19th Sunday after Pentecost
Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our Bible readings for today are painful to many listeners because over the centuries, they have been used to inflict a lot of judgment, pain and shame on people. Jesus’ words on divorce have trapped people, especially women and their children, in abusive marriages. Translating Eve’s role as “helpmeet” confined women to second-class status in marriage, church, and society. In fact, I know one couple where the woman was told by the pastor in pre-marital counseling that in her marriage, she would have “voice but no vote”.
Even more extreme is the writing of a theologian from the first millennium who argued this: Eve was made from Adam’s rib, and rib bones are curved, crooked. And that is why women are crooked and can’t be trusted.
Because of all this mischief and pain, I will try today to explore what the Bible is actually trying to say. Talking about relationship, marriage, and divorce is a delicate challenge. Every person here this morning has been affected by these issues. Some of us have been uncomfortable ever since the Bible texts were read this morning. There is a lot of pain and shame in the air. Let us keep that in mind and hold one another in love as we ponder these topics.
When we look at the gospel reading, it is very important to understand the tone of Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisees. This is not a casual conversation or a regular teaching unit. The Pharisees come to question, interrogate, test Jesus. They don’t really want to know the answer to their question about divorce; verse 4 shows that they know the answer already. No, the Pharisees want to trap Jesus and bring him to the attention of the authorities.
Divorce was heavily debated at the time. Three of the gospels, Paul’s letters, and other early Christian writings all grapple with this issue. It was also a politically charged topic. Remember what happened to John the Baptist? He had been executed because he publicly criticized King Herod Antipas and Queen Herodias for their marriage. They had both divorced their previous spouses and married each other. When Jesus says, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery,” then I am sure the royal couple was on everybody’s mind.
So the Pharisees bring up a hot-button issue to put Jesus on the spot, maybe lose him some popular support, and get him in trouble with the authorities.
How does Jesus respond?
He begins by asking them to quote the law. They do. Then Jesus takes the conversation out of the realm of law to a very different place. He says something like, “the law was needed because people are sinful, but what was the intent for marriage and relationship at the beginning of creation? What was God’s vision?”
This morning, we read the story from Genesis Jesus is quoting. Two components of this story strike me every time I read this.
One is the loving creator God. Having made the human, God discovers that it is not good for humans to be alone. All kinds of animals are made to keep the human company, but none of them fill the role of partnership. Finally, God splits the human in two; the Hebrew words really means Adam’s side, not just rib. The so far genderless human is split into two, into man and woman.
When God introduces the two to each other, we come to the second component I love: the sheer joy! “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”, he says. Here finally is a true companion, a partner, someone to complete the human and fulfill his or her yearning.
Much has been made over the centuries about the description of the women as “helpmeet” or “helper”. In Hebrew, the word does not imply any idea of subservience. On the contrary, the word is most often used for God. The idea expressed is that man and woman help and support one another, are equal partners to one another, mutually dependent on one another, complimenting and fulfilling one another.
That is God’s vision for committed partnerships like marriage. Everyone who has experienced it can fully understand Adam’s joy. “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!” This is awesome. This is true blessing. Thank you, God, for this gift!
God brings Adam and Eve together in such joyful union. At every wedding ceremony, we proclaim that God is still bringing people together in loving unions. We bless couples because we detect God’s love in the love those two have found in each other.
And because we know that they will need every blessing and prayer they can get to maintain the union in that spirit of mutual joy and dependence and partnership and faithfulness. Which brings us back to the topic of divorce.
As the saying goes, marriages are made in heaven but lived on earth. A good partnership demands ongoing attention and effort; the balance of partnership changes over the years and needs to be renegotiated. At times our commitment level is high and the relationship strong; at other times, it takes more effort to hang in there and make it work and stay committed.
It is at those times that it is easy to become attracted to another person.
I remember the day a young woman named Elizabeth came to see me. She had been married for a few years and the marriage had hit a rough spot. During this rough spot, she had become increasingly enamored with her coworker Joe. As she was telling me her story, she was all glowing in her description of Joe, and highlighted all the tedious aspects of her husband Tom. She basically wanted to hear from me that it was okay to leave Tom and move on to Joe.
I was not able to give her that assurance. This was not okay. Tom had no chance against Joe. Joe was new and exciting, and those first weeks of flirtation are just so delicious, and everyone was on their best behavior. Tom was known with all his flaws; Elizabeth had washed his underwear and heard him snore and knew what he was like when he came home from work tired and worn out. Tom had no chance against Joe.
I believe that this is why Jesus says leaving a spouse to marry another is adultery. It meshes with what he says elsewhere that if you lust after someone else, you have already committed adultery in your heart.
Sometimes, marriages and partnerships do break. Mutuality and trust and love decline to the point where the union God had once given does no longer hold blessing and joy. That is a very human thing to happen. As we see in scripture, this breakdown of relationships has taken place for thousands of years.
And yet, Jesus reminds us that marriage is not so much about the law as about covenant. Rarely have I heard people share their pain over a prenuptial agreement not honored; but countless are the stories of sorrow I have heard about vows not kept, promises broken, trust betrayed.
Remember that, Jesus says. God put you two together, and if you rip that apart, it will hurt. It will hurt you and your partner and countless other people in your life: children, in-laws, friends, church families, neighbors. So don’t go about it lightly, casually. Don’t give up on your relationship too soon.
Don’t say, “Oh this is rough right now, this doesn’t feel so good right now, but look over there at Joe or Jolene…” If you already have another partner in the wings, you are not giving your current partner a chance. You are not honoring God’s gift to you. You are not living up to the vows you yourself have made. You are not exhibiting the Christian values of honesty and fidelity.
As Professor Karoline Lewis puts it: “Jesus says you can’t just go around dumping people.” That is true in regard to friendships, partnerships, and especially marriages. Don’t just dump people. If a relationship has come to an end, then end it sincerely and caringly. And then take time to heal. And then slowly open yourself up to a new partnership.
Don’t just dump people. Putting it this way reminds us of the original purpose of all law: protecting the vulnerable.
Divorced women in Jesus’ day lost everything: their home, their income, their status, their children. They had to move in with their fathers again (in shame) or with their adult sons (as a burden). When Jesus argues so strongly against casual divorce, he is protecting women.
When he welcomes little children and embraces them, he is protecting the vulnerable. Children had no rights at all back then. They were totally dependent on the adults in their lives. “Give them safe space,” Jesus says. “Love them, cherish them, protect them.”
In these two episodes back-to-back, Jesus is inviting us to imagine a community that is, in the words of Pastor David Lose, “centered in and on real relationships; relationships, that is, founded on love and mutual dependence, fostered by respect and dignity, and pursued for the sake of the health of the community and the protection of the vulnerable.”
Jesus is not addressing individual people here, raising a chiding finger at divorcees. Jesus is speaking in the end to the disciples. He is calling his followers to be the kind of community where we treat everyone with mutual respect, trust, fidelity, honesty, and above all: love.
In this community, the vulnerable are protected, the broken are welcomed, the hurting are comforted, the disappointed are encouraged, the betrayed learn to love and trust again. That’s really what church is: a community for all those broken by life and yearning for dependable relationships.
As Jesus welcomed and embraced children, so are we welcomed and embraced here. Whether we are blessed by a loving marriage or strong partnership, or whether we are recovering from the dissolution of unions, we are loved here, by God and by our brothers and sisters in faith. Here God encourages us with his word, feeds us at the table of grace, and reminds us of the baptismal promise: that we are God’s beloved forever.
I want to close with these words by Pastor Lose: “Jesus reminds us that to be broken isn’t something to be ashamed of. Rather, to be broken is, in fact, to be human. And to be human is to be loved by God and drawn together into relationship with all the others that God loves. Which means that our gatherings on Sundays are local gatherings of the broken and loved, of those who are hurting but also healing, of those who are lost but have also been found, [..] Can we look at this passage […] as an invitation to see our communities as those places where God’s work to heal and restore the whole creation is ongoing, not by taking away all our problems but surrounding us with people who understand, and care, and help us to discover together our potential to reach out to others in love and compassion? Can we, that is, tell our people that we are communities of the broken, but we are those broken whom God loves and is healing and, indeed, using to make all things new?”
Amen.