Softening Our Hearts

Read Mark 10:1-12

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” –Mark 10:2

Jesus’ teaching about divorce and remarriage seems harsh, especially for those who have lived through the pain of divorce and have found (or still hope to find) happiness in another relationship. So how can we make sense of Jesus’ teaching that those who remarry after divorce are committing adultery?

For starters, it is important to remember that society in Jesus’ day was organized differently from our modern world. Divorce could only be initiated by husbands. Moreover, once a woman was divorced, she lost her rights to both property and children (since it was a patriarchal and patrilineal society). At best, she could return to her original family’s home, but the hope of remarriage and a future family was slim. Women disproportionately bore the shame and pain of divorce in Jesus’ day. So while Jesus’ teaching on divorce and remarriage was strict, he was in fact protecting women from being divorced for frivolous reasons.

Remember that the Pharisees were “testing” Jesus—they intended to catch him in a trap, because the law was surprisingly unclear on what circumstances could justify divorce. Deuteronomy 24:1-4 is the key passage, which covers a very narrow circumstance: could a couple be remarried following their divorce, if the woman had been married to another man during the period of their separation? (The answer was “no.”) The debate centered around the opening line of this passage: 

If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her, and sends her from his house… (24:1)

The debate centered around the two-part phrase: “who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her.” Conservative rabbis put the emphasis on the second part—because he finds something indecent about her—and argued that adultery was required for divorce. Liberal rabbis put the emphasis on the first part—who becomes displeasing to him—and argued that there were any number of reasons a woman might become displeasing. Which side of the debate would Jesus take?

Jesus did not answer the Pharisees directly, but instead chastised them for their “hardness of heart.” (v. 5) God’s desire for marriage, Jesus insisted, was for two people to become one. To share their heart and soul, to partner together in whatever challenges lie ahead, to support one another and lift each other up, to extend grace to one another and find healing in their mutual love. It is only because of our “hardness of heart” that God’s law allowed for divorce at all.

As a pastor, I have counseled many couples, some of whom have made the difficult decision to get divorced. Not one couple actively wanted to harm the other. However, in some cases, the pain of staying together had come to outweigh the joy they once found in their partnership. There’s a lot of grief and sadness in that realization. The process of divorce often compounds that pain even further. As couples figure out how to disentangle their lives and how to fairly distribute the property and income (and the community of family and friends) that they’ve built together, I’ve seen the pain of that process harden many couples against one another.

Sometimes, even couples who stay together can harden their hearts against one another. In his book Wild at Heart, John Eldridge shares about a time when he struggled in his marriage. He was “dutiful” as a husband (never abusive or mean), but he was unhappy. To a large degree, he blamed his wife for this unhappiness. In fact, fulfilling his “duty” was a way he could justify his anger—he wasn’t the one who was failing his marriage! One day, though, God convicted him that he was withholding his heart from his wife—that his heart was hard towards her. And he felt God challenging him to move back towards his wife in his heart.

In a moment of great vulnerability, he confessed to his wife how he’d been feeling, and how God had convicted him of his own “hard-heartedness.” Not surprisingly, his wife had been feeling the same way in their marriage and in her thoughts towards him. Their marriage was not instantly fixed after that conversation—that would take many years of counseling and working on their relationship together. But the first step, he said, was moving back towards one another and asking God to soften what had become hard.

Is there a relationship in your life right now (whether with a spouse, a child, a parent, a sibling, or a friend) that has grown cold and hard? Someone to whom you once felt great warmth and joy? You cannot always control how the person will respond to you—it may not be you who built the wall between you. The key, though, is to soften your heart towards them and to leave the door open for the relationship to be renewed. Try using this prayer (and repeat it as often as necessary in the future):

Lord, soften my heart towards those who live around me. Especially soften my heart towards those I once loved, but from whom I have grown apart. Help me to forgive the hurt and the anger I have experienced. Help me to remember and hold onto the joy and love they once brought me. If you should bring our paths back together, let my heart be open to receive them with love. Amen.