Introduction:
A. Today’s sermon will not begin with a joke or a cute cartoon, like many of my sermons do, because there is no funny or humorous side to our topic for today.
1. Today I want to address the problem and plague of domestic violence.
2. This is going to be a very hard sermon for all of us to hear, but that is especially the case for those who have experienced domestic abuse in the past, or are presently living in an abusive home.
B. My purpose today is twofold.
1. First, I want to make it perfectly clear that we as a church stand against any kind of domestic violence, and that we will not tolerate it in our midst.
2. Second, I want to make it perfectly clear to victims of domestic abuse that we are here for you.
a. We are here to stand with you, and to serve you any way we can.
b. You do not deserve what has happened to you, and you don’t have to continue to allow it to happen to you.
C. It is probably obvious to you why I’m addressing this subject today.
1. You would have to have just arrived from another planet to have missed the stories of domestic abuse by a couple of high profile NFL players that have recently dominated all news outlets.
2. What Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson have done to people in their families is tragic and wicked.
3. Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson may never play football again, but what you probably don’t know is that a dozen other players with domestic violence arrests are still suiting up on Sundays.
4. I won’t name the 12 players, but they have been arrested for domestic violence or related charges since 2005, according to a USA Today database that tracks players' arrests.
a. Some of those players have fought the charges and won.
b. Others have accepted blame, served short suspensions and returned to the game.
c. The rest are still waiting for their day in court.
5. The cases, some dating back nearly a decade, reflect the NFL’s evolving and sometimes erratic approach to domestic violence.
a. The league has struggled to balance justice, fairness and its obligations to the players’ union, but has failed to satisfy critics who say that, too often, the game fails to hold itself and its players accountable.
6. Domestic violence and related incidents rank among the NFL’s biggest off-the-field problems, with 87 arrests involving 80 players over the last 14 years.
1. The only other crime category with a larger number of arrests involving NFL players is DUI.
2. But while the domestic violence arrests of NFL players are troubling, the rate is lower than the national average for men of similar age, according to an analysis by FiveThirtyEight.
I. Domestic Violence – The Statistics and Definition
A. One positive outcome of these highly publicized NFL stories is that these stories have brought to light a problem that has been kept in the dark for far too long.
1. Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop labeled domestic violence “the single most important health issue in the US.”
2. Why would he say something like that? Well the facts and statistics are staggering.
3. Every 15 seconds a woman in the United States is battered by a husband, boyfriend, or partner.
a. That’s 4 per minute, 240 per hour, 5760 per day, and 2.1 million per year!
4. Every day at least 3 women are murdered by their intimate partners in our country.
5. One out of every three women experiences domestic violence during her lifetime.
6. As startling as those statistics are, it is even more startling when we remember that domestic violence is one of the most chronically underreported crimes.
7. The Public Policy Office of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence estimates that only about one-quarter of all physical assaults and one-fifth of all rapes are ever reported.
B. These statistics would indicate that there are women among us this morning who have been or are still victims of domestic violence.
1. Our hearts go out to you.
2. We hope and pray that you will find freedom from the violence.
3. And we hope and pray that you will experience healing from all your wounds – those seen and unseen.
C. We might think that domestic violence happens in other communities, but not in ours, but this is not true.
1. According to sociological studies, domestic violence occurs equally in every community, no matter the race, social and economic class, or religion.
2. Domestic violence is destroying families and inflicting suffering on women and children in every community.
3. Of course, men are also victims of domestic abuse, but only a minority of victims are men around 15% of all domestic violence (and this may also be very underreported).
4. Because women and children are the victims of domestic violence in more than 85% of the cases, I’m going to primarily focus on them today.
D. You might find it hard to believe, but many women of domestic violence are unaware they are victims.
1. They may think their husbands or boyfriends just get angry or are high strung.
2. They may excuse a violent outburst because their husbands later apologize and ask for forgiveness, or make grandiose promises.
3. Perhaps they are unaware they are victims because their definition of domestic violence only includes physical violence.
4. In fact, domestic violence is much broader; it includes physical, emotional or verbal, economic and sexual abuse.
5. How should we define domestic violence? It is a pattern of behavior based on the use of power and control of one person over another. Abusers use different ways to exercise their power and control; it may take the form of physical, verbal or emotional, economical and sexual abuse.
6. Physical abuse, of course, is relatively easy to recognize. It includes punching, slapping, kicking, pulling hair, and even threatening with an instrument or weapon.
7. Emotional abuse is a lot harder to detect but many victims say it hurts them more than physical violence. Emotional abuse includes insults, belittling, fowl words, excessive jealousy and control, and threats of punishment, harm, or even death.
8. Domestic violence often takes the form of economic control, especially in cases where the woman works at home. She has no income and has to ask, if not plead, for every penny she needs for the food for the children. The abuser exercises control by giving her almost no money and then belittling her as financially irresponsible.
9. Sexual abuse is even more common now with such easy access to pornography on the internet. Any sexual contact with a minor is sexual abuse, but sexual abuse can even occur with a married couple if one partner is forced to have sex or forced to engage in activities they find offensive.
II. Domestic Violence – The Experience
A. Those of us who have not been abused or have not engaged in abusing others cannot fathom the reality of domestic violence.
1. That’s why the video showing Ray Rice’s punching of his then girlfriend, and the pictures of the scars left from Adrian Peterson’s beating of his son have had such an impact.
2. Videos and pictures make it all more real, bringing it from the realm of the abstract to the concrete.
B. I want to read a few domestic violence stories using the women’s own words so that we can understand the realness of all this, and therefore, be more ready to react with compassion and be ready to offer protection to victims.
1. Here is Kaz’s story: I really fell for this guy. He was wonderful for the first 3 months, but then he changed and became very controlling. He didn’t allow me to talk with friends freely, and would throw and break things if I did. He told me I was a (expletive), he spat on me and hit me. On one occassion I was bedridden for 2 days from this and made excuses to people about how I was injured. He pulled a knife and stabbed my bedding, threatened me with objects, drove the car at high speeds with me in it – and always, always it was my fault. I began to believe that it was my fault and felt like I was in this rollercoaster that I couldn’t get off. I coped by getting up each day going to work, hoping that this person would treat me better this day – but it never happened. I spent every day crying until finally enough was enough and I left.
2. Here is Katherine’s story: I lived in a violent marriage for years. I was very naive at first and really didn’t know people like him existed. He would kick me, slap me, push me, trip me over, throw things at me, stand on my feet, yell abuse, call me names like ‘social cripple’, the list goes on and on, but he never punched me. In fact he would say to people that he couldn’t stand ‘wife bashers’. He tried to isolate us from all those who loved us and new people we met would go through character assassinations by him. Life was continuous hell, fear and horror and he always blamed the children or me for his violence. Things got a lot worse towards the end. He would threaten to run us all off the road in the car and kill us. The violence became a daily occurrence if not several episodes a day. Basically I coped by trying to keep him happy so he wouldn’t do these things to us. I believed for a long time that it was my fault or the children’s. I cried a lot when he wasn’t home. I lost all my belief in myself. I was totally isolated and spoke to no one about what was happening. I don’t think I really did cope except to hide it from the world and from myself.
3. Here is Kathleen’s story: I am a survivor. I escaped the worst of the abuse, but all of us kids grew up terrified of our father. By the time I was a year old, he had begun molesting my eldest sister Madeleine, who was 9 years old. Two years later, he started in on our sister Jean, when she was 8. When I was 8 years old, he made me touch him and I remember how scared I was. He must have seen the terrified look on my face. Nothing more happened after that, probably because the only way to get to my bedroom was by passing through another sister’s bedroom. All four of us were subject to emotional abuse. His nicknames for us were degrading: Moldy, Mildew, Fungus, and Rancid. I was Fungus. Our little brother Hall, otherwise known as Rancid, was physically abused. I watched when Daddy threw him against the wall, just like he kicked my purse across the room when it was in his way, and just like his cruelty to the family dog. We coped. Madeleine became the perfect child who excelled at everything. Jean became the defiant child who resisted every rule in the house. I learned to disappear and escape notice. Hall became mentally ill. Our mother was probably afraid of Daddy’s anger, too. At any rate, she was unable to protect us from his wrath. How could she not know what was going on? Well, we didn’t tell anyone because Daddy said if we told, something bad would happen. He never said what that would be, but to a kid, it means that someone will die. So we didn’t tell her. We didn’t tell any trusted adults. We were afraid of the unknown, and filled with shame and embarrassment.
C. When we hear these stories, many of us wonder why the women stayed in these situations. Why didn’t they run? Why didn’t they tell?
1. Most women victims of domestic violence struggle to liberate themselves from their abuser.
2. Often we don’t understand why they just don’t pick up and leave their abusers, but it’s not easy.
3. Let’s review some reasons why women victims don’t leave.
4. First of all, there is economic dependence. Many women victims do not believe they can earn enough to support themselves and their children. They believe they have put up with the violence in order to survive economically.
5. Second, many women don’t leave because they are too ashamed and broken.
a. They are too embarrassed by their abuse. They don’t want anyone to know, so it is better to stay with the abuser than leave.
b. Many of the women have internalized the abuse to such an extent that they believe all the insults their abusers level at them.
c. Sadly, she begins believing she is incompetent, useless, unable to earn or manage money, and even ugly, unpleasing, and unwanted by anyone.
d. Her self confidence and self esteem are destroyed; she feels worthless.
6. Third, some women do not leave their partners because of fear.
a. They are terrified of threats that their partner will kill them or their children or maybe even themselves. And the women don’t want the responsibility for that.
7. Fourth, some women don’t leave because they don’t want to break up the family.
a. They see that their children love their fathers. They don’t want to separate their children from their father, and so they stay for the children’s sake.
b. Sadly, a father may even cultivate the children’s affection as a way to insure that their mother will not leave him.
c. Most abusers threaten their wives saying that if she ever leaves him, he will get the children and she will never see them again…she believes he has that king of power.
d. But, raising children in a violent home is one of the worst things a mother can do for her children.
e. Tragically, boys learn from their fathers how to abuse women, and the girls learn how to be submissive and accept abuse.
8. Fifth, some women stay with their abusive spouses because they love them and are committed to reforming them. They constantly forgive them and give them another chance. They want to save them, so they don’t leave.
9. Finally, some women stay because they believe that because they were married in the church, they cannot separate themselves from their abusive husbands.
a. They don't want to offend or disobey God, so they stay.
b. But can we really imagine that God would want them to stay in a violent relationship?
c. Can we imagine Jesus coming across a woman with a black eye and her arm in a sling and saying to her that she had to return to her husband who he knows caused those injuries? Of course not.
d. Jesus would defend her and probably go looking for her abusive husband.
e. Christ came to free us from sin and violence.
D. What we need to understand is that domestic violence is learned behavior, meaning it is not inherited; it is not genetic.
1. Since it is learned, it can be unlearned or changed.
2. Unfortunately, abusers do not easily abandon their violent ways. They need to be challenged and held accountable for their actions.
3. Some abusers excuse themselves by blaming alcohol or drugs, or perhaps they claim it’s the stress that makes them violent or the abuse they suffered as children.
4. All these factors may very well aggravate their violence but they are not the cause.
5. Sadly, most abusers blame their victims, claiming that if their partners were better wives or housekeepers, better mothers or more responsible, they themselves wouldn’t get so mad.
6. Basically they blame the victim, when the real reason for their abuse is their desire to exercise power and control over their partner.
E. There is a predictable pattern that domestic violence follows called the cycle of abuse.
1. Notice the chart.
2. First, there is the tension building phase – tensions increase, communication breaks down, the victim becomes fearful and feels the need to placate the abuser.
3. Second, then the incident occurs whether it be verbal, emotional and physical abuse. There is anger, blaming, arguing, threats and intimidation.
4. Third, then comes the reconciliation phase – the abuser often apologizes, gives excuses, and may make promises. This change of mood confuses the victim as she begins to think he might change.
5. Fourth, then comes the calm – this is called the “honeymoon” phase. The incident is “forgotten” and no abuse is present, but sadly the honeymoon stage is unlikely to continue.
6. Soon the tension will begin to build again as he pursues his goal of maintaining power and control and the cycle repeats itself over and over.
7. Abusers rarely change and abusers will not change until they are held accountable for their violence and get help.
III. Domestic Violence – Our Response
A. So what do we need to do about the problem of domestic violence?
1. As I said at the beginning of this sermon, the first thing we need to do is to make it perfectly clear that we, as a church, stand against any kind of domestic violence, and that we will not tolerate it in our midst.
2. Let me say it clearly: there is nothing in the entire Bible to justify the abuse of another person.
3. Rather, the Bible gives commands like these:
a. Ephesians 4:29, 31-32: 29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen… 31 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
b. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7: 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects…
c. Ephesians 5:25, 28, 29: (abusive husbands often turn to the earlier verses in this passage to justify their abuse, but they don’t focus on these verses) 25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…28 In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church…
d. 1 Peter 3:7, (again, abuse husbands often focus on the first six verses of this chapter and ignore verse) Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner (fragile china) and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.
4. We must hold each other accountable to these commands of God.
5. Our marriages and homes must be places of love and safety.
6. God’s plan for marriage and the family is perfect and it works when it is followed correctly.
a. The misapplication of God’s commands for husbands or parents do not negate their truth and relevance.
7. Abuse of any kind, physical, emotional, or sexual, must not be allowed or tolerated.
8. In our congregation, abusers will be held accountable, and if they continue to abuse, they will be put out of the church, and their victims will be encouraged to protect themselves and their children.
B. This leads to my second thing that we must do as a church, we must be ready to be there for victims of abuse.
1. We want to encourage victims to come out of the shadows and seek help.
2. Printed on your sermon outline is the hotline number for Vera House, our local domestic abuse shelter. There are all kinds of resources available to you at Vera House, and we will go with you to have that initial consultation.
3. We want to support you in your struggle for safety and peace.
4. We want to help you find healing so that you can receive God’s love, joy and hope for the future.
5. Galatians 6:2 tells us to: Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. That is what we want to do for victims of domestic abuse.
6. Jesus’ wonderful invitation is ours to you as well. Jesus said, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt. 11:28)
C. Please join me as we close in prayer: Dear Gracious God, we approach you today with heavy hearts. Who are we to get into the human heart? Who are we able to see within, to see the hidden pain and the secrets and the deep disappointment in others? Perhaps there are parents among who should have protected their children, but have violated them. And perhaps there are children among us who have been violated. Perhaps there are husbands among us who were supposed to love their wives as Christ loved the church, but have acted as lords over them. Or perhaps there are wives who have been abusive toward their husbands.
We ask today in Jesus name, that You would bring healing to all that have heard this message? God, please bring healing to our families? We pray that this destructive secret may be a secret no longer. God please help those who are terrified by this message because they are so ashamed and they don’t know where to go for help. Help them to know that there are women in this church who have experienced deep hurt in their own lives who are willing to help them. Please help them to know that there are strong and godly men in this congregation who are ready to stand up for them. We pray that many will seek the help they need from You, from us, and from resources like Vera House in order to allow the healing to begin. We pray all this, in Jesus name, Amen.
Resources:
A Destructive Secret, Sermon by Erwin Lutzer, moodymedia.org
Homily on Domestic Violence, Sermon by Charles Dahm, preacherexchange.com
Shelter from the Storm, Sermon by Kathleen Ellis, heartblessings.org
To Love and To Cherish, Sermon by Thomas McKibbens, fbc-worc.org
Be Safe and Well, Sermon by Sandra Bochonok, www.kcdvtf.org/faithsermonuniv.pdf
True Stories, http://www.dvrcv.org.au/stories/true-stories/stories-women-about-abusive-relationships
Cycle of Abuse Diagram, ww.awarenow.org/www/docs/127
