Integrity in a Culture of Divorce
Unitarian Universalist Church of Muncie
June 14, 2009
©2009 Rev. Thomas Perchlik
READINGS
Earl Grollman, quoted in Coping with Loss: Teachings from a Master, by Dan Kennedy
"Divorce is worse than physical death in many ways, because with death there is closure. It's the end, that's the funeral, that's the casket, it's over. With divorce, it's never over unless there's no money involved, no children involved, and both parties have found different mates."
Matthew 19:3-10
3Some Pharisees came to him to test [Jesus]. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?" 4"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' 5and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? 6So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." 7"Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?" 8Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery." 10The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."
Surah 49:12,13 (Muslim wedding words)
"O you who believe! Avoid much suspicion;' indeed some suspicions are sins. And spy not, neither backbite one another... and fear Allah, Verily, God is the One Who forgives and accepts repentance, Most Merciful. O humankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another."
SERMON
The word Unitarian evokes Unity. Not simply the one Truth Ultimate, but one Earth, one humanity, one interwoven web of being, or One Love, as Bob Marley put it. We assert and seek oneness, and yet, we are reminded of division, we painfully encounter every day the divisions, the conflicts, the divorcing of one from another. There are many people who would gladly drop every one of us out of America. There are many who have divided themselves from us, who think they can pure and separate the saved from the dammed, the gays from the straights. They are sorely mistaken, but that does not resolve the division, the hurt and separation. Please not that the title of my sermon today is not as advertised in our printed materials. I am not interested in finding fault so much as finding wholeness and "Integrity in a Culture of Divorce." Divorce is sometimes necessary, divorce can be the right choice for some; people will separate, people will take separate paths. So then, how can we find wholeness, peace and integrity in the midst of such reality? A first step is to claim integrity as our goal and hope.
The first time I was forced to think about divorce as a religious issue was when I was visiting my cousins, aunt and uncle in Ohio a few years back. I knew one of my cousins was going through a painful divorce and they knew I was a minister, but suddenly we realized that I was a Unitarian Universalist minister and the woman who was divorcing him was a UU who had been supported by her UU Minister in choosing what some call a 'unilateral' divorce. He still wanted to be married, he was a good Catholic and felt it was best to work things out, but I imagine, knowing that he was a relatively conservative guy and, she had decided she could not live with him anymore. He was hurt, but as we sat around a table it was my Aunt who began to grill me about the UU doctrines on divorce.
I wanted to simply say that UUs have no doctrines, but that would not suffice. I told them that the details of most ethical decisions are left up to the individual and that we each must make our own choices. I said that the church in general would not tell her that divorce was automatically right or wrong. I guessed that they found my answers less than satisfying. Divorce is difficult and painful. How can we find integrity and wholeness in its presence?
In the context of inevitable divorce some conservative preachers have sought for someone to blame and recently they have chosen people who seek marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples as being a threat to marriage. This is, of course, a red herring because heterosexual marriages were in trouble long before we began to speak of gay marriage, with over half of all first marriages ending in divorce, and nearly half of all second marriages. In fact one in four, or twenty five percent, of all American adults have gone through a divorce. Some have blamed the selfish "me generation" of baby boomers for increasing divorce rates. In fact the generation before theirs, the one often called the Builders, has had more divorce. Of adults who are now from fifty-three to seventy-two years of age, thirty-seven percent have endured a divorce compared to thirty-four percent of Boomers. The rate of those before the builders was only 18%.
Things have changed. Earlier, because the Jesus of the Gospels is completely against divorce, (except in Matthew, where he says it is only permissible if the woman is unfaithful,) Christian cultures have made divorce a scandal. But in the middle of the 20th Century people in America began to find that there were many reasons for divorce. Coming before a judge one man said, "Judge, my marriage has been a three ring circus: an engagement ring, a wedding ring and a suffer-ring." And one woman complained that every time she found Mr. Right, her husband scared him away. Of course there are many legitimate reasons for divorce, habitual physical abuse, an elimination of trust, emotional abuse and lack of mutual respect. Lack of respect is one of the most certain causes of divorce. Mutual respect is what helps us maintain integrity, even when we must go through a divorce.
Before 1970 in order to be divorced in our legal system it had to be proven that one person or the other had committed some crime, and thus was "at fault." Lawyers found that they had to coach their clients to lie on the stand in order to get the judge to decree dissolution of the marriage. Often an imaginary girlfriend, boyfriend, or series of beatings was summoned on the witness stand. If the lawyer had not done his work well the judge might ask, for example, the hair color of the woman the man cheated with and he would get two different answers. There were many complaints about this state of affairs (pun intended.) Finally, in 1970, California created a no-fault divorce law and these spread to all 50 states. Though this ended a sometimes terrible practice of blaming someone, in court, for the divorce it has not ended the pain and hurt.
In the late 70s, when I was in high school, the parents of one of my classmates decided to divorce. They were friends, but had never been close. They had married because she was pregnant with their oldest son, and when their second child was about to graduate from high school they felt it was time to go their separate ways. She wanted to start a career in a bigger city, he was very happy with his career as it was, etc. So they went to a lawyer and asked for a divorce. But they lawyer, still running in the old mode, said that he could not represent both of them. So she took that lawyer and he got another, and then the lawyers said that they could not talk to one another, that the lawyers would do all the talking. Over the coming weeks the divorce became more and more bitter, she began to demand more money and property, he began to resist, and mean accusations began to appear to back up their demands. Then one day the couple happened to meet in a grocery store, and they started to talk. It was at that point they realized who was at fault in this divorce; it was the lawyer's fault. Once they recalled their shared respect for one another the divorce proceedings when much more smoothly. They restored their friendship of mutual respect.
I said before that there is no doctrine in our religion on marriage and divorce. However we do have a clear stance. It was well stated by Colleen McDonald in one of our Tools for Deepening Your Faith at Home: "Let's Talk About Divorce and Broken Relationships."
Because Unitarian Universalists affirm the "right of conscience," we believe divorce or separation is a personal matter, a decision that can only be made by the couple involved, based on circumstances and factors that only they can judge. According to Unitarian Universalist Principles, each of us must be "free to search for what is true and right in life"-to find our own answers to the problems that life hands us.
This is pretty much what I said to my Aunt, but then Ms. McDonald notes:
At the same time, we are accountable to others, and so we believe our "search for truth and meaning" must be responsible as well as free; the decisions we make for ourselves need to be considered and evaluated in the context of the "interdependent web" of relationships within which our lives as individuals are connected. Therefore, divorce [like marriage] must be a solemn decision that recognizes diverse attitudes and consequences for many family relationships.
The term, Culture of Divorce, became popular with Barbara Devoe Whitehead's book of 1996 The Divorce Culture. The book began as an Atlantic Monthly article in 1993, with a Hoosier connection, "Dan Quayle Was Right." I don't think he was right about much, especially in his argument with the fictional character Murphy Brown, but Whitehead did underline an oft overlooked fact, that children are often deeply hurt by divorces. I hope we all understand that children are troubled by change and deeply fear that if their parents fall out of love with each other they will fall out of love with them too. We must work always to give children love and respect. Sadly, Whitehead's only answer to divorce was a return to fundamentalist style moralism. She did not affirm that people change or that opportunities for women have changed and she completely ignored the possibilities of people seeking divorce with integrity.
It is interesting, in terms of religion and marriage, that the Barna Group, a research group run by a "born-again" Christian centered in Ventura, California, noted in survey results released on December 21, 1999, that Catholics and Lutherans have the lowest percentage of divorced individuals, 21%. Mainline Christians and Mormons experience divorce on par with the national average, 24%. Interestingly, atheists and agnostics are below the national norm at 21%. I could not find UU statistics, but we all have known many UU couples that have celebrated lifetimes of enduring marriages. Meanwhile 29% of Baptists, and a shocking 34% of all non-denominational Christians, have gone through a divorce. Thus they are complaining about a culture of divorce because it is their culture. They are suffering through it the most.
The Associated Press, using data supplied by the US Census Bureau, found that the highest divorce rates are to be found in the Bible Belt. The AP report stated that "the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average ..." George Barna, found that Massachusetts, (notoriously slammed by Dick Cheney as the center of East Coast liberalism,) a state with a high number of Unitarians and Catholics and the highest rates of education, does indeed have the lowest divorce rate among all 50 states.
Often people in very conservative Protestant cultures marry young, have children young, and feel they have few options when things go wrong. Most have little incentive to postpone marriage for education, (though I must point out that educational level seems to have little impact on divorce rates.) Some preachers in these traditions are not willing to admit that they and the older adults of their churches are failing to create a culture of marriage, responsibility and respect and thus are blaming what they call a Culture of Divorce for their failings. On the other hand, we UUs place responsibility for integrity and respect on the individuals involved. We can't eliminate divorce but we do emphasize the importance of encouragement and support, rather than repression and judgment, from religious community in all seasons of life.
One of the statements I have added to my weddings lately is to note that for many people religion is something that appears at a wedding, then disappears, and then reappears at a funeral. Instead, I insist, religion is not a set of ceremonies but a way of living. Thus marriage is not determined by a wedding, or by a marriage promise solemnly made, but only by living out that promise, daily replenishing the wellspring of love. Erich Fromm, in his book, "The Art of Loving" asks, "Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort." He noted that many people think love is a matter of luck and then says, "Not that people think that love is unimportant. They are starved for it; they watch endless numbers of films about happy and unhappy love stories, they listen to hundreds of trashy songs about love, yet hardly anyone thinks that there is anything that needs to be learned about love." We all, married and unmarried alike, need to practice daily the arts of respect, kindness, patience, understanding and peacemaking.
Coincidentally this is the last Sunday before Juneteenth, June 19th, something that y'all Northerners may not know anything about. Racial division especially as it was used to support slavery is one of the greatest sins of our nation. A great link in the chain of slavery was cut by President Lincoln when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. However it was not until 19 June, 1965 when On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger stood on the balcony of Ashton Villa in Galveston, Texas, and read a special order from President Abraham Lincoln. It began: "The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States all slaves are free." The black people of Texas might have been angry that it took two and a half years for freedom to reach them. They might have demanded reparations, demanded land and payment, burst out in violence and bloodshed. Instead they had a party and made that day a holiday: Juneteenth, liberation day. In the midst of rising Jim Crow, in the face of continued hatred and bigotry, in division and a machine for so called "separate but equal," they still celebrated the end of slavery. In recent years more than children of slaves have chosen to celebrate on this day the greater promise, not only of freedom, but of respect, not only the opportunity for jobs but the opportunity for unity, despite all the racism and division that persist some seek the integrity of greater love.
Perhaps this is a model for us all, to affirm unity despite division. Divorce is necessary when one partner is addicted to violence, when respect and trust are lost, and when people must travel different paths. But in the midst of divorce we can celebrate the opportunities for respect, affirming the fact that we are all connected through the web of being and what we do to one another we do to ourselves. May we all seek integrity in the culture of divorce, that divorce becomes less, and less common.
