One of the most
troubling verses in the Bible for me comes from the prophet Malachi, chapter
2:16.
"I
hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's
covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the LORD
Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. (Pasted
from
http://www.biblestudytools.com/malachi/2.html)
So as not to take
the verse out of its context, Malachi is talking about the sons of Israel who
have married the "daughters of
foreign gods". Whether they have
divorced other wives in order to do so, or divorced the foreign wives is
unclear from the context here, but contemporary writing in Ezra indicates that
there was a mass move to divorce the foreign wives in the post-exilic period as
a means of "repenting" in order to inherit God's favor. If this is the case here, Malachi is
essentially telling the returning exiles that two wrongs don't make a right.
Again this makes sense in the statement that a man is covering himself with
violence (the divorce) and breaking faith not just with God by marrying the
foreign wife, but then also with the wife.
Hate is a pretty
strong word, and it merits a the question; why does God hate divorce?
In Genesis 1:26+27
we read:
Then
God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them
rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock,
over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the
ground." So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he
created him; male and female he created them. (Pasted from
http://www.biblestudytools.com/genesis/1.html)
This is the sixth
day of creation, God creates man (plural: let them) in our (plural) image.
Verse 27 more succinctly puts it "So God created man in his own image, in
the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." There is something then about this plural
relationship which is illustrative of God, for it is his image. Scholars have
long debated the "Imago Dei" as it's known deducing many probable
attributes of man that seem distinct from the other of God's creatures.
Rationality, Consciousness, the combined nature of spirit mind and body, even
the place of man as ruler or steward of creation. It is not however necessary
that the Imago Dei must be a distinct characteristic unique to human beings. If
God indeed created all that is "Ex Nihilo" as Augustine posits, then
the "Ex Nihilo" from which the cosmos came into being is the
substance of God himself, namely his spoken word (God said let there be light,
and there was light).
Consequently, many
aspects of creation may bear aspects of the creator, indeed all should, and yet
the "Imago Dei" is in fact mentioned uniquely about mankind. This may
indicate that God intended to reveal his character, his nature, his being through
mankind more fully than through any of the other created things. God is love,
we read in first John, and the plurality of a God who refers to himself as
"our" indicates a God of relationship. Is it possible that the Imago
Dei is at least partially found in our capacity to love, indeed our desire and
need to love? Tangentially, someone may mention the fact that animals display
love, but this does not diminish the intention of God's image in man; we simply
point to the passage that says if we fail to glorify God, even the rocks will
cry out.
If "Love"
is the "Image" then we find that image distorted through the fall.
The choice of self in being the judges of good and evil causes us to
misapprehend the image because of the ever present lens of self. Philosophers
and Judeo Christian Scholars have wrestled with a hierarchy of the various
types of love that we encounter in life ranking eros at the bottom followed by
phileo, and above all the selfless agape.
We romanticize about the unrequited nature of agape but the distortion
of this image can be seen in the foolishness of tragic fictional characters
such as Cyrano DE Bergerac. What we can witness from life, about the nature of
love itself, is a progression from the dependent obedient love of children
whose parents give of themselves, to a brotherly love that exists as we make
friends and start to understand the mutual nature of relationship, on to the
creation and possible mutual intimacy and benefit experienced in the marital
relationship.
To love costs
something. We’ve all heard that to have a friend, you have to be a friend. If
we flip the western Judeo Christian construct over we find that Agape is the
beginning, and opening for love to become possible. The Gospel stories of Jesus
demonstrate this, indeed Paul says that Christ made peace with us on the cross
opening the door to love; initially through dependence and obedience. When
Christ says no longer do I call you servants, but I call you friends; we are
witnessing the progression as in our own experience of life to a mutuality of
love. And just as the Christian and the Church are referred to as the Bride of
Christ, there is an expectant mutual intimacy into which God's love for us and
our love for God is supposed to build.
As in our
experience, often intimacy is short circuited, self demands obedience,
submission, crimes and misdemeanors against love leave us distant and hurt. We
allow ourselves to become distant from others and divorce takes place. Divorce
then isn't merely the social crime of leaving a spouse in the cold, but the
severing of relationship in direct opposition to the image of love which God
desires to reveal himself through. This is why God hates divorce it would seem.
This is not to say
that Divorce is not at times necessary because we indeed live in a world where
love is broken. Abandonment, Abuse, Opportunism, all are valid reasons to
realize that true intimacy is impossible, but Christianity seems too
comfortable with divorce. Not only do we tolerate divorce in the marital
relationship, but we divorce ourselves on such a regular basis from others who
have differing political perspectives, theological opinions, styles of worship,
ethnic origin, socio-economic status, and sometimes merely because we don't
like someone.
If we are called as
Christians to be salt and light, are we not called to be part of God's
revelation of his character, and especially of his love? What violence are we
covering ourselves in if in our search for personal purity and convenience we
destroy the opportunity for God to reveal himself through us?
