Faithfulness

Malachi 2:10-17New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors? Judah has been faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the Lord, which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob anyone who does this—any to witness or answer, or to bring an offering to the Lord of hosts.

And this you do as well: You cover the Lord’s altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor at your hand. You ask, “Why does he not?” Because the Lord was a witness between you and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant. Did not one God make her? Both flesh and spirit are his. And what does the one God desire? Godly offspring. So look to yourselves, and do not let anyone be faithless to the wife of his youth. For I hate divorce, says the Lord, the God of Israel, and covering one’s garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless.

You have wearied the Lord with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?”

This is a tough passage to read if you are divorced.  But there are several of those in scripture, so perhaps it isn't too surprising.

A lot can be said about what divorce meant then versus what divorce means now.  And I do believe that.  I'm not about to go throwing judgments out against any divorced folks.  I come from a family where divorce became the norm.  I myself have been divorced.  

And I happen to believe God still loves us all.

But I think about my grandparents, and the covenant they made to each other.  I think about how it must have been sad to see all three of their children get divorced and then one of their grandchildren (me) get divorced.

I'm sure there are times they shook their heads and thought to themselves, "We didn't raise them this way."

And they didn't.  They had as beautiful a marriage as I've ever seen.  It was a covenant in every sense of the word.

God says here that God hates divorce.  I believe that as much as I believe that God loves the broken people who get divorced.  I believe also that there are times when divorce becomes the only option and that this passage shouldn't be used as a club over the head to say otherwise.

And yet it is important to remember why God hates divorce.  

God seeks our faithfulness not simply to God's self, but to each other.  God's love is big and deep and wide enough to include all of us - the ALL that this one God created - and so wants our love for each other to be that big and deep and wide enough too.

It is easy to get lost in the law in passages like this.  Don't get divorced, it would say under the law.

Or we can see it as a way to reorient ourselves toward each other: for each of us to treat the other with the kind of love and respect and faith that God has for them and for us.

Faithful God, help us to love each other faithfully and truthfully and with the respect that those who are your creation would merit!  Amen