Divorce

Proper 22B, 2018: It’s not about the legality of divorce, rather, the nature of marriage

October 7, 2018 by Cam Miller

Those readings from Job and Maya Angelou
are juicy and wonderful:

“We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.”

Man, just that sentence alone, is enough
to stutter over for a goodly amount of time.

Then from job,
we could spend this time
debunking the myth of Satan
the way I de-mythologized the idea of Hell last week.
But that would be boring
compared to Maya Angelou,
even if the story of Job is fascinating.

What we are stuck with, however,
is Jesus’ words on divorce
which cannot be left
unexplained and unchallenged.

Last week Jesus told folks
to pluck out their eyes
and cut off their hands and feet,
but I felt no compunction
to tell you that was bad advice.
I was pretty sure you wouldn’t go home and do it.

This week, however,
because divorce is common among us,
and because The Episcopal Church
clearly contradicts Jesus’ strict admonition
against divorce, I feel the need to address it.

Now, when I do this –
cover territory we’ve traveled down before –
I feel like I am repeating myself and
doddering on senility.
But that is not what’s happening.

It is because some things
cannot be allowed to go unsaid –
they are too raw or too much present
in and among us.
Like I said, there was little danger
that anyone was going home
to pluck out their eye last week,
but today’s excerpt from Mark on divorce
can set our teeth on edge
and also leave us with a very wrong idea
about Jesus and divorce.

In addition to all of that,
it is useful to consider today’s topic
in the context of how we treat Scripture differently
than fundamentalist Christians do,
and how we can arrive at a very different
conclusion about divorce,
than Roman Catholics do.

We can engage in coherent dialogue
with Fundamentalist Christians
about how to live in peace and wellness
as we share the earth together,
but we cannot have a coherent dialogue
with Fundamentalists about Scripture.
The reason is, we would be having an
apples to oranges conversation.

Today’s reading from Mark
is a portal through which to see
this very difficult problem
that faces many of us on a very personal level
as we find ourselves in uncomfortable
and even painful circumstances
with family members, friends and co-workers
who are Fundamentalist or Biblical Literalist’s.

The first huge divide between us
and those who believe
the Bible is the literalword of God –
given or even written directly by God –
is that they believe whatever is said in the Bible
is absolute, just as God is absolute.

Secondly, they believe the Bible
is the sole revelation of the mind of God –
that what is written in the Bible
is the only way we have to know for certain
God’s intention and hope for us.

But for The Episcopal Church
and progressive Christians,
the Bible is only onesource of revelation –
and the Bible is notabsolute.

Because of what Fundamentalists and Literalists
believe about the Bible,
their world is a closed system:
it is as if they live in a stone house
with each stone a dictate of the Bible,
held together by the mortar of authority
and fellowship with their Christian community –
emphasis on theirChristian community.

Take out even one stone,
such as Jesus’ words on divorce,
and the whole house will eventually fall down.

The Fundamentalist way of thinking about the Bible
it is truly an all-or-nothingproposition.

So, any discussion about theology
between our two perspectives on the Bible
is a comparison of apples with oranges –
in other words, we are not
even talking about the same fruit.

In talking with people who believe
that every word of the Bible is literally fact,
we imagine we are talking about the same thing –
the same kind of fruit –
but in fact, we are talking about
wholly different things
even though we are both talking about the Bible.

How our tradition understands the Bible
as distinct from Fundamentalism,
is clearly seen in how we understand
Jesus’ teaching on divorce.

First of all,
when we hear the words of Jesus
we must begin by listening to them in the context
of his century and his generation,
rather than begin by hearing them in our context.

Here is how we do that today.
“Some Pharisees came to test Jesus,” which means it was a hostile question.
“They asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’”

The question being asked of Jesus
that you and I do not hear,
because we are Christians
living in the 21^stcentury, is this:
“Hey Jesus, do you agree with Rabbi Hillel
or are you on the side of Rabbi Shammai?”

I’ve talked about Hillel and Shammai before
because they were the elephant in the room
whenever Jesus was teaching.
They were the greatest thinkers of their day –
the leading authorities on how to interpret Torah.

Shammai was the conservative,
and what we might call today a Torah Literalist.
Hillel was the liberal,
who believed that
interpretationof Torah
was necessary and not otherwise absolute.

Shammai taught that Chapter 24, verse 1
in the Book of Deuteronomy
allowed a man to divorce his wife.
Hillel also taught that Chapter 24, verse 1
allowed a man to divorce his wife.

But they disagreed
upon the grounds and requirements
of divorce.

Shammai taught that adultery
was the only grounds for divorce,
while Hillel said that any reason was legitimate,
but that the man could only divorce his wife
if done in the proper and humane way.
Both taught that only the husband
could sue for divorce.

So that is the context
in which Jesus is asked this question.

We need to recognize that the legality of divorce
is not in dispute –
only the groundsfor divorce.
Jesus does not disagree with the legality of divorce;
he makes a theological comment
about the nature of marriage.

And by the way,
we should also understand that polygamy
was still legally practiced in Jesus’ day.
Having more than one wife
was not illegal,
irreligious,
or adulterous,
and Jesus never makes a case against polygamy.

What Jesus says,
is that Deuteronomy 24, verse 1
was given to us because God understood
our hardness of heart.
In other words, God ‘gets’ human beings.

God understood that we are human
and that there is no perfection
among human beings,
and that human beings may begin a venture
with the greatest of intention
but there is no guarantee we will finish it.
God, in Deuteronomy 24, Jesus says,
was letting us off the hook –
giving us an out and a backdoor, so to speak.

Now I can hear the perfectionist in me,
and those who are terribly scrupulous
and very hard on ourselves
about the slightest failure,
feeling uncomfortable that such huge backdoor
only leads to complacency.

But allow me to remind us
about the fundamental meaning
of one of the 10 Commandments
most associated with this issue.
“Thou shall not take the name of your Lord God in vain.”

We have been wrongly taught
to trivialize this commandment to mean
we are not supposed to saydamn
and other unsociable swear words.
That is not what this commandment was about.

What this commandment tells us,
is that we should never swear an oath
in the name of God.

For us, in our 21^stcentury context,
that means we should use the Civil Oath
in the court of law, for example.
Why?
Because we are human.
Any oath we take,
no matter how earnest we are in our intent,
is never a sure bet.

We may mean what we promise
but not be able to keep our promise.
There are always forces beyond our control
that we cannot foresee.
And besides that, we are human
and we have frailties
and sometimes…we just don’t keep
the promises we make.

So, according to this commandment,
we are not to trivialize God-the-absolute,
by taking an oath in God’s name
that is anything but absolute.
In other words,
do not promise what you cannot guarantee.
Those ancients were very wise.

We need to be disabused
of the idea that when someone gets divorced
they have broken a promise to God.

In the Episcopal wedding ceremony,
we ask God to blessour promise to one another,
but we do not promise God
that we will never break our marriage vows.

So you see how interesting, complex,
and rich this seemingly absolute teaching
actually is?

But, having said all of that,
Jesus isn’t content to let us off the hook.
He always leaves us with some unique wisdom
on the subject,
elbowing his way to a position in between
Hillel and Shammai.

God understood you, Jesus says,
and gave you Deuteronomy 24, verse 1,
but remember Genesis?
God also created us male and female, one flesh.

Jesus insists that any conversation about divorce
include a reminder of the purpose of marriage:
which is to enjoin us
in a union that makes us one and interdependent.
And though the verbiage of Genesis
is male and female,
we have now said that this is also true
for men who marry men
and women who marry women.
Just another example that, for us,
the Bible on its own is not absolute.

What Jesus is pointing out
actually seems like an obvious truth:
marriage makes us one flesh
and even though we may get divorced
it literally rips us apart.

We know this to be true:
Whether we have been divorced
or had a deep and intimate bond broken
outside of marriage,
we know that divorce is not a separation
but an amputation.

Jesus is simply telling the truth.
The dissolution of a relationship
that follows the union of two people
in body, mind and spirit,
is an amputation.
It is painful and grievous
even when done for all the right reasons;
and even when the best possible healing takes place,
that missing limb will be with us in the next relationship
like an amputee’s phantom arm.

That is just the nature of things, Jesus reminds us.

It is his shorthand way of saying
we bring all of who we are
into this most intimate relationship,
so those with whom we have been intimate
will travel with us into the next relationship
whether we want them there to or not.

And as an aside,
this is also true of other profoundly intimate relationships,
like family – all of whom
migrate with us into our marriages.
Even if we were disowned by our parents,
and maybe especially if we had such a fracture,
they are a phantom limb in our marriage
still throbbing and sending signals
to our nerve endings.

So you see,
Jesus does not question the legality of divorce –
that divorce is legal is presumed
throughout the whole conversation.
But neither does he deny
the deep and pervasive truth of marriage,
and its physical and intimate union:
It makes us one flesh
and stays with us wherever we go
and with whomever we are with.

And there is one more thing
in these words of Jesus.
People were bringing little children to him
in order that he might touch them;
and the disciples spoke sternly to them.
But Jesus went ballistic and said:
“Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God
like a little child will never enter it.”

On the surface of it,
the debate about divorce
and the little kid-thing
would seem to be totally disconnected.
But they are not.

As I pointed out recently,
in another such Gospel story,
in the ancient world children, like women,
had no rights.
They were on the bottom rungs
of a rigid hierarchy of social caste.
Children had nothing to give
and therefore they had little worth.
They were vulnerable and needy
and merely a necessary hassle.
Children were like women,
who men could dismiss and replace.
But Jesus says, “No.”

Jesus tells the powerful and the insiders,
all of whom were men,
that when we stand on the margin
with women and children
and all others who are marginalized,
that then we will become open
to the Kingdom of God in our midst.

That translates to us this way:
When we recognize our power,
and then willingly enter into our powerlessness,
and stand with others in their powerlessness –
it will open us to God
in ways we have never known.
It is our presumption of power and control,
and our lust for perfection,
that keeps us from knowing God’s presence
even though it is always present
within and among us.

Jesus’ teaching on divorce
is really about the nature of marriage.
And his teaching on marriage
is really about sharing power and powerlessness.

6 Epiphany 2017: We don’t have to be “good”

February 12, 2017 by Cam Miller

Anser_caerulescens_CT8
Link to a Liturgical Poem for 6 Epiphany: http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/geese/geese.html

Link to Lectionary texts for 6 Epiphany: http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts.php?id=18

The reading from Matthew this morning
begs for a foil,
someone or something
to stand in the middle of the road
and risk being run over
by the steamroller coming through.

Mary Oliver volunteered.

We do not have to be good.

Let me say it again,
even though I know it contradicts
everything we think we know from Scripture,
and especially from what we heard today:
We do not have to be good.

So let us dig a little deeper
than the categorical thinking we meet
on the surface of Matthew.
As hard as Matthew works to disguise it,
Jesus is actually quite compassionate and progressive
on divorce.

First of all, I want to just put it out there
in no uncertain terms:
the position of the Roman Catholic Church on divorce
is not rooted in Jesus.
Nor, by the way, was or is
the common understanding of divorce
in The Episcopal Church.

Again, let’s dig deeper.
Jesus’ teaching on divorce
is treated slightly differently
in the three gospels in which it appears:
Mark, Matthew and Luke.
So I am going to talk specifically
about what Jesus says according to Mark,
because Mark was the first Gospel
and both Matthew and Luke were poured from its mold.

As is true with anything we read or encounter
from ancient times – or more recent ones, for that matter –
to fully understand Jesus’ teaching on divorce
we have to know what is in the background.

So first of all,
Jesus is not merely being questioned
about his opinion on divorce;
the question has a very specific context.
The audience wants to know,
which of the great rabbis Jesus agrees with:
Rabbi Hillel or Rabbi Shammai?

In fact, a great many of the
parables and proverbial sayings of Jesus
are either from one of these two great rabbis
or a variation on what one or both of them taught.
Jesus did not just appear out of the clear blue sky,
like Superman from Krypton,
but was raised and influenced
by his time and place just as we are.

Jesus was born
and lived in the shadow
of these two great teachers and scholars,
Hillel and Shammai.
As if a grand theological “Point-Counter-Point,”
Hillel was what we might call the liberal
and Shammai the conservative –
although those modern categories
do not really work for the ancient text.

In the background of almost every question
a lawyer, Pharisee, or scribe poses to Jesus,
stand the hulking figures of Hillel and Shammai.
“Whose side are you on?” they ask Jesus.

Every bit as much
as they want to know Jesus’ opinion about divorce,
Jesus is actually being asked,
which authority he follows.
Not surprisingly, rather than taking sides,
Jesus does an unexpected dance
between the two great rabbis.

Here is the basic argument about divorce
that forms the context in which Jesus is asked the question. (And by the way, his answer on divorce,
is an example of how Jesus moves through polarities
rather than hanging out on any single pole).

Hillel and Shammai
argued about how the law on divorce,
in the Book of Deuteronomy,
should be interpreted.

Every argument at the time
hinged on that Deuteronomic law.

Deuteronomy grants permission for divorce
but only if a clear and specific regulation is followed.
Divorce was allowed for the man, not the woman.
But a man could not simply abandon his wife;
he had to follow a procedure called, “the bill of divorce”.
It was intended, in Deuteronomy,
as progressive for its time –
insuring more humane treatment of women and children
than the previous practice,
which was to simply abandon a wife
that was no longer wanted.

We need to remember that in Jesus’ day,
polygamy was still allowed,
and so this argument
was never about multiple marriages.
In fact, it is interesting to contemplate what adultery
might mean in a polygamous society,
rather than in one based upon the premise of monogamy.
But I’m not going to go there today.

So Hillel argued
that almost anything
could be a legitimate grounds for divorce –
bad cooking as much as infidelity.

Shammai said, no,
only infidelity is a legitimate ground for divorce.

It is in that context,
between those two positions, someone asks,
“Hey Jesus, what do you think?”

Jesus takes an abrupt and stunning turn
away from Deuteronomy,
and instead roots his argument
in another scripture altogether:
The Book of Genesis.

Jesus says, “remember how God created us male and female,
and how we were joined together (quoting from Genesis)?
Well, what God has joined together
no one can separate.”
Jesus is pointing to the human reality
of painful separation, loss, and abandonment
rather than to some fine point in the law.

From what I have been told
by those who have been through divorce,
it is in fact, more amputation than separation.

Even though the person we were enjoined with
is no longer present,
and even though a piece of paper
says we are no longer joined,
the phantom pain and memory
of a lost limb is still there.
After divorce,
so I have been told,
a piece of us is gone,
just as if a spouse had died.

For one thing,
most people get married with hopes and dreams
about the future.
The loss of hopes and dreams is a grief all of its own.

Even when the divorce is a long time in coming,
and there is no ambivalence
about it being the right and necessary thing to do,
the memories can be like
the phantom sense of a severed limb – still there,
and always a piece of us.
As therapists and counselors can attest,
no one who has been divorced,
or in any kind of profoundly intimate relationship,
ever goes into the next relationship
without bringing their former spouse or partners
right along with them.
That is just a fact of life for us,
just like we bring our mom and dad and sisters and brothers
into our relationships with us as well.

So Jesus does not make a case against the legality of divorce.
The legality of divorce
was never a question in Jesus’ day.

Nor for that matter, was the legality of polygamy.
Jesus does not say that divorce should be illegal,
which is what he would have said
if he were making that case.
Instead, he simply says,
that those who were once joined together by God
no one and nothing
can unjoin.
And we know, from our own experiences, that is very true.

So you see, the question about divorce
is not whether it is legal or not.
The question about divorce
has to do with the personal,
spiritual, and psychological truth
that people who have been joined
at that level of intimacy
are not separated
simply by a legal process or document.
It does everyone involved a disservice to pretend otherwise.

“Whose side are you on, Jesus, Hillel or Shammai?”
Jesus responds: “That’s the wrong question.”

What I imagine Jesus might say to us today,
is that the thing we should be talking about
is not the legality of divorce,
that is a given.
Rather, we should be talking about healing
when and after
a divorce takes place.

Let’s not jabberjaw with legalistic arguments, Jesus might say,
when there is real hurt and pain to deal with.

That’s what I imagine the meaning of his argument implied
to those standing around him.

In other words, Jesus might as well have said,
Let’s realize that when people have shared their
love,
dreams,
home,
their bodies,
and children,
no law will heal the amputation.
So stop with the silly either/or arguments already,
and let’s focus on how to nurture healing.

It seems to me that is what Jesus
was saying with his Genesis rebuttal
to the Deuteronomy argument.

But now, let’s go back to Mary Oliver
and where we began:
We do not have to be good.

In fact, we do not always recognize
what is good
over what is bad, or even evil.
There are many times in our lives,
both personally and historically,
that we do not have enough information
in the moment of decision,
to know whether we are making
a “good” or “bad” decision.
Does that make us “bad” if we choose poorly –
I don’t think so.

The truth is,
if our eyes are open
and our minds receptive,
we understand that qualifiers
such as good and bad,
moral and immoral,
true and false…
are almost always gradations or continuums,
rather than stationary positions
that never move
and are always the same.

My life has not been very long compared so some of you,
but I cannot remember a time since the 1960’s
when we had such a wide-spread,
social mental illness
as we do right now.

It is not just ‘out there’ in the world either,
but right here in this congregation –
around us,
and among us,
and within us.

I am of course referring to the categorization,
the bitter bifurcation, and alienation,
between Trump and Not-Trump;
between left, right, and center;
between black lives matter and all lives matter;
and every other categorical separation
we have, and are creating.

This polarization makes the world,
and our every action and thought a categorical polemic
between black and white,
right and wrong,
straight and crooked,
good and bad.
There is no in-between,
no gradation,
no gray,
no ambiguity,
no situational particularity.

It is a common adolescent worldview
in the literature of human development theory.
Except, when we are fully grown adults
and adolescent thinking is still raging in our minds,
it becomes more of a mental illness.

When adults try to live in a thoroughly polarized world,
it creates the same whirlwind,
rollercoaster ride of emotion
that is characteristic of a teenager.

I would go so far as to suggest
such categorical, polarized thinking
contributes to all manner of social ill
from substance abuse to infidelity,
and from segregation to violence.

In our more sane moments,
we recognize our world
as far more nuanced
than the one characterized by the current
political, theatrical, and news media Rorschach.

We know we live on a continuum between the poles,
and rarely, if ever,
do we actually stand on one
or the other extreme.

Our real world,
THE real world,
calls for much more consultation with others
than pole-sitting at the extremes allow us.

True community,
true spiritual community,
includes sharing our hearts and minds
with one another,
and with sages and professionals,
both ancient and contemporary,
who offer guidance for better ways of living.

We do not have to be good
because we cannot be good
in any absolute sense.
Being “good” in absolute terms
is not one of our choices.

We get to be
good AND bad,
lucky AND sad,
right AND wrong,
up AND down,
in AND out,
and bounced on bumps all along those continuums
like a stagecoach on a dirt road.

That is where we live…all the time.

And in order to live there
with a modicum of happiness and joy,
we have to be able to
“…let the soft animal of our body love what it loves.”
We …do not have to walk on our knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

Instead, we have to listen
for …the world (to) offer itself to our imagination,
call(ing) to (us) like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing our place
in the family of things.

What I hope we hear in all of this
is that we are not supposed to live in a straightjacket
between absolute right and absolute wrong,
but within the world
and the life
that is ours to live.
It is a world in which the wild geese
call our name
and announce our place
in the midst of a living world,
rather than a brutally idealized world
of false categories.

Sometimes, and this is one of those times,
the task of the preacher
is not to proclaim the Scripture
but to hammer it to see what’s in there.
The poles are fire and ice
and we need to move away from them, not toward them.

We do not have to be good,
because that is not one of our choices.

Now when you go home and someone asks,
“What did that guy preach about this time?”
Please don’t say, “Oh, he said we don’t have to be good.”
Instead, though it’s a little more complicated,
say that he said, we need to live as faithfully as we know how
in whichever moment we are in,
with the choices we are given –
AND, like Jesus,
by creating more choices if possible,
than the ones others have given us.

Proper 22B, 2018: It’s not about the legality of divorce, rather, the nature of marriage

6 Epiphany 2017: We don’t have to be “good”

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