INTRODUCTION--JESUS IS NOT SANTA CLAUS
Haven't you ever wondered why, since Jesus was such a nice guy, meek and mild; since Jesus is basically Santa Claus in sandals and a bath robe; since Jesus never wanted to hurt anyone's feelings— haven't you ever wondered why Jesus was killed? Jesus wasn't killed by accident; Jesus was killed because the things he did and said caused people to hate him.
Matthew chapters 19-20 are a good example of the sort of things Jesus said that got him killed, because these two chapters contain some difficult, explosive teachings from Jesus. The sacrifice of the cross shapes all the teaching in this section, and to properly understand Matthew 19-20, we need to look at all of Jesus's teachings in this section together and see how self-denial and sacrifice characterize life in the Kingdom.
JESUS, MARRIAGE, & DIVORCE
In Matthew 19, Jesus speaks to the topic of marriage and divorce. In today’s commentary, I am not going to offer a comprehensive theology of marriage and divorce, and there are lots of questions I'm not going to try to answer; what I will try to do is explain what I think Jesus is saying in this passage. So, let's walk through this passage, verse by verse:
19 Now when Jesus had finished these sayings, he went away from Galilee and entered the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 And large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. 3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” [19:1-3]
Jesus has now begun his journey to Jerusalem. He's left the Galilee in the north, and has come south. Unsurprisingly, he has drawn a crowd. And, equally unsurprisingly, the Pharisees--who hate Jesus--have come to try to trip him up. Some things haven't changed; even today, talking about marriage can get you crucified!
The question about divorce is not an earnest, truth-seeking question, because the Pharisees who ask it are trying to set a trap for Jesus. Why is this question so controversial? In the time of Jesus, there were two rabbinical perspectives on divorce: one perspective (from Rabbi Hillel) said that men could divorce their wives for any reason, and the other perspective (from Rabbi Shammai) said that divorce should be reserved for cases of adultery. In both cases, it was understood that only a husband could seek a divorce, and not a wife. Unsurprisingly, the Hillel perspective was the popular one in the time of Jesus.
As he always does, Jesus uses scripture to frame his answer. In fact, he goes back to the very beginning of the Bible itself: Genesis 1-2. (Specifically Genesis 1:27 and 2:24.)
4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” [19:4-6]
Note that Jesus doesn't actually answer their question directly, but instead talks about the purpose of marriage, as designed by God. There are 4 interesting implications to his answer:
Our identities as male or female are not an accident, but part of God's purpose for our lives.
Marriage makes new families. The husband comes from one family, the wife comes from another, but when they get married, a brand-new family is created through them.
The marriage union is meant to be total: in the biblical language, "one flesh." Marriage is a complete union: emotional, of course, but also, in some mysterious way, bodily as well. The physical result of that bodily union, obviously, is a child. A child is the "one flesh" that results when a husband and a wife come together through sexual intercourse. A child is one, though it comes from two: a mother and a father. Even at the molecular level, this is true: the child has one DNA sequence, but that sequence has been made from the DNA of two parents. There are billions of us on this planet, and every single one of us--without exception, and whether we know them personally or not--has a biological mother and a biological father. The fact that each of us is the fruit of our parents' union is really astounding, but because it is commonplace, we overlook it.
The marriage union is meant to be lifelong—that was God’s design from the very beginning.
The Pharisees reply with an obvious point:
7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” [19:7]
In other words, they say: "Jesus, that sounds really nice, but if marriage was meant to be life-long, why is divorce sanctioned in the Old Testament?" (Divorce is really only mentioned once in the Mosaic Law—Deuteronomy 24:1-4. And there it’s not the grounds for divorce that are mentioned, but rather what happens after divorce.)
8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.” [19:8-9]
The presence of sin has made divorce necessary. Rebellious attitudes toward God—“because of your hardness of heart”—meant that marriage’s original purpose would not always be realized, and so divorce is a consequence that God gives to contain the damage caused by sin—divorce is necessary so as not to make things worse. There are laws regarding how to deal with murder, e.g., but those laws about what to do with murderers only exist because people have already chosen to do murder. In the same way, laws about divorce arise as a consequence of human sin.
Jesus then states that sexual immorality breaks the marriage covenant or somehow makes marriage impossible. In that case, then, divorce is a way of acknowledging that the marriage covenant has already been abrogated.
It is important to point out that since it seems that only men who were able to divorce their wives in the time of Jesus (and not vice versa), then the practical effect of Jesus's comments is that they protect women, who, without clear divorce laws, could be cast aside for any and every reason. Jesus's words sound harsh, but they are actually helpful to women whose husbands wanted to divorce them for any and every reason.
The disciples are shocked at the implications of Jesus’s words:
10 The disciples said to him, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” [19:10]
At the time of Jesus, the expectation for everyone was marriage and family. The disciples say that if marriage is supposed to be that kind of permanent union, then maybe some people shouldn’t even get married!
In response, Jesus says that there are some people God has called to celibacy and not marriage, but celibacy is not a calling for everyone, “but only those to whom it is given.”
11 But he said to them, “Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given. 12 For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it.” [19:11-12]
A "eunuch" is a man who has been castrated so that he is unable to reproduce sexually. Eunuchs were present in the ancient world from the Middle East to China and they were often important members of a royal household; because they were obviously unable to found their own dynasties, they were often entrusted with important matters of state. To the Jews of Jesus’s day, to be a eunuch was to be in a place of humiliation. Jesus is—once again—using a striking image to make his point.
Note what Jesus is saying:
Some people are, from birth, unable (or unwilling?) to procreate: “eunuchs who have been so from birth.”
Some people will not be able to procreate because their bodies have been mutilated by others: “eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men.”
Some people will choose not to marry and instead live
a life of celibacy because they are being obedient to a particular call from God on their lives: “there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” (Here, "eunuch" is a metaphor for celibacy.) Jesus himself is in this 3rd category, since he never married.
This entire passage is extremely counter-cultural today, and was extremely counter-cultural in Jesus’s day as well.
This teaching of Jesus flies in the face of our divorce culture. Since Governor Ronald Reagan signed the nation's first no-fault divorce law into effect in California in 1969, we have come to accept (not only in law, but in our understanding) that marriage is something that either party can end for any reason whatsoever, and once divorce papers are filed, then the marriage is over. Jesus says that, in effect, marriage is more durable than that, and that regardless of what the papers say, marriage can't be ended as easily as that, because in marriage a husband and a wife are “joined” into one. (In Greek, the word implies “glued” or “welded” into one.) This is a radical teaching.
The words of Jesus on divorce will seem radical to our culture, but his words on sex will seem INSANE. Our culture believes that a fulfilling and happy life must include sex. Think about our advertising--it's not that our advertisers use sex to sell things–though they do–it's that they also imply that a life without sex is a life not worth living. Jesus flatly contradicts this implication. In fact, he suggests that some people will choose not to marry and have sex and make these choices out of service to the kingdom of heaven.
As for other conclusions, I will let you think on these issues yourself. This is just one passage in all of Matthew's Gospel, which is but one book in the entire Bible—on marriage and divorce, we need to take the whole counsel of scripture.
But, remember that the Way of Jesus is the way of self-denial and sacrifice and it is the way that leads to life.
So, this is a hard teaching on sex, marriage, and divorce and Jesus’s words fly in the face of what American culture teaches about these things, but let me ask, How’s it working out for us apart from Jesus? Has the sexual revolution since 1960 brought us more happiness, or more misery?
