It may have been the
worse day of my life. I woke up and got ready for work – a teaching assistant
at UCSB – determined to do what up until that point I had been incapable of
doing – taking off my wedding ring. It had been about 18 mos. since my wife at
told me that she didn’t love me anymore and then slowly drifted away while I hunkered
down in my own misery telling few friends and trying to be present to our 6
year old son. I remember staring at my hand feeling like the ring’s removal was
the same as cutting my finger off and I wept as I tugged at it and put it away.
So I steeled myself for the day, rode off to the History Department where I was
to pick up some materials from the secretary – a delightfully chatty young guy
named Mike, who was very helpful and friendly. I arrived at the office, grabbed
my items, and spent a few moments talking with him about his new son, when Mike
quickly chided, “What kind of married man doesn’t wear his wedding ring?” His
words hit me with a force that I can still feel to this day. I quickly excused
myself – sobbing as I ran out into the fresh air as everything seemed to go
topsy-turvy. How could this happen? Why me? What had I done? Why wouldn’t God
fix this? What would happen to my son? What would happen to my life? And then I
watched as 3Some Pharisees came to him, and
to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any
cause?’ I perked up because the d-word was used and yet I immediately felt
out of place – I didn’t want my divorce. It was being done to me.
4He answered,
‘Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning “made them male
and female”, 5and said, “For this reason a man shall leave his
father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one
flesh”? 6So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what
God has joined together, let no one separate.’ “O Jesus,” I whispered, “I have read. I’ve read and
prayed and cried. What if one separates anyway? What if, I was even coming to
realize, this was not a good marriage?”
7They said to
him, ‘Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to
divorce her?’ 8He said to them, ‘It was because you were so
hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but at the beginning
it was not so. 9And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except
for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.’ “So am I doomed? She hasn’t slept with anyone else
but wants out. I don’t feel “hard-hearted” – I feel crushed. I was just a kid –
21-years-old when I got married. Has that one bad choice sealed my fate? Besides,
this feels lopsided only speaking about what men can do. “And . . .” I was
interrupted – apparently other followers were also listening.
10His disciples
said to him, ‘If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to
marry.’ 11But he said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept this
teaching, but only those to whom it is given. 12For there are
eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made
eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for
the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.’ ~ Matthew 19:3-12
I’ve pondered this
conversation a lot since then. I’ve cried over it, beat myself with it, argued
with Jesus about it, and even wrapped myself in it to try and keep warm. A
couple of weeks ago I spoke about reading the Bible with a human face – and
today, I, along with others of you, am one of those faces. But you are my
community and know that I love God and that I desire to be faithful to God’s
Word – to read both the Word and my life faithfully as a follower of Jesus. So
here is my attempt at that. What does Jesus want to say to us about how to
read the Scriptures, the Old Testament, concerning marriage and divorce?
1.
Marriage wasn’t made to be broken.
The Pharisees want to
talk about rules. They want pragmatics, the simplicity of a regulation that
arbitrates blame, innocence, and outcome. Jesus, however, wants to remind them
what’s behind the law – God’s original intent, disclosed in the creation story
(Genesis 1-3). They want rules, a way to play the game; Jesus wants to
remind them of a purpose – a beautiful story of what God intended – to go back
to the beginning so that we could learn how the world was supposed to work
(e.g. gender equality, for example). He wants us to see what God has done to
bring life while they want to stand over loves’ carcass and dicker over who
gets what. They wanted him to choose sides in the debate of the time – the
proper reasons a man can lawfully divorce his wife. The school of Shammai said
that only those things related to unchastity or sexual immodesty were proper
grounds for divorce while the school of Hillel said that a husband might
divorce his wife for “anything” as trivial as spoiling dinner. Jesus, however,
doesn’t want to play. In fact, I get the sense that Jesus doesn’t like to be
“tested” ("tested" is that Biblical discussion that’s not aimed for anyone’s
good) – and he surely doesn’t like anyone adding words to the text that aren’t
there – the Pharisees argue that Moses “commanded” (19:7) divorce and Jesus
rightly reminds them that he “permitted” it (19:8).
But even if divorce is
permissible, Jesus reasons, that doesn’t make it good. So now we enter into
that important, difficult, and tragic discussion about sin. And I think that
Jesus’ reference to the creation story rather than the law is an important one.
Jesus’ reminds us that sin is not so much a broken rule but a broken story – a tragic splintering of God's intended relationships:
with God, others, ourselves, and all of creation. So I am going to say
something now that I suspect might surprise many of you who know me and my
story as one who has both divorced and remarried – divorce is sinful. The
problem, however, is not that we don’t understand the complex nuances of that word
“divorce” but that we too narrowly define that word “sin.” Sin is that tragic brokenness
that was not God’s intent – it is that dissolution which was not part of the
design. But our evangelical world wants to frame sin in very simplistic ways
like “rebellion” and focus on fault, which, ironically, is also in the creation
story as an example of what Adam and Eve do. Blame makes sin about rule
breaking. Jesus, however, appears to be making a more profound point –
Divorce is a sin because marriage wasn’t created for this. Divorce is a sin
because, even if you’re not at fault, it wasn’t made to be broken. And if
you’ve been divorced or if you are a child of divorce, or have been in a
marriage that rightfully had to end because of real neglect or violent and
verbal abuse – you know full well, neither
innocence nor rules save you from the horrible pain of its breaking. That’s
what I mean by acknowledging its sinfulness. It’s the recognition that God
intended for us something much better and who’s at fault fails to solve the
problem.
But the
story from Genesis is not so much about the institution of marriage but about
the creation of men and women in the image of God. And we know what
happens – that it’s not the relationship of marriage that gets broken per se but that people become broken. A
broken marriage is a sin NOT because the institution is threatened but because
God made us to be whole and to delight in wholesome, intimate relationships. We
weren’t made to fail each other.
Jesus point
is that in a broken world we should go back to the beginning to remind us about
who we were made to be and also who God is. In choosing these texts, it is
interesting that Jesus stresses God’s intent and action in defining for us what
makes us well and whole – two becoming one, joined. Our joining in unity – a
community of mutual love and respect– was to reflect on who God is. This stress
upon the “image of God” - might clue us into why Jesus speaks so strongly about
divorce.
In the
prophetic tradition of the Old Testament (Jeremiah 3, Isaiah 54, Malachi 2,
Ezekiel 16, and Hosea), the prophets will deepen the Old Testament’s
understanding of God’s covenantal bond by speaking of God’s faithfulness to
Israel as a marriage bond, emphasizing God’s grace and lifelong faithfulness
despite Israel’s infidelity. I wonder if Jesus speaks so strongly about divorce
NOT because he is reinstituting a rigorous bit of case law for us but because
he is trying to remind us something fundamental about God. Our sin [adultery]
will not destroy God’s covenant faithfulness nor will it have the final word over
our fate. Jesus, in other words, is not setting up some rule to be followed at
all cost but attempting to illuminate a fundamental character of God. God made
us for love and healthy relationships, marriage wasn’t made to be broken, we
were meant to reflect God’s faithfulness, but even when we don’t – God will not
cease being faithful to us.
But what
happens if marriage breaks?
2.
Jesus provides a place for those who can’t.
There is a certain
irony or tension in Jesus’ teaching on marriage, divorce, and celibacy. On the
one hand, there is an undeniable fierce kingdom ethic, an ideal that grounds
itself firmly in God’s design and character which understands that marriage was
made to be an indissovable union that reflects God’s faithful love toward us.
But, even as he offers this teaching, challenging the Pharisees’ sole reliance
upon Deuteronomy 24 due to their “hard-heartedness.” He also offers three
explicit exceptions in this passage related to divorce and remarriage: “except
for sexual immorality” (19:9); “not everyone can accept this word . . .” (19:11);
and “let the one who is able to accept this accept it” (19:12).
Now I want
to point to a bit of NT 101 which is important. Most scholars argue that the
earliest gospel is the Gospel of Mark, referred to as “Markan priority.” The basic
point is that the writers of Matthew and Luke borrowed heavily from Mark in
their own constructions. This is important because our text in Matthew also
exists in Mark and comes across in a more strident way with no exception,
“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her;
and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”~ Mark 10:11-12.
So Matthew is doing something quite helpful - Matthew
is interpreting Jesus for us and we should listen to him. We should always pay
attention to places where the Bible interprets itself. Matthew is telling us
that Jesus’ position was not a general statement applying to every case, and
that the exceptions, the human elements of a broken world, should be
acknowledged and wrestled with before applying the principle. And what do we
make of the first exception?
What does Matthew mean by “sexual immorality” [porneia]? The term could refer to an
array of illicit sexual activity and was not the specific word for “adultery”.
The point here is that Matthew intentionally uses a broad, general term which
could refer to a range of sexual improprieties which, then, allow for
remarriage. We’ve
already noted that divorce is bad because marriage was not intended to be
broken. However, there is also an implicit moral logic in the text and the
creation story that divorce and remarriage might be permitted because God loves
us and made us for something more than betrayal, neglect, unfaithfulness, or
abuse. And if in these remarks you here a wider space of concessions for
divorce that are not explicitly mentioned in the text – well, as a servant of
Jesus Christ who looks back at what God intended, that is what I am saying. But
always remember that it is often a terrible concession. And for those of you
even considering leaving your spouse, remember this – God didn’t make you to
leave. God made you to be faithful. God made you to “cling,” Genesis reminds
us.
There is also an interesting
irony in Jesus’ use of the eunuch, it seems to me, apart from Jesus’ more
specific point about celibacy. For Jesus’ audience the language and person of the
eunuch would have been quite shocking. A eunuch was someone who, often without
his consent, was castrated for some purpose. More importantly, the law clearly
stipulated that a eunuch could not become part of the people of God (Deut.
23:1). Despite this, Jesus chose to use such a person as one who follows
him “for the sake of the kingdom” (19:12). So there is this odd rub of a
challenging ethic coupled with the inclusion and praise of the despised and
excluded.
Jesus also uses this very
interesting concession: “only to those to whom it has been given” and later “to
those who can accept it.” His other teachings, such as forsaking possessions
or family to follow him, never include such a qualification. It would seem then
that he means that this particular teaching is only for some disciples and not
for all while at the same time including those outside of God’s law as his own disciples.
So today, mindful of
God’s intent for your life, having been reminded of God’s design for us as
image bearers who have been broken by sin – sin not always of our own making, I
want to include you as well. Hope and healing can be found. How? Because Jesus himself
goes back to the very beginning. I love this picture - it's my favorite. It comes from Chora Church in Istanbul and reflects Jesus' resurrection and redemption of fallen humanity by showing him pulling Adam and Eve out of their graves. He goes back to the beginning to make things right!
Are you divorced? Remarried?
Struggling in a difficult marriage? You are welcome here. More than that, you are invited to
participate, to pray, to serve, to join, to find healing and hope. O make no
mistake, you must allow your own personal story to be judged by the Genesis story of
God’s good intent for your life. And this may demand a call to repentance - God
knows I had much to repent of myself – but divorce does not place you outside
the kingdom’s call. So come and receive the wholeness and healing of a redeemed
story today. Let Jesus take you by the hand and lift you up from the grave. Let anyone who can accept this accept this. Amen.
