A young couple decided to wed. As the big day approached, they grew apprehensive. Each had a problem they had never before shared with anyone, not even each other.
The groom-to-be, overcoming his fear, decided to ask his father for advice. “Dad,” he said, “I am deeply concerned about the success of my marriage. I love my fiancée very much, but you see, I have very smelly feet, and I’m afraid that my future wife will be put off by them.”
“No problem,” said his dad. “All you have to do is wash your feet as often as possible and always wear socks, even to bed.” Well, to him this seemed a workable solution.
The bride-to-be, overcoming her fear, decided to take her problem up with her mom. “Mom,” she said, “When I wake up in the morning my breath is truly awful.”
“Honey,” her mother consoled, “everyone has bad breath in the morning.”
“No, you don’t understand. My morning breath is so bad, I’m afraid that my new husband will not want to sleep in the same room with me.”
Her mother said simply, “Try this. In the morning, get straight out of bed and head for the bathroom and brush your teeth. The key is not to say a word until you’ve brushed your teeth. Not a word,” her mother affirmed. Well, she thought it was certainly worth a try.
The loving couple was finally married in a beautiful ceremony. Not forgetting the advice each had received, he with his perpetual socks and she with her morning silence, they managed quite well. That is, until about six months later.
Shortly before dawn, the husband woke with a start to find that one of his socks had come off. Fearful of the consequences, he frantically searched the bed. This, of course, woke his bride, who without thinking, immediately asked, “What on earth are you doing?”
“Oh, no!” he gasped in shock, “You’ve swallowed my sock!” (1)
Terrible joke, I know. But would anybody argue with me that we take marriage far too lightly in our society? It is a major commitment.
When Mary Nichols of Arlington, Virginia announced that she was getting married, her excited mother said, “You have to have the rehearsal dinner someplace opulent, where there’s dancing.”
Her father, seeing where this was heading, said, “I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to elope.”
“And you have to have a breakfast for the people who are coming from out of town,” her mother continued.
“Two thousand,” her father countered.
Her mother was just getting started. “We’ll need a photographer. Oh, and what colors do you want for the reception?”
“Five thousand!” her father nearly shouted.
Later, Mary, the bride-to-be, said. “We eloped to Spain.” (2)
Phyllis Showers of San Diego, CA listened with interest as her two young children discussed marriage. Her son declared, “When I grow up, I’m going to marry you, Mommy.”
“You can’t marry your own mother,” said his older sister.
“Then I’ll marry you,” he replied.
“You can’t marry me either,” said his sister.
He looked confused, so his mother explained, “You can’t marry someone in your own family.”
He thought about this for a minute and cried, “You mean I have to marry a total stranger?” (3)
Maybe that’s the problem with marriage today. Too many of us are marrying total strangers. I don’t have to tell you that marriage today is in a sorry state.
When Aldous Huxley wrote his famous novel about the future, Brave New World, he predicted that some day marriage licenses would be sold just like dog licenses--good for only twelve months. Furthermore, you would be able to use them for a different “pet”--I mean, spouse--each time, if that’s what you want. And you could purchase as many as makes you happy!
Fortunately we are not at that state yet, but who can doubt that traditional marriages are facing difficulties. Marriages are coming apart at an alarming rate. Sometimes there are some very understandable reasons why a marriage comes apart. And few of us are in a position to point fingers. Nearly every family has been touched in some way by this epidemic, both inside and outside the church.
One statistic that surprises many people is that divorce in the church is just as common as outside the church. That’s according the very reliable Barna research. In the church the figure is 33%, outside the church 34%. The so-called Bible belt of the South is second in the nation in divorces with 35%, just behind the West (38%), and leading the Midwest (32%) and Northeast (28%). Does that surprise you?
Meanwhile, inside marriages, there is widespread infidelity and domestic abuse--physical, verbal, emotional and sexual. For many couples there is a lack of care and concern and an obvious lack of seriousness about the marriage vows.
Actually this is nothing new. Some of the Pharisees of Jesus’ day were just as lax in their treatment of marriage as many are today. And they had strong biblical grounds. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 allowed a Jewish man to divorce his wife and remarry if she became “displeasing to him because he found something indecent about her.” In such a case the man could write a certificate of divorce, give it to her and send her on her way. Women had no such recourse, even if her husband watched football all week-end, was generally non-communicative and left his clothes all over the house. You can see how unfair this was. Many of the Pharisees, on the other hand, were redefining “indecent.” They were putting away their wives for trivial matters--burning his steak, nagging him or gaining a few pounds.
Actually, not all Pharisees took such a relaxed view of marriage. Rabbi Shammai, one of the important rabbis of the day, allowed divorce only if the wife was guilty of sexual immorality. A better known rabbi however, Rabbi Hillel, allowed a husband to divorce his wife for almost any reason. In that day of overt sexism, of course, neither rabbi could have imagined women divorcing their husband.
In Mark 10 some Pharisees approached Jesus to test him to see what he believed about divorce and remarriage. Now, it’s important to see that the Pharisees didn’t really care what Jesus thought about marriage. This was a test. They wanted him to give a self-incriminating response that would arouse opposition against him. Maybe, they thought, he would contradict the commands of Moses in Deuteronomy. Perhaps they expected Jesus to take sides among the rabbinic schools in this dispute, thereby splitting the ranks of his followers. Or maybe in his response, he would offend Herod Antipas as John the Baptist did and be arrested and executed, since he was under Herod’s jurisdiction.
Jesus, however, did none of the above. He skipped right over Moses’ teaching to the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis. He wanted to educate the Pharisees as to God’s ideal for marriage. Moses wrote the law in Deuteronomy allowing divorce, Jesus said, in view of the hardheartedness of the people in refusing to accept God’s ideal of love, commitment and forgiveness. Jesus then contrasts their view of marriage with God’s view from the beginning of creation. Now you, too, may ask what is God’s view?
According to Genesis 2:21-24, God caused Adam to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of Adam’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of Adam, and he brought her to Adam. And Adam said, “Wow!” or something like that. Then he added, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”
I like what Dr. Peter Butler says about this passage. He says “some of us may be tempted to say, ‘What nonsense--a fairytale!’ It may be helpful to know that the word that is used here, tsela, may mean a human rib bone, but, more often it refers simply to “a side of something.” In the book of Jonah, this is the word that is used when we are told the boat rolled from side to side--from rib to rib. So, if it pleases you, don’t think of God removing a single rib from Adam, but dividing Adam into two human beings.
“Which is the better understanding?” Dr. Butler continues, “I’m not sure it makes a difference. The point is this: in creating Eve out of Adam, not out of the dust like Adam, Adam and Eve were not merely like beings, they were two halves of the whole . . . thus establishing the equality of the man and the woman--they were created out of the same lump, as it were. They were both created in the image of God. They were not created competitive beings, but two beings who complete each other as one. Thus we have Adam’s confession: ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh . . .’” (4)
God made them male and female yet fully complementary to each other. The Genesis writer concludes, “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” As one flesh, this new couple forms a relationship just as indissoluble as a blood relationship between parent and child.
Implied also, is a responsibility for one another. The other person has become part of me (we share one flesh/body) and as I take care of me and want the best for me, I must also want the best for my mate and seek his or her highest good. That is God’s ideal.
That realization prevents the need for the divorce in the first place. For a man does not treat his own flesh with contempt. He does not abuse or neglect his own flesh (unless of course, there are deep psychological and spiritual issues). All those things we do in marriages that cause the relationship to break down will be avoided if we understand that how we are treating the other is not how we are supposed to treat our own flesh. Marriage is meant to be a covenant of mutual fidelity to a lifelong union made before God. It doesn’t always work out like that, of course, even for the best of people, but that is the ideal. Then Jesus goes on to add a prohibition. “Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Do you see how this all fits together? Because husband and wife are one flesh, no one should ever try to separate them. Later when Jesus’ disciples questioned him privately about the subject of divorce, Jesus amplified his views on the topic. He added, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” This seemed to those who heard this teaching to be a hard saying just like it was a hard saying when Jesus said if a man looks at a woman and lusts after her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
Jesus often spoke like this to show up the self-righteousness of the Pharisees, who thought themselves very pious and righteous. By holding up God’s ideals, he drove home the point that none of us is righteous before God. We are all sinners.
So we come to our situation today in a society where so many children are growing up in broken homes and when so many are betraying their marriage vows. Need I say to you that this is not God’s intent? A breakup of a marriage is not only a sin of a man against his wife or a wife against her husband, it is also a sin against God’s purpose for marriage. Husbands and wives should make every effort to preserve a union once made. Of course, the problem with marriage is that it is the union of two fallible creatures. None of us is completely righteous, no matter who we may be. And, therefore, we depend on the grace and mercy of God. But may we always hold up God’s ideal for marriage, and may we strive to maintain this ideal in all our households. God created husband and wife to be one flesh.
In 1984 Jean Grasso Fitzpatrick researched successful marriages and then wrote an article for the New York Daily News titled, “Marriage for the Long Haul.” Here is what she had to say:
“In the neighborhood where I grew up, there was a white-haired couple who often went off for a stroll around supper time. I’m still touched by how comfortable they looked together, walking hand in hand down the road past the trees and houses where their children had once played.
“It’s the longing for that--not for fairy tale bliss or the romance or a royal wedding--that propels couples to the altar; the dream of lifelong companionship that grows closer with each year as we accumulate layer upon layer of shared memories.
“We all begin our married lives by making a commitment to that when we repeat the vows ‘For better, for worse;’ and ‘till death us do part.’
“Do the couples who stay together possess a special knack for translating their commitment into a code of daily behavior that keeps it strong?
“The first thing I discovered was that these couples, no matter what their ages, start out with what some might call an old-fashioned idea--for them, marriage is for keeps. ‘Commitment,’ said one wife, ‘means no escape clause.’”
Is that an old-fashioned idea--that marriage is for keeps? Perhaps. However, that simply means that society has changed. It does not mean God’s ideal has changed. It has not.
“At the beginning of creation,” said Jesus, “God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
1. http://www.jokes2go.com/jokes/5529.html.
2. Reader’s Digest (Reader’s Digest USA).
3. Ibid.
4. http://secondrefirvington.blogspot.com/2008/09/created-for-one-another-sermon-genesis.html.