The Theological Politics of Divorce Redux (Mt 5:31-32)

So I’m beginning to suspect that the last post served more of a therapeutic role for me than anything else; it was sloppy, incoherent in some ways, and really didn’t deal with the material or answer the questions I intend to go after here.  For that reason, I think it deserves to be revisited, and ideally, cleaned up.  So forgive me for repeating things, but I fell like I owe it to those of you reading this stuff…

Because it’s been a while since I attended to Verbata, let me start by re-stating the intentions behind this blog:

1. First, my goal is to strip away as much of usual theological baggage that typically accompanies our reading, and try to get to the point.  I know, that’s what every pastor/theologian says…
2. Unlike much of the Christian community, I’ve become convinced that Bible has much more in common with eastern culture and philosophy than western culture and philosophy.  Believe it or not, that has a pretty significant impact on how we read and apply certain passages.  And so, what I do here, is attempt to examine the Bible through predominantly eastern eyes (not so easy since I’ve been completely immersed in western culture my entire life).
3. My ultimate goal is to understand Scripture the way these words were originally meant to be read.  That’s the result of taking into account the author (as much as we can know them), the audience, and the unique and nuanced ways in which the language and vocabulary is used.  I combine that with the imbedded cultural elements of the text, and the assumption is that all this ultimately leads me to get a good feel for what the text is talking about.  Ultimately, I would encourage everyone to take a look at the “My Approach” page to get a better idea of how I do things around here.

I rambled a lot in my last post.  So I want to be clear about what I get out of Jesus’ words on divorce…

The Theological Politics of Divorce (Mt 5:21-32)

Divorce is difficult for me to talk about; at least when it comes to Scripture’s teachings on it.  I suspect every one of us has something that we don’t particularly like about the Bible.  This is my thing.  It’s kinda weird because I can be down-right fundamentalist on certain things.  But when it comes to dealing with the topic of divorce, I often find myself faltering and avoiding dealing with it.  Case in point, I have begun this post, scrapped it, and started over at least four times now.  I know I can’t avoid it, but I also don’t want to engage it…

My reluctance to deal with this topic has nothing to do with my own personal experiences because I’ve never personally been through a divorce.  My reluctance comes largely from the fact that between my own parents and their siblings, there’s upwards of 7-8 separate divorces in my family and I’m actually afraid of hurting family members.  When it comes to the verses I’m taking up here, I feel as though I’m being confronted head-on with Jesus’ warning that if we’re not willing to stand against our own family, we’re not worthy of being his disciple (Mt 10:37).  And so I feel something on the level of anguish as I’m torn between a desire to over-look the faults of my family and yet maintain my absolute commitment to Scripture without compromise, no matter the issue or what’s at stake.  I’m afraid that I’ve become so conditioned to tweak the text in a way that makes me comfortable, that I may not be able to write a post on divorce that communicates truth on the same level my post ordinarily do.  That sucks.  For me and those God entrusts to me to teach, lead, and disciple…

To say I’m afraid of dealing with these verses publicly is an enormous understatement…

Not Just About Marriage (Mt 5:27-30)

One of the things that Jesus’ teachings on murder did was emphasize the effect that even the smallest blemish in a person’s life has the ability to completely taint that person and make them “unclean” before God.  That theme continue with his words on adultery:

You have heard that it was said, “Do not commit adultery.”  But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

When I first sat down and began working through this text, there were a number of questions and thoughts going through my head in terms of where I could go with this.  For starters, it’s worth acknowledging that this text brings up some issues revolving around marriage.  In fact, my guess is that a majority of sermons preached on these verses probably ultimately turn into a sermon about the sanctity of marriage.  It’s hard for us to think of adultery outside of the context of marriage.  I’ll affirm that’s a good thing; my fear is that we may be reading our modern, Western understanding of marriage into 1^st century Palestinian Jewish culture.  Which in turn suggests that we should take a look at what the rabbis defined as adultery since that was the theological tradition Jesus and his disciples were working with here.

…From Gehenna to Reconciliation (Mt 5:23-26)

I have a few a pet-peeves when it comes to how people use the Bible.  One of those is when passages are quoted out of context or in a way that suggests they mean something other than what they do.  While Jesus’ words on murder certainly isn’t one of the passages that may immediately come to mind, I fear there is a tendency to tweak it a little and place all the focus on the prohibition against murder and expansion to include hatred/wrath.  I personally have never heard anyone push us to look beyond the judgement and see the message of reconciliation.  The logical flow of verses 21-26 pushes us toward reconciliation.

After Jesus paints a picture of a rather bleak future, verse 24 make a very important turn.  The actual vocabulary is different, but the impact of this turn is just as powerful and important as the turn found in most lament Psalms (Ps 13 & 22 are good example).  Verse 24 begins with the words ean oun – “therefore, however, etc.”  That’s a major pivot phrase in Biblical Greek; “If you’re even angry with another you’re liable to burn in hell!  BUT…”  If we miss this shift, we’re left hopeless…

As I read over these verses and dig into them, I can’t help but think that the focus isn’t so much murder and anger, as much as it is reconciliation – which means we need to stop looking at the section headings inserted by publishers and pay more attention to the text itself.  So let me be clear about this: Jesus

From Murder to Gehenna… (Mt 5:21-22)

The shift from pure legalism – external righteousness – to internal righteousness of the heart, sets the stage for Jesus expositing the Law itself.  He’s laid the groundwork, and so the crowd knows that anything he says about the Law is not going to simply restate what they already know…at least not what would immediately come to mind.

In general, his approach to teaching the Law is straight-up Rabbinical: quote/read a text, then explain what it means…kind of like a typical sermon.  Over the next six sections, Jesus sets his reader up in the typical Rabbinical style with the words, “You’ve heard it said…but I say…”  However, other than recognizing the connection to the Rabbis in his teaching style (and showing that Jesus had at least some semi-formal professional training), I wouldn’t read too much into this introduction.  But from a syntactical standpoint, it helps to distinguish when and where a section begins and ends, which helps in determining and understanding the points.

So following his self-defense that he doesn’t add or remove anything from the Law (vss 17-20), he begins by dealing with murder.  In standard form, he quotes the 6^th commandment and Exodus 21:12 prescribing death to anyone who kills another person.  And then comes the famous, “But I tell you…”  On the surface – and the explanation often given – Jesus expands the Law to include not just the actual act of taking another human life, but also any number of evil thoughts or desires one may have toward another person (vs 22).

The Law of Righteousness (Mt 5:17-20)

I’ve already raised some questions, now here are some vocabulary points that I think need to be addressed…

The word translated “abolish” – used twice in vs 17 and a closely related word used again in vs 18 (“disappear”) – is the Greek word katalusai.  It comes from the word luo, which means “to loose, destroy, put an end to, make invalid.”  In many ways it’s the exact opposite of the word translated “fulfill” (plerosai) – something that can be gathered from the text itself.  Jesus is setting up a clear contrast between what he may be accused of and what he’s actually doing.  Jesus seems to be alluding to Dt 27:26…

Cursed is anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.

Jewish teachers often contended that if someone neglected to obey even just one law, they were declaring by their actions that the entire Law was invalid.  For this reason is became extremely important for Jews to keep even “the least of these;” breaking a seemingly small and unimportant law is akin to breaking a major, very important law.  I feel confident in assuming that Jesus’ Jewish audience – namely the four disciples – would have been familiar enough with this background text that Jesus could allude to it without directly quoting it.

Raising Questions on Mt 5:17-20

The theory that I’ve been sort of working with at this point is that everything between 5:3-16 is tied together by the theme of disciple attributes.  You can read over the last few posts to see how all that works.  It seems to me that Jesus is making a definite shift in directions at verse 17.  The kingdom of heaven is still a theme that comes out in vss 19-20, but the major force is in the attention Jesus is now giving to the Law.  Up to this point it’s all been about describing who or what a disciple is like and how that ties in to the missio Dei (mission of God).  But the sermon is now going in a direction more akin to explaining the Law.  My theological tradition drives me to take it one step further and view the following exposition as a lesson on the Law of the kingdom, the place where a disciple’s real citizenship lies – but I’m also reluctant to go there yet, recognizing that that’s a theological assumption without much in the way of textual evidence here.  But it is an assumption that helps to explain the literary and logical flow.

These verses are rich with meaning and leave me asking a number of questions:

1. After wrapping up his application for the beatitudes, Jesus immediately begins by saying, “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”  This sounds at least mildly defensive to me, as though something he has said in the previous sections could be taken as a violation of “the Law and prophets.”  But so far, I’ve been unable to figure out what he said would have been taken this way.  That’s where my question spawns from: Why does Jesus begin in such an odd or unexpected way?

The question raised to me while at Western Seminary regarding this text is whether or not Jesus considered certain Laws to be more or less important than others?  My usual answer is that the terminology is hyperbolic and not to be taken literally (much like Mt 22:34-40).  Yet I must admit that, to the best of my knowledge, this is an interpretive move with little support.  There’s also little support demanding that it be taken more literally.  Which means, in many ways, where a person goes with this is pretty subjective.

1. Thinking ahead to what follows, Jesus doesn’t simply go down the list of 10 Commandments and offer his thoughts on each one.  Some are dealt with, some are not, while commandments found outside The 10 are dealt with with.  I suppose I’ll get more into this as I deal with those passages, but the question for me here is, Why did Jesus choose to address the commands he does?  What’s the value of bringing attention to the specific points he deals with? And perhaps more controversial, Is Jesus’ exposition of the Law as presented here more a result of editorial work by the author?  An attempt at customizing the message for a specific audience?

I don’t expect to answer all these questions.  But I do think they’re fair questions to ask.