Hello my freinds!

I hope you are all having a wonderful beginning to your September. I honestly cannot believe it is here already. My son started his first official week of daycare last week and it was a tough transition for the three of us. He is already settling into the new rhythm, but it renewed my prayers to be mindful of all the little transitions we all go through in our lives that can be difficult, yet no one really hears about. My hope is that you are finding peace and comfort in the midst of your transitions as well.

I had several people ask me about Christ's teachings on divorce, especially from the Matthew's gospel. So I wanted to spend sometime thinking about that with you today. It is my conviction that how Christ teaches his disciples to approach divorce in the context of his sermon on the mount can really help us to approach many (if not all) other controversial issues of our day.

Before we jump into that, here are some resources to consider.

-If you haven't checked out the Junia Project, I highly recommend you do so. They have so many excellent articles on how to interpret scripture through an egalitarian lens, reclaiming it from patriarchal readings we so often hear today. This commentary on the woman at the well is especially relevant for today's newsletter. It is called, "Revisiting the Woman at the Well" by Gail Wallace.

-One of my favorite commentaries on Matthew's gospel is written by Stanley Hauerwas. If you are wanting to dive deeper into the book of Matthew and understand the social, ethical, and political implications of Christ's message in a more thoughtful way, I highly recommend you get yourself a copy of this commentary to read along your study of Matthew's gospel. You can find it here.​

-Lastly, I have been thinking a lot about the future and how it relates to myself, my family, and the world as a whole. This podcast episode from Hidden Brain called You 2.0: Your Future Is Now really helped me think about it in a more meaningful way, especially towards how I view myself now compared to how I view my future self. "Do I love my future self well?" is a question I have found myself asking since listening to this episode.

Okay, onto today's content.

Scripture

Matthew 5:31-32: “It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce. But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

As you know, Matthew 5 begins Christ’s sermon on the mount.

In this sermon, Jesus is essentially saying, “this is what the community of God’s people is supposed to look like.”

In God’s community, the merciful are blessed and will be shown mercy.

In God’s community, the pure in heart are blessed, and they will see God.

In God’s community, the peacemakers are blessed, and they will be called children of God.

Jesus is painting a vision for how the people of God are to relate to each other.

Even in major social and political issues, how we relate to one another starts right with the posture of our own hearts.

This includes marriage and divorce.

Let’s first look at what was going on in Jesus’ time so we can understand him a little better.

Two of the leading teachers of Jesus’ time, Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai, were very divided over the issue of divorce. Hillel favored a more permissive approach to divorce that allowed for divorce even in the case that a wife ruins her husband’s meal. On the other side, Shammai held a much stricter view that only permitted divorce in the most extreme cases. In other words, the conflict over this particular issue was especially heated in Jesus’ time. Professor Melanie A. Howard has said, "The fact that Matthew reports later that some Pharisees actually seek out Jesus’s opinion on the matter of divorce (19:1-12) points to prevalence and divisiveness of the issue for many among Jesus’s earliest audiences."

We must also remember that in Jesus’ time, marriage was so much more of an economic and social security union above anything else and there was still a lot of social debate about polygamy and monogamy. This is an issue even Paul and the early church would continue to deal with. The question of divorce for Jewish and Christian sects that emphasized monogamy, especially for converts who were polygamous, would be very complicated and difficult to say the least.

Would they divorce all their wives except for the first? Do they break apart entire families, sending women and children into poverty simply to uphold monogamy?

We must also take into consideration how highly patriarchal this time period was. Only men had the right to divorce their wives. Wives had little to no rights within the confines of marriage, leaving them in highly economic and socially precarious situations.

Jesus airing on the side where divorce could only happen over issues of infidelity was expressing that women should be treated equally and not as an object.

A woman divorced in a patriarchal society was not only stigmatized but was very likely to become an outcast, forced into prostitution, or worse.

As we can see in Leviticus 20, those caught in adultery shared equal responsibility. Matters of marriage and divorce should then be treated equally as well.

This really points to the core of Christ’s sermon on the mount. It is the motivation of the human heart.

Where the law talks about murder, Jesus talks about confronting the kind of anger that leads to murder in our hearts (Matt 5: 21-26)

Where the law talks about adultery, Jesus talks about lust, which begins in the human heart and is often the cause of adultery. (Matt 5:27-30)

Where the law talks about not breaking oaths, Jesus talks about why we need oaths in the first place: an inherent lack of trust. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “Oaths are a sign that we live in a world of lies.” To put his point another way, he is essentially saying that taking an oath is like telling someone you’re a liar, except for right now. If we actually believe God always means what God says, the same should be true for those of us who claim to worship God. We should be building a culture of trust in such a way that even oaths become unnecessary. (Matt 5:33-37)

Where the law talks about an “eye for an eye” kind of justice, Jesus focuses in on being a people who do not repay an eye for an eye, or violence for violence, hate far hate, or death for death. Jesus is advocating that we don’t create a culture of vengeance, but one of gentleness and forgiveness. Even going above and beyond. Going the extra mile in goodness when someone has wronged us. (Matt 5:38-42).

Where the law dictates loving your neighbor, but allows for hating your enemy, Jesus extends the “law of love” to even our enemies. Even God continues to give needed rain and needed sun for both good and evil people, both the just and unjust. Our love should reflect that kind of character from God. That even when someone acts like an enemy to us, we don’t stop doing good just like God does not stop doing good. We simply pray for them and continue working towards goodness, gathering as many others to work towards goodness as well (Matt 4:43-48).

This same sort of heart treatment is applied to the words about divorce as well. In his patriarchal society, Jesus is promoting that even divorce should be used compassionately and based on trust. Otherwise, if a man divorces his wife for some flimsy reason that isn’t anywhere close to actual infidelity, he is on the same level as committing adultery on his wife.

Those men who perpetuate treating women like property, marrying and divorcing based on their selfish whims is also on the same level as adultery.

Jesus highlights this again when confronted with this same question about divorce by the Pharisees in Matthew 19. There, Jesus goes back to creation and says that God made men and women equal, “one flesh.” God created humanity in harmony with one another. That is the kind of harmonious union no one should try to separate, even when divorce is inevitable (Matt 19:4-6).

Then I love what happens next. The Pharisees asked, “Why then, did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” (Matt 19:8).

Just like Pharaoh’s uncompromising, selfish hard heart in the face of Israelite suffering, Jesus says this kind of heard heart is the only reason why Moses permitted men to divorce their wives.

Notice again here, Jesus is highlighting that this is the action of men and how they are misusing and have misused divorce from the time of Moses. To suppress, objectify, and denigrate women.

Jesus says firmly, it was not meant to be "this way from the beginning.”

Like many things having to do with sexuality and marriage, the church has used these words from Jesus about divorce in the exact opposite way Jesus is commanding here.

Instead of treating those who have gone through divorce with a heart of compassion and trust, it has so often treated them legalistically with shame and judgment.

It has treated Jesus’ words just as legalistically as the approach to the law of Moses that Jesus was trying to undo right here in the sermon on the mount.

Divorce can be the right and best decision for some. Divorce can also be an act of selfishness for others. But in both cases, there is always a level of pain and heartache in this process. Yet, instead of trying to understand the complexities of this decision, the church has often added to the pain of divorce with shame rather than responding with healing.

Most often towards women, but many men as well, the church has so often made them feel as though they were adulterers, rather than seeking to understand how the trust and the compassion in their marriage had been broken, leading to divorce.

After the pain of separation and divorce, this left many often having to seek community and support elsewhere, because they knew they would not receive it from their current church or social circles.

If you have spent anytime with those who’ve gone through a divorce, as I have over my entire career, you will find that the decision to separate is not done lightly or flippantly and often, both members have fought so hard to make something work that just won’t work anymore.

Add to this that our culture has built an entire industry around marriage and divorce. Divorce isn’t cheap, which adds even more of a burden on those who choose to pursue it.

It is heartbreaking when a relationship doesn’t work out, especially when it must end because of spousal mistreatment. It is also heartbreaking when those who have gone through the pain of divorce are met with more pain and shame from the church, rather than healing and compassion.

While there is no exact parallel in modern religious settings for how the issue of divorce functioned in 1st century Palestine, any number of controversial issues today might compare: abortion access, LGBTQ rights, gun violence, or the church’s position in relation to political issues. Jesus’ response with the topic of divorce can offer a powerful example for Christian communities today who are navigating the politically and ideologically charged questions of our own day. In that, although Jesus does seem to side more closely with one school of thought over another, he ultimately upholds the values of trust and compassion within human communities.

In all the controversial issues of our time, we who are called to follow Jesus are to be seen advocating for compassion and trust rather than harsh legalism and mistrust.

Now I'd like to hear from you.

How do you resonate with what I have written here? How have you heard the topic of divorce handled by Christians in the past? How did that impact your thoughts on the topic? How does Christ's sermon on the mount make you think about the controversial topics facing our world today? Respond to this and let me know. I would love to hear your thoughts!

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Thank you all for reading and for all the ways you support me and this project every week.

I deeply appreciate you all,

Ben

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