Marriage and Divorce: Is That the Real Question?

Ike was out of town this weekend...so he asked Adam Wolfgang to come visit and preach. Thursday I got a call from Adam- "I have every intention of making it this weekend, but we have a ton of snow out here and we're supposed to get more. Could you come up with a back-up sermon just in case?" I called him back again on Saturday.... and had to leave a message as he was outside, shoveling snow....

Here's what I think God wanted me to say.

It can sometimes be a scary thing, when you come in to preach on a predetermined course. You can't pull out your best sermons, your greatest ideas, your favorite scriptures that you have nailed down in pretty display cases. No, when the verses are laid out for you- you have to take what you've been given, grapple with a text that may not even be on your radar. You may have to open yourself to what God is saying to you. I thought is was sheer brilliance when my home congregation was looking for a preacher once, and they held the incoming candidates to the schedule of passages that we were working through (I want to say it was the Gospel according to Mark)- so even potential hires could not put on their best airs- and had to contend with passages that may or may not have been conducive to great sermons.
On the plus side- nothing gets overlooked. I remember reading a comment from a minister who liked liturgical schedules because it forced you to deal with texts that you would have otherwise avoided. Topics that you didn't want to approach for fear of offending someone. Or conundrums for which you had no easy answer, not even a complicated, convoluted answer for that matter. And so here I am before you, having to say a few words on the topic of divorce. But I feel the Lord has been merciful, and provided a way out. So let's read Matthew 19:1-12 and see if we can't figure out what this is all about.

So let's just break this passage down and see what's going on. First of all it begins with the phrase 'after Jesus finished saying these things...' which if you'll remember is a marker that Matthew uses to break the teaching material up into five sections, presumably to connect Christ's teachings with the five books of the Law. So we are now entering into the fifth block of teaching and narrative material that will culminate in the Passion narrative- His death, burial, and resurrection.

Then we have the basic structure of the Pharisee's question, Jesus' anwser, the Pharisee's counterquestion, Jesus' counteranswer, then the disciples get involved, and then Jesus' conclusion as a response to their insight. So let's explore this piece by piece.

The Pharisee's question- the first thing I want to know is how is this question a trap? What are the issues here? Perhaps there's more to it than this but here's how I see it. It's really a no win situation. God is obviously against divorce, they know it and we'll get into specific verses here in a bit but basically we can take that position. However, Moses, as we'll see in a little bit with their counterquestion, at least allowed the possibility of divorce. Now Moses was a pretty special guy. The book of Deuteronomy ends with saying that there was no other prophet like Moses whom the Lord knew face to face. In other words- while God spoke to other prophets in dreams and vision, or disembodied voices- God came down and spoke face to face with Moses- or as face-to-face as possible since nobody can actually look into the face of God without dying. but still, it was pretty safe to assume that anything Moses said was from God because they were that close. So the issue is that you really can't choose sides between God and Moses- so any answer that Jesus gave could be countered pretty convincingly by the other side. It was a question no one could answer and their plan was probably to show that Jesus was nobody special and thus discredit him in the eyes of the people.

So Jesus' answer at first seems like the best place to start- at the beginning. He appeals to the creation of marriage in the first place- with the creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden. And so the Pharisee's think they have Him- "Aha- what about Moses saying you can simply write a certificate of divorce?" The 'trap' is springing? You can just imagine the other people around saying, "ooh, they've got a point you know. Why would Moses allow that?"

Jesus' answer is interesting for a couple of reasons: For one-I don't know why Jesus didn't enlist more scriptural support. Malachi 2:16 comes straight out and says "I hate divorce" says the Lord God Almighty. That seems pretty clear to me. But Jesus decides to turn it around and make it personal. Up until now the discussion has been theoretical- a hypothetical man hypothetically married to a hypothetical woman. But Jesus now turns it around to them and says, "Moses gave a concession for YOUR wickedness and hardness of heart." And here's where it gets interesting. So let's take a look at the passage of Moses allowing divorce that they're referring to. Read Deut. 24:1-4.

Now wait a minute. As far as reasons go for divorce, this verse is pretty weak. It's not even allowing it per se. It is not giving a provision that states if you're upset with your spouse you may go to the priest and he'll write a certificate of divorce and then you make a sacrifice and... no- there is nothing like that. It's a total hypothetical situation- if a man gives his wife a certificate of divorce and then so on and so forth...It makes me want to compare the Pharisees with this guy in Deuteronomy. This guy finds something wrong with his wife- for whatever reason. He judges her and casts his judgment in the form of a divorce. What reason is there to determine the reasons for a divorce other than as a form of judgment? Whether you're judging someone else or judging yourself- making sure you're still 'Ok' even if you have a divorce- the emphasis is on judging what we, as people, do. And we jump on the little provision that Jesus gives- the clause about marital infidelity. "See, Jesus said we can get divorced if our spouse has been unfaithful!" But look again. Jesus never said that- he just said that we would not be guilty of adultery, but he hardly gives permission to divorce, just as Moses wasn't really giving permission to divorce either. Jesus refuses to get caught up in a definition game of what we can and can't do under certain circumstances. Instead he points to something else.

But first, the disciples jump on this bandwagon, too. And their conclusion is a little quirky. After Jesus' statement my mind thinks, "Well, then I shouldn't get divorced." The disciples go a little extreme and say "Well, we shouldn't even get married, then, in the first place!" Which, by the way, would probably be considered a very good, Pharisaical answer. The law had gotten so convoluted because over the years they've put hedges up around the original law so they were sure not to sin. So when you're allowed to flog someone 40 times, you stop at 39- just in case you miscounted. So here, if you want to avoid committing adultery by remarrying after a divorce, don't even get married in the first place and you're certain not to get a divorce. Makes perfect sense, right?

What got me was that Jesus actually agreed with them. He basically says, "If you can handle that truth, it's because God helped you accept it." Then he launches into these statements about eunuchs. Now being a somewhat educated person, I basically knew what a eunuch was but wanting to give a thorough exposition on this text I decided to look the word up in the dictionary. And while its meaning has extended to include celibacy, historically its been accompanied by physical, surgical methods to help you keep with your decision- if indeed it was your decision. For one of the statements that Jesus makes is that some have been made eunuchs by others- and indeed, there were some jobs- often either a personal assistant to a member of royalty, or as a servant in a king's harem, where it was required to undergo a medical operation to ensure you won't overstep your bounds, so to speak, in your professional role. So Jesus covers the whole gamut of methods of refraining from marriage and it's physical manifestation- either you're impotent from birth, you've been made that way by someone else, or you've decided for yourself to devote yourself exclusively to God' Kingdom- and if you're cool with that- that acceptance - comes from God. And that's when it hit me. Both the Pharisees and the disciples were concerned about our actions- what can we do or not do? Jesus focuses us on what God does. No matter what way one has become a eunuch, or even whether one becomes one at all, one's acceptance of their condition is God given. And look back at Jesus' first response to the Pharisee's question- God created them man and woman. And 'for this reason' and man and woman become one- what reason is that? Simply this: that God said it was not good for man to be alone, and so God provided a helper. And what about our 'out'- the provision of infidelity? Any good Pharisee would know God's response to an unfaithful wife- He gave us a very concrete example of God's actions. God told the prophet Hosea to take an adulterous wife, a wife who was a prostitute. Then in chapter 3 God tells Hosea, "Go and get your wife again. Bring her back to you and love her, even though she loves adultery. For the Lord still loves Israel even though the people have turned to other gods, ..." We are still reminded of what God has done.

Paul, in Romans 12 says, "In view of God's mercies, offer your bodies as living sacrifices..." Not in view of what we think it means to be a living sacrifice; not in view of a list of things we can or can't do, or should or should not do. But in view of God's mercies. And every Sunday, in communion, we are reminded of what God has done. Whether we choose to remain unmarried- God has provided Salvation. Whether we are married and remain faithful to our spouse- God has provided Salvation. If we are married to an unfaithful spouse- God has provided Salvation. If we are divorced- God has provided Salvation.

It's not about what we need to do, or can do, or should do, or haven't done- It's about what God has done.