The following story
appeared in a British newspaper,
Heartfelt
commiseration to Dorothy Naylor of Plymouth, whose recent daytrip to
Bridgewater was spoiled when her husband, Oliver, left her on the forecourt of
a garage … and drove 17 miles before noticing his wife was not in the car.
“I
couldn’t believe he’d gone without me,” Mrs. Naylor told the Western Morning News. “I usually sit in the back because I
can move around more, but normally we talk to one another.”
The
couple, both in their 70s, had pulled into a garage to change a tire. Mr.
Naylor drove off and didn’t notice his wife’s absence until he had arrived in
Bridgewater. After stopping in town, he asked his wife, “Where do you want to
get out?” When she didn’t answer, he turned around and discovered that he had
left her behind. The paper added that the couple had been married for 40 years.[1]
I thought you might
enjoy that little story, just in time for Valentine’s Day! Though some of us
may relate to this story, I believe Jesus envisions marriage as something more,
something deeper. Let’s see what Jesus has to say in Mark 10:1-12. Listen for
God’s word to you….
He left that place and went to the region of Judea and[a] beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered
around him; and, as was his custom, he again taught them.
2 Some
Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce
his wife?” 3 He answered them, “What did
Moses command you?” 4 They said, “Moses allowed a
man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.” 5 But Jesus
said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for
you. 6 But from the
beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this
reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,[b] 8 and the two
shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore
what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
10 Then in the
house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11 He said to
them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against
her; 12 and if she
divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Dear Heavenly
Father, we pray today the words of your servant Augustine, “make us hungry to
learn what your love makes you so ardent to teach.” Amen.
This is the
second time in Mark’s Gospel that the Pharisees have “tested” Jesus. The first
time was back in chapter 8 when they tested him by asking for a sign from
heaven to prove his authority. Jesus refused to give the Pharisees such a sign.
The Pharisees will test Jesus a third time, in the last week of his life, when
they will ask him if it is lawful to pay taxes to the emperor. Divorce and
taxes—two subjects bound to get anyone into trouble.
Dr. Donald A.
Carson once said about the Bible, “A text without a context is a pretext for a
proof text.” What that means to me is that some people pull Bible verses out of
context and use them as clubs to beat other people with. Our passage for today
is an example of such a text often ripped out of context.
Therefore, let’s
take a look at the context for Jesus’ statement here. I want to talk with you
today about: The Trap (not the von Trapps!), The Law, and The Ideal.
First, we have The Trap.
We read that: “Some Pharisees came, and to test him [Jesus] they
asked…”
The word translated as “test” is sometimes translated as “tempt”.
What the Pharisees were doing was trying to get Jesus in trouble. They were
trying to trick him into saying something that would get him in trouble with
the local authority.
We must remember where this question was posed. Jesus was, at this
time, traveling around Judea and also across the Jordan. Across the Jordan
River from Judea was an area called Perea. This was the region ruled by Herod
the Tetrarch, also known as Herod Antipas. Back in Mark 3:6 we read, “The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians
against him [that is Jesus], how to destroy him.”
The Pharisees wanted to destroy
Jesus because they viewed him as committing blasphemy. Jesus was going around
doing and saying things that only Yahweh, in the Hebrew Scriptures, got to do
and say.
Then, you may remember, that in
Mark 6 we read about Herod Antipas arresting John the Baptist on account of
Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, because Herod had married her. John had
been telling Herod, “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” You
may remember that John the Baptist ended up with his head on a platter because
of his teaching about marriage and divorce. The Pharisees were apparently hoping
that they could tempt Jesus into saying something on the same subject that
would produce a similar result, i.e. Herod putting Jesus’ head on a platter.
When Jesus said, “if she
divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery,” he may have
been referring to Herodias because there was no law that allowed a woman to
divorce her husband in Jesus’ time.
Thus, we see the
trap that was laid for Jesus.
I love what one
of the Early Church Fathers, Origen, said about this. “Jesus was not vexed when
he was challenged by deceptive questioners who hoped more for a gaffe than an
answer.”
Therefore, let’s
move from The Trap to The Law.
The Pharisees
asked Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man
to divorce his wife?”
Since the Pharisees were asking Jesus a question about Jewish law,
Jesus very correctly directed them back to the first lawgiver among the
Israelites. Thus, Jesus asked a counter question: “What did Moses command you?”
The Pharisees responded: “Moses allowed a man to write a
certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.”
This is a reference to Deuteronomy 24. Therefore, let’s look at
that passage together. In that chapter we read:
Suppose a man enters into
marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something objectionable
about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand,
and sends her out of his house; she then leaves his house 2 and goes off
to become another man’s wife. 3 Then suppose the second man
dislikes her, writes her a bill of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her
out of his house (or the second man who married her dies); 4 her first
husband, who sent her away, is not permitted to take her again to be his wife
after she has been defiled; for that would be abhorrent to the Lord, and you shall not bring
guilt on the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession.
As you can probably figure out, there is a context to this passage
in Deuteronomy as well. We don’t have time to go into all of that, but it is
important to note one thing. That one thing is that among the rabbis there was
a debate about what the phrase “something objectionable” in Deuteronomy 24
means. The school of Shammai understood “something objectionable” to refer to
moral indecency, or in other words: adultery. The school of Hillel interpreted
“something objectionable” so broadly that a husband could divorce his wife even
for burning the breakfast.
It may be that the Pharisees were wondering which Rabbinic school
Jesus would side with in this instance. If they were expecting Jesus to take
sides, then they certainly must have been disappointed.
Instead, Jesus reminded the Pharisees of the spiritual context of
Moses’ words. Jesus said, “Because of your hardness of heart he [Moses] wrote
this commandment for you.” In other words, Jesus is saying, Moses allowing
divorce was a concession to human hard-heartedness. Jesus refused to let a text
be wrenched out of its context and be used as a pretext for a proof text.
Instead, Jesus pointed the Pharisees back to Genesis:
But from the beginning of
creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ 7 ‘For this
reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,[b] 8 and the two
shall become one flesh.’
Jesus actually
quotes from two different verses in Genesis. First, he quotes from Genesis
1:27,
So God created humankind[a] in his image,
in the image of God he created them;[b]
male and female he created them.
in the image of God he created them;[b]
male and female he created them.
And then Jesus
quotes from Genesis 2:24,
Therefore, a man leaves his father and his mother
and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Jesus’ brief commentary on these passages from Genesis should be
very familiar to all of us because his words have been enshrined in the English
language wedding ceremony for centuries:
So, they are no longer two,
but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined
together, let no one separate.
What is Jesus
doing here? I think what Jesus was doing was that he was expressing The Ideal of marriage.
I think that the
church has often tied herself in knots, trying to make Jesus’ words into law.
Jesus was not a new lawgiver. He was not a second Moses. Rather, Jesus was
responding to a question of the Pharisees about the law. And he basically says,
“If you want to know what the law is, go back to Moses.” But if you want to
know what God’s ideal is for marriage, look to Genesis.
I find it
fascinating that God’s ultimate revelation is not in a law, or in a
propositional statement, but in a person, Jesus of Nazareth. And that person,
when asked a question about marriage and divorce, points us beyond the law to a
story. We often are able to understand more about God, and embrace more of God,
through a story, than we can through mere law.
Is there anyone
who doubts that God’s ideal for marriage is that two people spend their life
together in an enduring relationship of love and faithfulness? I have not run
into too many people who question whether this is the ideal or not. Our
problem, as human beings, is not the ideal, but living up to the ideal. I do not
believe that any of us can live up to the ideal of marriage without God’s help.
Jesus’ disciples
must have realized the difficulty involved in living up to the ideal for
marriage which Jesus presents. Thus, they asked Jesus about it when they were
alone with him in the house.
Rather than
lessening the severity of his statement, Jesus strengthens it by saying: “Whoever divorces his wife and marries
another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her
husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
Tom Wright has written,
In today’s church,
particularly in the West, anyone who even reads verses 10-12 out loud is likely
to be called cruel, unfeeling, unforgiving, exclusive, and a host of other
names. So many people are bruised by the whole experience of marriage breakdown
that to raise the topic, let alone to take a strong line on it, seems (as they
might say) ‘unChristian’.
But we must ask the question that Tom Wright poses a little later:
Which is kinder, more
Christian: to say that these things don’t matter, or to take a strong line,
like Jesus, on behalf of the truly weak and vulnerable?
In the context of Jesus’ time, I believe he was trying to protect
women, who were treated like property, and could be divorced by their husbands
at will. And Jesus was trying to protect children who could be severely harmed
by divorce. Over the past two Sundays we looked at what Jesus had to say about
protecting children. Next week, we will look again at Jesus’ further comments
about the place of children in his kingdom. Thus, this text about marriage and
divorce is surrounded by Jesus’ concern for children.
I am sure this text leaves us with many questions, not the least
of which is: “If divorce is wrong, can there be forgiveness?” I believe that the
answer is: “Yes, through Jesus there can be not only forgiveness but also renewal,
restoration, and a fresh start.”
I have two brothers who are divorced and remarried and have been
in their second marriages now for over twenty years. When one of them divorced
his first wife and planned to remarry, I, in my youthful Christian zealousness,
took a hard line against divorce. At the time, I asked my father for his opinion.
Dad reminded me of the story in John 8 of the woman caught in adultery and how
Jesus treated her.
Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees who were ready to execute
this woman, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a
stone at her.” Then Jesus bent down and
scribbled something in the sand. When the
scribes and Pharisees heard Jesus’ ultimatum, they went away, one by one,
beginning with the oldest; and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing
before him.
Jesus straightened up and said
to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?” And she responded, “No one, sir.” Then Jesus
said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin
again.”
I now believe that my father’s response to my brother many years
ago, perfectly mirrored our heavenly Father’s response. For our heavenly Father
always stands with open arms, ready to receive us and forgive us, no matter
what we have done or failed to do. And our heavenly Father also empowers us to
begin life anew every day. As it says in Lamentations 3:22-23,
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
[1] Rico Tice, “What Shall I Do
With Jesus?” Sermon at All Souls Church, Langham Place, London; submitted by
Van Morris, Mt. Washington, Kentucky
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