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NRS Malachi 2: 11 Judah has been
faithless, and abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for
Judah has profaned the sanctuary of the LORD, which he loves, and has married
the daughter of a foreign god. 12 May the LORD cut off from the tents
of Jacob anyone who does this-- any to witness or answer, or to bring an
offering to the LORD of hosts. 13 And this you do as well: You cover
the LORD's altar with tears, with weeping and groaning because he no longer
regards the offering or accepts it with favor at your hand. 14 You
ask, "Why does he not?" Because the LORD was a witness between you
and the wife of your youth, to whom you have been faithless, though she is your
companion and your wife by covenant. 15 Did not one God make her?
Both flesh and spirit are his. And what does the one God desire? Godly
offspring. So look to yourselves, and do not let anyone be faithless to the
wife of his youth. 16 For I hate divorce, says the LORD, the God of
Israel, and covering one's garment with violence, says the LORD of hosts. So
take heed to yourselves and do not be faithless.
Good morning
and welcome. We begin this weekend, a three-part series on divorce. The church
in recent years has softened its response to divorce, but when I was coming
along, it was one of the taboo subjects of the church. We didn’t talk about it
and we sure did not preach sermons unless we found ways to condemn it and those
who did it. In fact, even today, some churches will tell you that divorce ranks
up there at the top with some of those sins we call unforgivable. Many divorced
people found that they are suddenly shunned from the church, even when if they
happen to be the innocent party that suddenly found that they are divorced. They
will say, I’m divorced, I’m broken and somehow I am no longer acceptable in the
world of church. That is how they often are viewed whether that is who they are
or not.
I want to start
by saying that this is one of the hardest sermon series I have ever done. My
desire is to be biblically correct, holding true to tradition, experience and
reason, the foundation of our Quadrilateral. In the process my hope is to bring
healing where healing is needed. There are some that might say I am preaching
from a certain perspective because I have been divorced. I will admit that it
gives me the experience to know how the church treats those of us that are
divorced. I have also experienced the blessing of churches that have supported
me in the midst of divorce. My focus over the next three weeks is to give a message
that comes from a true biblical perspective, exploring traditions of the church
and factoring in the culture of the day. Marriage is a sacred gift of God to us
humans. A loving spouse is a gift that cannot be measured. I suspect that those
here today who are in wonderful, partnership relationships will be the first to
say that they are thankful for their spouses. They will say that without their
spouses they would not have been able to get through the tough times. For those
who have been through hard marriages and/ or divorce they will tell you that it
was the most devastating thing that ever happened to them. They lost part of themselves
in the midst of the divorce that can never be reclaimed. So what does the bible
say about divorce? Is it an unforgivable sin?
James Efird,
Professor of Biblical Studies at Duke University, says that “Human beings,
however, being frail and sinful entities, are not always able to make marriage
relationships work successfully.[1]
And as Christians, we add to these feelings of guilt and shame by being taught
by the church that marriage is forever and when we divorce we have committed an
unforgiveable sin. At least that is what the majority of divorced people say
the church tells them. When they needed the church the most, the church turned
away. When someone dies, the people who have been family and friends surround
the person who has survived. When a couple in the church goes through
separation and divorce, we take sides. That is what humans do! In life our
friends isolate one or the other, people take sides. In the church because of
what we have been taught about marriage and divorce, we have a tendency to
isolate both of them. Today, 50 % of all marriages in America will end in
divorce. Of that number, 81 % will remarry. Of that number 75 % will divorce.
It is a tremendous and appalling number. Of the people who go through divorce,
most will leave the church and never return.
In order to
fully understand divorce, we need to look at it from a biblical perspective.
What does God say about divorce in the Old and New Testament? What was the
culture of the Old Testament, of Jesus day and of our day? What is the
tradition of the church, before Jesus and the Christian church which came
after? And finally at the end of the day, as a church, what should our position
be towards the people who have become divorced and/ or remarried?
We begin by
looking at the Old Testament and ancient culture. This morning’s scripture from
Malachi is used more often than any other scripture about divorce. God hates
divorce! There is no doubt that this statement rings with truth. But we must
ask ourselves why does God hate it? Of the 108 times hate is used in the bible,
only four refer to God hating. What God hates is disobedience and evil doing. But
to truly understand what God hates, we need to look at what marriage was in
those days and what it meant to God.
Dr. Efird tells
us, “First of all, most marriages were arranged for the individuals by the
families involved.”[2] The
basic reason for marriage was to provide stable family environments and produce
heirs. In Hebrew practice, only the husband was allowed to create a divorce. A good starting point would be to identify the
roles of men and women in the ancient world. Records back as far as ancient
Mesopotamia indicate that divorce was present in those cultures. Divorce was
allowable in ancient Greece by submitting a request to the Magistrate. As a
side, this is where our civil divorce code comes from. Roman divorce in the
early days was rare but civil law allowed it for the man or the woman. In
Mosaic Law, divorce was allowable for the men, but could not be initiated by
the woman. Women in the Middle Eastern cultures were considered inferior to men
and property. Fathers often sold their daughters for prestige and power.
Judaism in this context, allowed divorce thousands of years before Jesus birth
as a right of the man. “In the Old Testament era it appears that everyone was
expected to be married. When divorce occurred, the man and the woman seemed to
seek new partners.”[3] It is
clear then, that remarriage was an accepted practice. Instone-Brewer tells us,
“Divorce is allowed for a limited number of grounds that are found in the Old
Testament and affirmed in the New Testament.”[4]
So what do the
scriptures tell us?
NRS Genesis 2: 18
“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will
make him a helper as his partner.”
Did you hear
this scripture; God intended man and woman to be partners. I will come back to
this later; this is an important piece of the puzzle of relationship.
NRS Exodus 20:14
states, “You shall not commit adultery.”
The punishment
for adultery in those days was death by stoning. This is one of the Ten
Commandments that Moses brought from Mt. Sinai.
NRS Exodus
21:10 If he takes
another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or marital
rights of the first wife.
We shall return
to this one a little later.
NRS Leviticus 20:10 If a
man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the
adulteress shall be put to death.
So the rules
for adultery in Old Testament days has a harsh way of dealing with those found
guilty.
Deuteronomy 24
begins the divorce scriptures. It is foundational in understanding the Hebrew
law concerning divorce. It says:
NRS Deuteronomy
24:1 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.
Now I have to
ask the obvious question, for those of you who have been in long term
relationships, how many times a month does your partner do something that is
objectionable? Clearly we see from the Old Testament, that adultery is grounds
for divorce. Sometime after Moses, the Hebrew people removed the death penalty
for adultery. There were three accepted reasons for divorce by the time of
Jesus. They are adultery, emotional or physical neglect, and abandonment.
Now I want to
come back to three scriptures before moving on to what Jesus had to say about
this subject. The first is our scripture from Genesis. God decreed in the
Genesis account of creation that woman was made for man to be a partner. In
other words, God never intended women to be inferior, to be oppressed by men,
or to be slave labor to men in the creation story. So in the perfect world of
creation, God’s intent was that man and woman would be equal partners in the
world and in their relationships. God did not intend women to be slaves, to be
oppressed by men, to be there to satisfy their every whim and pleasure. Don’t
forget this important point because it is this foundation from which everything
else that we will discuss will come. Within the framework of Moses, we need to
see how the world had changed. First, by the time of Moses, women had lost
ground in relationships and were now considered more property than partner. It
is clear from Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy that divorce was a part of the
world in which they lived and that divorce and even remarriage were accepted
practices. You could divorce your wife and marry another while your wife could
also remarry. And it is also clear from Exodus that a man had an obligation to
provide food, clothing and marital rights to all of his wives or they could be
granted a divorce. This is the only Old Testament scripture which implies that
the woman had an opportunity for divorce.
The church has
long used the scripture in Malachi to condemn divorce and those who are
divorced. But is that what God is talking about here? Remember that I always
ask you to read scripture within the context of its passages before and after.
In Malachi, the author is a prophet who is responsible for telling the people
of Israel that they are being disobedient. Scholars point to the post exile
era, when the people had returned from Babylonia and rebuilt the temple in
Jerusalem. They again were straying from their obedience to God. So God sends
Malachi to warn them of his wrath if they don’t change the way they are. In the
midst of this, God uses marriage as a metaphor for the relationship with God. Why?
To God, the perfect relationship is a partnership and marriage is supposed to resemble
this relationship. So God sees the relationship with humanity as a marriage. Remember
I shared with you a moment ago that the Genesis account proclaimed marriage to
be a partnership with each side lifting one another. By this time in history,
the people of Israel were not holding up their end. So God tells them that I
hate that you are sending me away. The word used for divorce actually means
sending away. God hates that God is being sent away from the relationship by
the people. I once heard of a professor who suggested that the reason God hates
divorce is because God has been divorced, many times over. Now some of you may
be offended by this but bear with me for a moment. God and humanity from the
beginning of time have been in a covenantal relationship. God shared love and
expected obedience and love in return. Throughout history beginning in the
Garden of Eden, humans have continually turned their backs on God. They have
committed adulterous relationships with idols and other Gods. Over and over
again they have disobeyed God and turned away. One could easily argue that God
and this relationship with humans have entered into separation and divorce many
times. God created a marriage relationship between God and house of Israel and
Israel repeatedly broke the covenant relationship. God hates the breaking of
covenant relationship more than anything else. But understand, throughout the
history of the world, God continually shares love with the people of the world.
Even when they send God away or divorce God, God still loves them and reaches
out to them.
Before leaving
this subject, I want to make what I believe to be some important notes. First,
divorce was a real, accepted and allowed practice though certainly not the
desired outcome of marriage. I am not advocating divorce in any way with this
sermon series. God intended marriage to be a partnership. Even though God hates
divorce as used in this context, God is referring to the obedience of the
Israelite people, post exile; God still forgives us and allows a place for
redemption. Tune in next week for Jesus hates divorce and yet I am.
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