Legally Dumb

Sermon manuscript for Green Lake Church of Seventh-day Adventists

Sabbath, October 28, 2014

Texts. Leviticus 19:9-19

Matthew 19:1-15

Yesterday I got home a little before 5 p.m. As I got out of the car I was spotted by a few beady-eyed expectant chickens. I carried some stuff into the house. When I came back out, I could scarcely get off the back porch. Thirty chickens were clustered at the bottom of the steps. A few more were running my direction.

I felt like a rock star. I pushed my way through the mob and headed for the barn, barely avoiding stepping on chickens that crowded my feet.

It was dinner time.

I got a scoop of chicken feed and headed to the back side of the barn where I feed.

I made little piles here and there trying to reduce the amount of squabbling between hungry birds.

Once the feed was on the ground I could hear the sounds of birds snatching food bits from the ground. Every now and then a bird would look my direction to see if I was going to throw out any more food. For a very few minutes, I enjoyed a certain sense of magical power.

I think it was something like this with Jesus.

Everywhere he went, people clustered in expectation. They were going to receive good stuff. Recall the words Dianne read a few minutes ago.

Jesus left Galilee and went down to the region of Judea east of the Jordan River. Large crowds followed him there, and he healed their sick.

Of course, they followed him. Of course, they clustered around him.

In a world without morphine, he offered relief from pain.

In a world without antibiotics, he cured infectious disease.

In a world without wheel chairs, he restored mobility.

In a world without Braille, he gave sight to the blind.

And sometimes he fed them.

No wonder the people thronged him everywhere he went.

But Jesus was also a problem. He was a problem for theologians and the clergy and the civic authorities. He threatened the established order. Jesus made these guardians of the established order in religion and society nervous. Since Jesus drew huge crowds, the theologians could not ignore him. In fact, they hounded him constantly.

The people came for healing. The theologians came to try to limit the impact of Jesus teaching.

The people came hungry for healing and wisdom. The theologians came to argue.

Some Pharisees came and tried to trap him with this question: "Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife for just any reason?"

Scholars tell us that among the Jewish theologians at that time this was a lively question. Some conservative Jewish theologians believed divorce should be completely illegal and some liberal theologians argued divorce should be legal in all situations.

The Pharisees figured if they could get Jesus to take sides in this debate, it would be a fine rhetorical trap. If he sided with the conservatives they could ask about extreme cases. What about when there was a real threat of bodily harm or even murder? Should divorce be illegal even in those cases? What if the woman could not have children? Surely he would not expect a man to forgo having children just because his wife was sterile.

On the other hand, if Jesus sided with the liberal theologians, they could accuse him of undermining the very institution of marriage, the foundation of human society. You can't go squishy on something as vital as marriage.

"Haven't you read the Scriptures?" Jesus replied. "They record that from the beginning 'God made them male and female.' And he said, 'This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.' Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together."

Jesus sides solidly with the conservative position. No divorce. When people get married, they create a new, divinely-blessed entity called a couple. If you split a marriage, you are going counter to the purpose of God. Jesus even cites the Bible to back up his stance. He references Genesis Two.

The Pharisees are taken aback. They did not expect this. Jesus was a liberal. He was always expressing mercy and understanding for human weakness. The Pharisees themselves were not prepared to live this ideal. Jesus' words caught them off guard.

"Then why [they sputtered] did Moses say in the law that a man could give his wife a written notice of divorce and send her away?" they asked.

Jesus quoted the Bible in support of the fundamental permanence of marriage. The Pharisees quoted the Bible back in support of divorce.

This highlights something about religious arguments. We can almost always find support in the Bible for whatever rule we want to impose on others or for any loophole we want for ourselves and our friends. The Pharisees were not looking for wisdom. They were looking for an argument. They wanted Jesus to define a rule so they could then debate the fine points of that rule.

Jesus refuses to play their game. He goes straight to the fundamental principle that undergirds marriage—God's ideal for humanity, according to the creation story, is for a man and woman to marry and to have children—and to live happily ever after. That's the way it's supposed to go.

Jesus continued:

"Moses permitted divorce only as a concession to your hard hearts, but it was not what God had originally intended. (this last phrase reads literally, it was not so from the beginning.)

Then, just in case they didn't get it, Jesus pushed it further:

And I tell you this, whoever divorces his wife and marries someone else commits adultery--unless his wife has been unfaithful."

So there you have it. Unless your wife has run off with someone else, you're stuck. :-)

If your wife puts poison in your soup, that's no excuse. If she beats you black and blue or hires her brother to do it for her, sorry, you're stuck. If there are no children. If she gets tired of you bossing her around and starts answering back. . . .

If you're looking for rule, there it is: once you're married, you're stuck. The Pharisees might have been inclined to argue further because they were not there to learn. The disciples, on the other hand, took everything Jesus said with great seriousness. They thought Jesus was setting up a new law and they worried it would be impossible to keep.

"If this is the case, it is better not to marry!"

In responding to his disciples, Jesus finally acknowledges he is not actually setting up some new law to replace the law of Moses. He was reminding people of the Creation ideal: a man and woman together forever in a harmonious union. A relationship that was so free and confident the two persons could be naked together with no risk of shame. This is the ideal. It is not always possible.

"Not everyone can accept this statement," Jesus said. "Only those whom God helps. (or, “but only those to whom it is given.”)

Jesus goes on to make a cryptic statement that no one really understands:

Some are born as eunuchs, some have been made eunuchs by others, and some choose not to marry for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven. Let anyone accept this who can."

Whatever the details of meaning lie behind this statement, what it says on its face is this: human sexuality cannot be neatly prescribed by any law. We cannot go back to the Creation story and try to write a law for today. There were no eunuchs in the Creation story. This kind of human aberration were clearly not part of God's original plan for humanity, but Jesus said the Kingdom of Heaven included even these folks.

You can almost see the Pharisees sputtering with more questions. But, but, what about polygamy? What about the stories of King David and his many wives? What about the rules in the Old Testament about men marrying the widows of their brothers? What if a woman can't have children? There were all sorts of questions Jesus didn't address. All kinds of rules to argue about. But Jesus was ready to move on.

If the Pharisees wanted a rule, he gave them one: no divorce. Ever. Period.

But if they understood the principles of the kingdom of heaven, they would know that God meets us where we actually live, not in some hypothetical state.

Let me say this to you:

God's ideal for humanity is for a man and a woman to marry and have children. That's the creation ideal. And the Kingdom of God—and the Church of God—has lots of room for people who cannot live that ideal.

If you are getting beat up at home—get out and get help. If your spouse or parents or children are abusing you, tell someone. Tell me. Tell one of the elders here in the congregation. We will help you. We will find help and protection for you.

If you are living in a marriage that is less than the creation ideal, a marriage where sometimes you have secrets, where sometimes you are not happy, where sometimes you are tempted to call it quits. Don't run too quickly to explore your legal options to get out. Do all you can first to rekindle the early fire. Do all you can to pursue the ideal of heaven.

If divorce must come, make sure it comes only after every other option has been tried.

If you fit into that mysterious category of “eunuchs”--and here I'm using the term metaphorically to refer to those whose sexuality is not congruent with the model presented in the creation story—if you are one of those eunuchs, know that Jesus made a place for you, too, in the kingdom of heaven. Don't let the Pharisees impose their rules on you.

One last point here, before we move on. When the Pharisees asked about a rule for divorce, Jesus said the only exception to the rule against divorce was adultery. Which was a little holy humor because in Matthew 5, Jesus had said that looking at a woman with desire was already adultery. Taken literally as a legal precedent, this would mean that every woman here is free to dump her husband. And if we are even handed, most of the men would also be free to dump their wives. Jesus is not writing legislation here. He is pointing us to ideals that are higher and nobler than any law could ever hope to be.

If you want wisdom for your life, Jesus reminds you of God's ideal for humanity—a life-long, happy marriage. If that is not possible for you, then aim for the place in life that is closest to that ideal.

If you are looking for rules to cover all the cases where that ideal is not possible, Jesus refuses to go there.

Rules are necessary in any community. They are necessary in the church. But rules are a statement of the lowest tolerable level life. They do not embody our dreams. They embody our fears and concerns.

Jesus calls us higher.

We began with a picture of crowds gathering to Jesus. Jesus drew them irresistibly.

The theologians show up and try to slow the momentum of hope and healing by asking complicated questions about rules.

I was reminded of these theologians by one of the chickens yesterday afternoon. After I put out the piles of food, one of the roosters, Archie, ran around chasing some of the birds away. They did not deserve to eat. There is one rooster in particular that Archie will chase if that rooster is anywhere in sight. Archie will run fifty or sixty feet across the yard to chase that rooster away from the food. I have to sneak this rooster food around the corner of the barn where Archie can see what we're doing.

It was like that with these theologians. They wanted to make sure that no unauthorized people enjoyed the favor of God. They wanted to make sure everyone had passed their standards.

Jesus did not let these theologians get away with their effort to write the rules for the kingdom of heaven. Jesus explicitly opened the kingdom of heaven to people who were formally excluded from full participation in Jewish worship.

After addressing the theologians, Jesus turned his attention to the really important people.

One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could lay his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. But Jesus said, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children." And he placed his hands on their heads and blessed them before he left.

Why did the disciples send these parents away? Because that's what they thought Jesus would want. In that culture kids were not important. Half of them died anyway. Don't get too attached to them. Parents with kids were certainly not worth taking the time of the Messiah, a preacher who was constantly surrounded by crowds of thousands.

But the preacher said otherwise. “Let the children come. Don't stop them. The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them.

Jesus confronts the devout religious culture of his day.

The theologians said that women had no status. A man could dump his wife at will, because the man's will, the man's judgment was supreme. Jesus said. No. Just because it was legal to divorce at will did not make it moral.

The devout religious culture of Jesus' day knew without any question that people with sexual irregularities were properly excluded from full inclusion in the worship of God's people. Jesus included them in the kingdom of heaven.

Even the disciples of Christ dismissed children as beneath the concern of the Messiah. Jesus corrected them.

What about us? Will we pat ourselves on the back because we do not murder, don't rob banks or cheat on our spouses or on our exams? Or will we allow Jesus to spur us to dream of doing truly great things? Will we seek to build together relationships that mirror the dreams of God in creation? Will we join Jesus in touching the world with hope and healing? Will we welcome all of God's children?