Preached at Christ Church, Billericay, on 3 October 2021 @10:00am
Intro Joke
Have you heard the story
of the man who goes to see his doctor, concerned about his wife? He
says that he feels she may be going deaf, she no longer answers him
when he calls to her. So the doctor suggested that he finds out just
how deaf she is by calling to her then taking a step forwards and
calling again, and repeating this until she can hear.
When the man returned home, his wife was in the kitchen with her back to him,
preparing lunch. So he stood by the kitchen door and called “Darling,
what’s for lunch?”… no response. Then he stepped forward and said, “Darling, what’s for lunch?”… again no response. So he
stepped forwards and was almost on top of her and said “Darling,
what’s for lunch?”… She turned round and said to him:
…“for the third time”….
(https://parishsermons.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/)
Reason
So, what has that got to do with Jesus’s teaching on marriage? Well this passage can easily be understood in the wrong way, and we need to be careful not to look at it with any pre-conceptions, and especially not from a 21st century point of view – or it will be us playing the deaf husband.
Scene setting
First of all, let's understand the background to the exchange with the Pharisees. Why did they choose this place to test Jesus on the subject of divorce?
To answer that question, we need verse 1:
“Jesus then left that place and went into the region of Judea and
across the Jordan. Again crowds of people came to him, and as was his
custom, he taught them.”
Jesus has travelled to the ‘wrong’ side of the river, he is in an area known as Perea, which means “on the other side”. This is John the Baptist country. John 1:28, talking about Christ’s baptism, says:
“This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan,
where John was baptizing.”
John, as you may remember, lost his head for criticizing Herod Antipas for his marriage to Herodias. Herod was her second husband, to marry him she had divorced his half brother. That seems to be the way the Roman Empire worked. It was not good enough for John. So he was jailed, and eventually beheaded.
Pharisees
It was good enough, though, for the Pharisees. It made an ideal backdrop to try to get Jesus discredited, or perhaps even beheaded. So they come up with a question to try to trap Him into saying something that will get Him into trouble with the Romans. Then there won’t be all that bother with trying to justify a death penalty, as happened later.
The question
So, Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
If Jesus says yes, he contradicts John and his ministry is discredited. If Jesus says no, he will immediately be in trouble with the Romans. Job Done.
The problem with asking Jesus a yes/no question is that you never get yes or no as the answer. The Pharisees seem a little slow at learning this lesson, perhaps they're not used to being questioned.
Jesus asks, “What did Moses command?”
It was the common belief in the first century that Moses was the author of Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, etc. The Pharisees may not be good at setting questions, but they’re alright at evasive answers.
“Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”
Their answer is based on Deuteronomy 24:1
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,
There seems to have been quite a different understanding of what exactly ‘displeasing’ meant amongst various Jewish groups. Some were very strict and would only allow infidelity, while others seems to think that if she prepared a poor meal, she could simply be got rid of.
Certificate
The certificate of divorce had to be written on ‘paper’ that would last and with ink that wouldn’t fade. It was there to protect the divorced woman so that she could potentially remarry.
Women’s rights
In early Judaism, including in the first century, women had no rights, they were considered as property. As such, a man could not commit adultery against his wife. The offence would be against who ever owned the other woman.
So the certificate provided a basic protection and allowed divorced women to have some role in their society. It was needed because of the hardness of hearts (the sin!) of the people at the time and was not what God had originally intended.
God’s intent
God’s original intent, as Jesus reminds the Pharisees, was that “a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
The answer
The Pharisees have their answer, it is not ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but “I refer you to your own scriptures, what do they tell you?” followed by Jesus quoting the scripture for them just in case they have forgotten (which, of course, they haven’t!). It’s an excellent way to deal with tricky questions, but you do have to know scripture really well.
Disciples
That all seems quite straight forward to me, probably because I’m thinking in the 21st century, but it has set off something for the disciples. I’d love to know what they asked, but perhaps it doesn’t matter. In Matthew’s telling of the story, in chapter 19, the disciples and Jesus recognize that this is difficult teaching. Jesus’s response to the unknown question appears to us to be a difficult teaching in our 21st century world. In the 1st century, though, it was mind-blowing. To get the sense of it, you must remember what I’ve already said about the lack of rights for women in 1st century Israel.
“Anyone who divorces his
wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if
she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits
adultery.”
Jesus, here, gives the woman the same rights and responsibilities as the man. He emphasises that a man commits adultery against his wife, that a woman commits adultery against her husband was already a given. It is closer to the Roman way than the Jewish way.
Like a child
Then we have the last four verses, which are worthy of a sermon in their own right. I’m not going to look at these except to point out that here again we see Jesus giving ‘rights’, if I can call them that, to the marginalised. Children were not valued in the 1st century as they are today in the 21st century.
Today
Getting back to marriage... Today, our understanding of the relative rights of men and women has come a long way, and so has our understanding of marriage and divorce. God’s approach to us has not changed, though. It is still His ideal that when we marry it is for life. There is also still the recognition that we live in a fallen, sinful world, and that as a result people make mistakes and things go wrong. The apostle Paul also has some helpful things to say in 1 Corinthians 7. The chapter requires careful reading because Paul mixes his own opinions with commands from God. Read it later if you get the chance.
Paul’s commands
Paul would ban divorce altogether (verses 10 & 11):
A wife must not separate
from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else
be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his
wife.
I must stress these are Paul’s commands, not the Lord’s. There are clearly circumstances where Paul’s command would not be a sensible approach. As an unmarried man, he may have lacked insight into how marriages work and particularly how they go wrong.
He also suggests that you should only marry to avoid immorality (in verse 2). This seems to go against God’s ideals we looked at in Genesis, and is probably because Paul was expecting Jesus to return in his lifetime.
Our approach
Our approach as believers should be primarily to support married couples in ways that help them develop and closen their relationship with each other and with God. And not to do anything that would push them apart, or one of them towards someone else. Just like we do in safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, we should be looking to safeguard marriages – many of the same measures can usefully be applied. They are, after all, very vulnerable in today’s society, where the value of marriage seems to have been eroded.
Things go wrong
When things do go wrong, as they inevitably will in our sinful world, our role should be to support the victim (they may both consider themselves victims!) and do our best to help with the healing process, whether that takes place apart or together.
The church has too often condemned and excluded rather than been a positive influence for a godly life.
Re-marriage (C of E)
The Church of England (our bit of the church) has, over many years, considered divorce and re-marriage, and now permits re-marriage if the minister is willing. But there must be careful examination of both of the partners motives, understanding of marriage, and previous history. It’s a difficult job for a minister to undertake, and it is not a requirement that they do it if their conscience would not permit it.
Helping to sin
That’s because re-marriage presents us with a theological problem – are we helping people to sin? Clearly we should not be doing that.
Forgiveness
But Jesus forgives us our mistakes and gives us second chances by the grace of God, because Jesus paid the price on the cross. God, who has much higher standards than
we can even imagine, and loves us to the point of His own death to redeem us does not deny us another go at whatever it is we are trying to do. How can we then deny to others the possibility of a long term loving relationship that God intended in marriage?
Each of us must make up our own minds before God.
Amen.
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