordained, hard-hearted legalists spew harsh judgments and punitive counsel which batters women and men caught in the dilemma of faltering relationships. In their eyes divorce always seems to be the wrong decision.
In any event, the vast majority of cases of separation or divorce are painful and perilous. For some partners, emotional trauma not unlike widowhood can ensue; for others feelings of bitterness, vindication, revenge, anger, desperation, failure, helplessness, relief, numbness, depression, freedom, rejection, abandonment, and so forth can combine in any mix. The alternative of "staying together for the children" or other such motives may be, in the long run, worse than the feelings and adjustments of separation or divorce. Whether a legal divorce of married companions or the permanent separation of committed partners, the emotional content and other practicalities can be devastating, one might even say “hellish.”
My less than complex resolution of this dilemma is based on what I perceive to be the very spirit of Christ. He unambiguously taught and lived the absolute standard of loving God, neighbor, and self. Upon this moral absolute, the context for all relationships in all situations, everything else depends. His ministry consistently focuses on the inner substance, not the outer form or structure, of relationships. Do you really think that he would celebrate a couple trapped in either a marriage of indifference or a “marriage from hell?” Would he even consider such relationships a marriage - other than on paper? I think not. A true marriage exists only where the substance of mutual love and commitment is present, and a true marriage is not to be terminated. However, when these qualities dissolve, there is no marriage other than on papers of the state. Under these circumstances the state’s paper work on divorce is the right decision; it merely affirms and legalizes the relationship’s death, which has already taken place.
In no way do I mean to imply an endorsement of the Hollywood-like, so-called serial “marriages” entered into by people incapable of mutual love and deep commitment. Nor am I calling into harsh question the frequent short-term relationships of gay people who have so very little cultural and ecclesiastical support for their family life and for whom there appears to be little available appropriate counseling.
Rather, I am applying an Easter perspective. When a commitment of mutual love comes to a final conclusion of indifference or strife, a dark Good Friday is very much in place. A divorce for heterosexually married couples and a permanent separation for homosexually covenanted couples can become an Easter of new possibilities and new beginnings. At its best the Church as community and fellowship should welcome and support individuals walking this path. If such fellow pilgrims should want to commit to another at some appropriate future time, after emotions are more stabilized, after sufficient healing has occurred, let us provide thorough pre-commitment preparation and a joyous liturgy signifying the new relationship. I suspect that today Jesus Christ would offer no less.