At St. Columba’s next week we will use a different set of lessons, chosen for our Annual Meeting Sunday. One more post on the lectionary text from Matthew, and then we'll switch to John 15. I predict we’ll be glad of the change!
Now we come to the really fun part of this passage – Jesus’ teaching on divorce. He doesn’t say you can’t – just that if you do, you’re committing adultery or causing someone else to. That’s all:
“But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
Great! In a nation where some 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, where many find themselves with more mature, even godly relationships in a second marriage, what do we say to this? “Get with the times, Jesus?” Do we ignore this teaching, which goes beyond even the stringent codes of the Mosaic law? Does that undermine Jesus’ authority for us?
Jesus was telling his would-be disciples that following him would mean faithfulness. And guess what? Even though they walked and talked with him for three years, they weren’t always so faithful. They may have stayed true to their marriages, but not always to him, or to each other. It doesn’t mean the standard wasn’t there – it means that they failed, and Jesus did not reject them. I don’t believe he rejects us when we fail, either.
Yes – this standard for marriage matters; anyone who’s been through the pain of a broken relationship will tell you that. But it cannot be isolated from all the other areas of sin and pain and failure we endure and inflict, all of which we are invited to bring before the loving, judging eye of the God who made and redeemed us.
Am I ducking the question? Maybe. Is divorce sinful or is it forgiveable? Yes. I don’t think there is an absolute answer – choose one, and you end up condemning someone who has suffered deeply, either because they have divorced, or because they haven’t. Sin is sin and humans are humans. And God is bigger and more powerful than all of it.
And that might be the point of this whole teaching, as Jesus makes the standards of sinfulness so broad no one can wiggle out. If we are as liable for what we think and feel as what we do, we all have to admit we stand in need of redemption. The man whose teaching here seems so harsh is the same man who reminded a crowd about to execute an adulterous woman that they should feel free to cast stones only if they themselves were without sin. Who among us could in good conscience pick up a stone?
When have we been affected or hurt by the dissolution of a marriage? Perhaps the wound is still fresh, even many years later – divorce has that kind of power to hurt and keep hurting. We cannot give ourselves to another with all the hopefulness that marriage entails, and remain unscathed when that hope dies, even if new life arises from those ashes. So pray for the people involved. Pray for the grace to forgive if you need to. Imagine each person blessed by God.
And ask how you can support marriages you know to be difficult or shaky. Marriage is a joy and a burden meant to be carried in community. When a marriage fails, so has the community. In that sense, even people who are single are involved in the enterprise of marriage.
Divorce signals a failure of love. We can help fill that gap, to pour our love into the void, bring healing and wholeness, in concert with the God whose love goes beyond death into life.
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