It is interesting that Jesus does not engage in questions about divorce. When is it possible? What are good reasons to do it? How should property be divided? For Jesus, divorce is a symptom of human immaturity. It is a ‘breakdown’ in relationship. Friends are lost, communion is lost. The One who came to restore creation wants it otherwise.
When people choose to separate, they tend to focus on the surface of things, to break connection and become detached. Spiritually mature people work to build community and have a huge impact on the world of breakdown and separation. As Martin Buber said, “The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer world meet. Where they overlap, it is in every point of the overlap”. (The Sphere of the In-Between)
For Jesus, marriage is the most beautiful symbol of this overlap. Two are not two, but One. The cause of this joining, and it’s destiny, is the love of loves that is drawn from the wellspring of Gods heart. Divorce is the culmination of an inability to do this. Individuals break and then break away from each other. This is also a breaking away of the surface from the depths. This happens because their hearts have been broken or hardened. A person who is turned in on their self cannot melt, flow and merge. Jesus, the second Adam,(1 Cor 15) wants all life to be healed and permeated by the truth of communion, the truth of ‘the Garden’. This presents a huge challenge for His disciples and for the community of disciples – the church. How do we become relational artists? How do we nurture the physical, social, moral, psychological and spiritual maturity of a person which makes them ready for this depth of living?
I recently came across this poem. It is not about marriage but about a lost relationship. I thought it was beautiful and I hope you do too. It is written by a father who gave his son up for adoption because he was unable to look after him. It is called,
THINGS NOT SAID
Things not said, advice not given, envelopes unstamped, regrets enveloping me.
Is it easier there? I wonder. I ponder. I guess yes. I guess – yes.
Do you think of me as I do of you my son, my son, my son.
The things you’ll do, I’ll never know
The pain, the secrets.
Oh, to be given a chance, a start, the restart, the fresh start.
Will love come for you as it did for me? Find you, wreck you, save you, change you?
And if life breaks for you, the way that it would not break for me,
If love hunts you, finds you, captures you,
Will you hold it tight, nurture it, protect it.
I hope you will. I hope you can.
This father’s advice is not required. It has no call.
So instead I’ll share some from another.
It is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.
And now an addendum to my earlier advice.
If I am so lucky as to still have your ear.
I love you.
I lost you.
And I advised you, ‘Twas better than to never having loved at all.
But now with more years
With more time and more perspective
I see things in a slightly new way.
So here my good son is a fathers advice
Updated and recalled.
It is better to have loved and lost – surely!
But ……. try not to lose it at all.
