Divorce!

             Then Shekaniah son of Jehiel, one of the descendants of Elam, said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God by marrying foreign women from the peoples around us. But in spite of this, there is still hope for Israel. Now let us make a covenant before our God to send away all these women and their children, in accordance with the counsel of my lord and of those who fear the commands of our God. Let it be done according to the Law. Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it.” (Ezra 10:2-4)

 

          I know, from our modern perspective, this passage sounds terrible. Divorcing their wives? Kicking their children out? That’s evil! I agree. But before we move on to today’s idea, several notes about our mutual outrage. First, different culture, different time, we need to take care in our judgmentalism. Secondly, we don’t know the actual conditions of the separation. The men may have been required to provide for them. It doesn’t say, so we don’t know. Thirdly, the marriages were in violation of the law. We wouldn’t consider separating an eight-year-old girl from a thirty-year-old guy who “married” her because they would not actually be legally wed. And, we don’t know how many of the women involved might have chosen to make the changes in their own lives that would allow them to legally marry their husbands. There’s a lot we don’t know.

          What we do know is that there were men who had lived intimately with women for between one second and seventy-five years. Their relationship was illegal and therefore effectively null and void even if they lived together. “Living together” was the kindest legal description available. The reason given for the law against such marriages is that the Jews would be led astray, encouraged to accommodate the worship of other gods, or to worship other gods themselves.

          As we move from their world to ours, from the Mosaic Covenant to the Christian Covenant, we move from external to internal. For us, the issue isn’t “thou shalt not marry foreign women.” The issue is that we’ve been living intimately with ideas and practices that separate us from God. We are “happily married” to them. They have been a part of our lives for between one second and seventy-five years: glutton, laziness, drug use (including nicotine and alcohol), pornography, lies, anger, worry… add whatever you’d like. They are a part of our lives. We can’t remember a time when they weren’t. We can’t imagine life without them.

          I’m reading Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard (yes, I’m reading a lot of his stuff this winter.) I’ve read it before, but yesterday’s chapter was about the body. He pointed out that we learn behaviors. Our bodies can learn responses that have nothing to do with our minds. This is why an athlete may spend hours learning to do a specific move. When it comes time for them to do it in competition, their bodies “know” what to do.  While they may once have had to think their way through it, now it happens.

          We’re the same way. We have taught our bodies to do things that we used to have to think about. Is it any surprise, then, when we decide it’s time to divorce that behavior and send it and its children packing, that we fail? You don’t want that piece of cake. It has whipped cream icing on it and you don’t like whipped cream icing… but your body eats it. It insists on eating the cake. It needs to eat that cake and nothing but that cake will do – especially not a helping of lima beans. Our bodies are like my dog as we go for walks. There are certain places that we must visit at certain times of day. She’ll die if she doesn’t get there. They give treats!

          Often, when we try to change our behavior, it’s like me telling Grace we’re not going to visit that person. She puts her head down and pulls, or she gets up on her hind legs and hops, whining loudly enough to get people’s attention. Why do we think the bodies we’ve trained for decades to go get that treat is going to be any less stubborn or spoiled than a certain Shiba Inu? Are we any less married to those behaviors than the men were married to the foreign women? Maybe it’s time to say “I want a divorce” from some behaviors that are not consistent with Christianity.