In the biblical story of Job, unspeakable tragedy strikes an innocent, righteous man, leaving him in a prolonged state of near suicidal mourning. After losing his wealth, family, property, and finally his health, his friends surround him and sit with him in silence for a week, unsure what to do. After many days of silence the friends begin to discuss possible explanations for Job’s suffering. One suggests it is deserved…after all, if he was having a horrible time then he must have done something wrong. The friends argue, making Job more miserable with eloquent, aimless, pontification.
When it comes to responding to other people’s tragedies, saying something is not better than saying nothing. People, and rightfully so, tend to have a compassionate outlook toward hurting people. Usually, anyway. We feel the need to say comforting things to people who are suffering, although we know what we ought to say far less than we think. I tend to think we do that because we are more committed to making ourselves look and feel better than we are committed to doing what is actually helpful to other people. Otherwise we wouldn’t oversimplify, generalize, and assume saying something is the right thing to do, even though we don’t know what it is we ought to say. Even if we say something really stupid, at least we said something, right? It’s the thought that counts right?
Wrong.
As a person who’s been through divorce, one thing in particular comes to mind that well-meaning people like to say to divorcees that they really shouldn’t say. It’s not always pastors, but that happens to be who I’ve heard say it most often. When divorce comes up in a sermon, or in counseling, they’ll say, “Divorce is not the unpardonable sin.” The intent is to help the divorced person not feel doomed by their divorce. That is a good enough intent, but the words are very problematic.
Saying that divorce is not the unpardonable sin assumes that divorce is by definition sinful. Of all human behaviors that are actually sinful by definition….adultery, lying, bribery, murder, stealing, abusing and neglecting children…why choose divorce to assign the label “not unpardonable?” After all, we already know that adultery, lying, bribery, murder, etc., are all also NOT unpardonable sins, right? But at least they’re actually sins. This encouragement would be better used as something you say to someone who did commit a serious sin to remind them that there is hope and forgiveness. Because after all, some of those we consider “greats” in the biblical narratives committed some very serious sins…like adultery and murder.
Divorce is not necessarily a sin. Only divorce for a reason beyond biblical exceptions is a sin. Divorce for biblical reasons is sad, painful, tragic even, but sometimes an absolute necessity. A person who seeks divorce for reasons biblically exempted (in my view, wrongful/illegal marriage and serious sexual immorality) is doing so in response to the sin of another. The decision to sever the union was not theirs. Divorce sought in response to someone else’s sin can’t be called a sin.
Sometimes divorce is the morally correct choice. In the Old Testament stories of God and Israel, depicted in historical narrative and the prophets, God “wrote Israel a certificate of divorce and sent her away.” Because of their repeated rebellion, and worship of false gods, God their Father and true Husband, sent them away. Miraculously, this ultimately led to Israel’s repentance and return. The inescapable truth is that God’s divorce of Israel was done in Israel’s best interest. This is the same phenomenon, I believe, as what what Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 5 regarding excommunication from the church…handing the unrepentant person over to Satan so they can be taught not to sin. Ultimately the intention is corrective, done in the best interest of all parties. Divorce can absolutely be the right thing to do…and sometimes NOT divorcing simply enables a mentally and/or spiritually unhealthy person to continue damaging their spouse and/or children, and continue making everyone’s life hell.
Enabling someone else’s sin is immoral, even if that someone else is a spouse. So sometimes divorce is the right thing, and sometimes not divorcing is the wrong thing. Every situation is different, and most are immensely complicated.
So what should we say instead?
We still have a compulsion to be a comfort and encouragement to divorced and otherwise hurting people. But saying something is not better than saying nothing; that much is still true. You don’t have to say anything. Sometimes just being there is enough. Sometimes YOU are what another person needs, not your words. Just you.
But in the event that it’s appropriate and necessary for you to say something that lets a divorced person know that there is hope and their life is not over, what should you say instead? In that case, ”Divorce did not change your identity” is a much better thing to say. Behaviors and actions stem from identity…identity is not determined by behaviors and actions. In the case of sinful behaviors, people are not sinners because they sin, they sin because they are sinners. A person’s identity is not changed by their actions. A person who gets divorced retains the same identity as before; that much is not changed due to changes in circumstances. A person’s marriage was never their ultimate or eternal reality. Identity is not found in the status of human relationships.
When a person experiences a failed marriage they do feel their identity has changed, because there’s a stigma associated with divorce. Life is different now. Everything has changed…except the person’s fundamental identity. There is hope for a good life following divorce. The person experiencing divorce is not afraid they’ve committed an unpardonable sin…often they’re not afraid they’ve committed any sin at all. And many times they haven’t. The divorce could simply be a response to someone else’s sin.
So what about a person who is divorced and it is their fault? Their situation is different, but I’m not sure many people distinguish that. The word “divorced” applied to a person means we see them a certain way, and rarely ever think that they might actually be the guilty party who made someone else’s life such a living hell that they had to petition God and the State to be separated from them. So in that case, “Acting in a way that makes someone divorce you is not the unpardonable sin,” is also a much better thing to say. It’s actually true.
Words have consequences. We need to care more about what other people need to hear than what we want to say. Sometimes people need to hear something we don’t want to say, but we should say it anyway. Sometimes people need to hear our silence, and we need to stop being so selfishly fixated on looking and feeling like compassionate people that we overlook the other person’s needs, insisting on saying anything, even something absurdly stupid. Like Job’s friends, we feel we must say something, anything, without considering the ramifications of saying the wrong thing. Because in the case of Job, the only time his friends were actually helpful to him was the first 7 days when they kept their mouths shut.
Please stop saying divorce is not the unpardonable sin.
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