Sermon For May 21, 2000
Domestic Violence Sunday
CHRISTIAN LETTERS: Loving God is Loving One Another ~ I John 4:7-21
Our scripture passage from the first letter of John talked about love and often we think about love in sort of a fluffy kind of a way. A good feeling, a hug, a kiss. But when we are talking about love we also have to make sure that we are not abusing the term. Sometimes love can be a means of manipulation. A way to hurt someone, a way to exert power over an individual. This is most certainly the case if we are talking about domestic violence. Who are the victims of domestic violence? They are our sisters, our daughters, co-workers, neighbors, professional women, and the homeless, children who witness the violence. They come from every faith, from every economic background, from every racial and ethnic group, from all walks of life. The victims of domestic violence are people that we know.
Some of the materials that I am sharing with you today are from the Eastside Domestic Violence Program. There is some information on the table in the Narthex, and there will be additional materials available next week after worship. The materials say that although victims and abusers can be of either sex, that is women can be abused, men can be abused, and children can be abused, 87% of all batterers are reported to be male. The materials primarily look from that perspective, but I am aware that sometimes there are husbands or boy friends that are also battered.
Domestic Violence is a pattern of behavior that is used by one individual to establish and to maintain coercive power over an intimate partner, a family member, another household member. It might be physical abuse, it might be sexual abuse, psychological, or a more emotional abuse. The statistics are staggering. On average a woman is battered in the United States by her partner every twelve to fifteen seconds. Between twenty-five and fifty percent of all women in America will be physically abused by a partner at least once in their lifetime. In 1994 the Surgeon General stated that abuse by a partner is the leading cause of injury to American women between the ages of 15 and 54. About fifty percent of all homeless women and children in America are fleeing domestic violence. The information on the back of your bulletin shares that in 1995 there were at least 30 women that lost their lives because of domestic violence. The behavior is varied and while I want you to recognize that it is this consistent behavior over time that seeks to maintain control over a relationship with violence, there are times when many of us slip over the edge in one area or another area and do something that is not loving, that is not helpful. We all sometimes do something that is painful to another person. So not only listen for these signs of an abusive relationship, but also recognize the ways in which we sometimes are not too far from the border of abuse.
Jealousy, sometimes a batterer equates jealousy with love and says it’s because of the strength of love that “I’m concerned about who you talk to, who you flirt with, who you have an affair with, and who you spend time with.” It is love that is used as a rational for extreme jealousy. That behavior is abusive.
Controlling behavior, a batterer may say, “I care so much about you that I want to take care of you.” So a partner steps in to protect an individual or to keep them from having to make decisions that the partner says they are incapable of making.
Some abusive behavior comes from quick involvement. We all like the romantic notion of eyes meeting across a crowded room and people falling in love at first sight. But a battered woman has often known or dated her batterer for less than six months before getting engaged, married, or moving in together. The male may pressure the partner to commit to the relationship saying; “We care so much about each other why shouldn’t we be together.” Then later the victim would feel guilty for not maintaining that high level of passion that the eyes meeting across the room first suggested.
Sometimes there are unrealistic expectations. A batterer may expect his partner to meet all of his needs, to satisfy emotional and domestic needs. Often there is isolation so that the two individuals try to become everything to each other. They start to push everything else away. Family, friends. “All we need is each other because we care so much about each other, we are so much in love.” Often there is a blaming of others for problems, a blaming of others for feelings. “You are hurting me. How could you hurt me so much if you love me? Why don’t you do what I want you to do?” Sometimes if there are children in the family, they will be used for manipulation. There may be a threat that “We will separate and I will get custody of the children.” The batterer may punish the children if they don’t obey immediately when a word is spoken. Sometimes a batterer will be cruel to animals. Or there will be a “playful” use of force during sexual relationships, sometimes verbal abuse, sometimes dual personalities. Sometimes the partner is just loving and wonderful, then other times filled with rage and physically violent. Breaking and striking of objects, the use of force during an argument. All of these are indications of abuse.
Abuse can start out with verbal abuse and then go through a process of escalation. You move from the escalation of psychological abuse to the point where the tension reaches a climax and then there is often high anxiety, sometimes explosive physical violence, injuries, sometimes injuries resulting in death. The part that is most confusing for many people is after that crisis time there is often a time of calm. It is in that time of calm that the idea of love is likely to be abused. In this stage the batterer becomes very manipulative. The batterer attempts to convince the victim that there was some reason the battering took place. They were somehow at fault. The person who did the violence was trying to protect or take care, or bring them back to responsible behavior. A victim may feel obliged to forgive her abuser to remain in the relationship. Often the batterer will speak of love and the importance of their relationship, will question the well being of the children if the relationship were to end. “What will happen to our children if you call the police and I’m taken off the jail?” Often the batterer will promise to change, to get help, and even ask the victim for help, “Won’t you please help me, I know this is wrong. If you will help me then we can beat this and we can be together.”
Sometimes our first response when we hear that someone is battered is “Why doesn’t she just leave the relationship?” But those are questions that blame the victim. They don’t reflect an understanding of the barriers that there are in an abusive relationship. There is often a fear. Leaving can be very dangerous. Sometimes leaving can precipitate extreme violence. So it is sometimes seen as being better to stay and take it rather than take the risk of going away and increasing the stakes. Sometimes the frequency and the severity of the abuse is used as a rational to stay in the relationship. “Well, he doesn’t get mad very often. It just happens once in a while. It’s really not too bad. He hasn’t hurt me too badly.” Often the batterer will try to convince the victim that “This is the very last time I’m going to do this. This will never happen again. You don’t have to leave me.”
Often there is economic dependence. The wife has no way to survive on her own, no way of bringing in income, no way of taking care of children. The husband might control all of the money, leaving the wife with no access to cash or to checks or to important documents. The isolation that we spoke of earlier is also a critical thing. There maybe no relationships with friends that can provide help. There maybe a separation from family members who should be available to help, but often are not. Sometimes family members who have helped in the past are now tired of helping out, because the situation is chronic, it has gone on for too long a time. Often a woman has low self-esteem. Self-esteem that probably was a problem to begin with and the violence and the abuse is used as proof for that low sense of self.
Sometimes people convince themselves that they were deserving of punishment, that they really aren’t a very good person. Victims convince themselves that somehow “they had it coming.” There is often a social stigma because people don’t understand and don’t accept the complexities of abuse. Any self-respecting woman would leave that situation. Any good and righteous family would not have that sort of thing take place. So there is a social stigma that comes along. Often belief itself, religious faith is used to justify staying in an abusive relationship. I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. Sometimes we read Paul’s words to the Corinthians where it says, “Love endures all things, Love bears all things, Love forgives all things.” People misinterpret those words to say that they should accept hatred and pain, punishment and abuse. Sometimes a woman believes good things about her husband. Believes her husband to be all powerful and moved by both her respect and her compassion she feels that she is the only one who can really help him out of these problems. If she leaves, he will have no one at all to aid him against his abuse.
Sometimes there is no safe place for someone to go, a lack of shelter space. Each year in King County more than eleven thousand women and children who are fleeing violent homes are turned away because there is a lack of shelter space for them. Many of them return home because there is just no other place to go. When I was putting together the worship bulletin I thought about the violence that our hands can do, so I named the sermon Hands Off Love. I talked to Carla about a cover for the worship bulletin and suggested that we might be able to find a picture of a victim. Someone who was protecting themselves from foes or something like that. A little bit later, I came into the office and the handprint was up on her computer screen. I said, “Do you know what my sermon title is? It’s Hands Off Love. Let’s use that hand on the cover of the bulletin.” Then you know that for the anthem we sang, Precious Lord, Take My Hand. Again, this is a serendipitous thing. This was the anthem that Ele chose today, not knowing what my sermon title would be, nor what the cover of the worship bulletin would be. It also fits together with some of the things that were happening in the adult Sunday school class this morning. We were talking about whether or not we should worship Jesus or whether we should worship God, and do the things that Jesus did in his life. What exactly does it mean for us to be called a Christian? One of the speakers, a Catholic priest by the name of Dominic Crossen, said that for him to be a Christian means always to work for justice as Jesus worked for justice. In that context I find Precious Lord, Take My Hand to be another one of those hymns that I love to sing, but an anthem that I have problems with when I think about it’s theological import. I don’t think that we are called on to have a private relationship with Jesus so that we feel secure about our life and future. There are times where we need God’s comfort in our life. But most of the time we are called as Christians to live our lives as Jesus lived; to work for justice, to care about the world around us. To have a relationship, not just with individuals, but to be part of a church family. To work for justice for all people. So the sermon title gets modified then too, because we need to have Hands Off Love in our relationships with individuals, so that we don’t express our individual love for them by hurting them, by hitting them, by bringing harm to them. At the same time, we express our love in the world as Christians with a “hands on love,” so that we go out into the world not just to say nice things, but to do things for individuals. To work for justice, to work to bring an end to domestic violence, to bring an end to hunger, to bring an end to racism and bigotry.
Hands Off Love. Hands On Love. May God’s love and God’s spirit guide us as we seek to be faithful. Amen.