Family Matters

 Matthew 19:1-15

Welcome! Today we continue our series into the book of Matthew. Today we are looking at Matthew Chapter 19, beginning with verse 1.
 
When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” – Matthew 19:1-3

Before we talk about the Pharisees’ question, I want to make sure that we do not gloss over what this passage says before that. From this passage, and others like it, it is clear that the individual accounts of Jesus healing people in the Bible are only the tip of the iceberg of what Jesus did. It is funny that in today’s social media culture, we use terms that had a literal meaning at the time of Jesus. When someone today is big in social media, we talk about how many “followers” they have. Jesus was becoming famous not only in Judea but everywhere. He quite literally had a lot of followers. Why did people follow Him? For a variety of reasons, some good reasons and some not-so-good. I am sure that, just like many people do today with their social media fixations, a lot of people followed Jesus solely because He was famous. Others followed because they wanted to see healings and other miracles; these were primarily following Him because of His entertainment value, for the thrills. Now there were also many who followed Him because they wanted something from Him, usually to be healed themselves or to see a family member healed. Now there is nothing wrong with seeking healing from Jesus, but there is something wrong if that is all you want to have to do with Him, as I am sure was true among some of these people in the crowds. And then there were, likely, a small minority of people who wanted to follow Jesus because they simply wanted to be with Him, to serve Him, to love Him.
 
The Pharisees were certainly not among that last group. As we have been reading over the past weeks and months, the Pharisees saw Jesus as competition, in their “social media” world. He was “stealing” their followers, taking away their honor, even exposing their corruption and hypocrisy. As Jesus grew in popularity, He became an ever-greater threat to their very way of life. From their perspective, He had to be stopped, by any means necessary.
 
And so the passage says that they came to Him, to “test” Him. The Greek word used here is also used to describe temptation. In fact, the King James Version uses “tempt” rather than “test” in this verse. Understanding this gives us insight into the nature of the Pharisees’ question. This was not like a test question you get on an exam at Clemson in which there is only one right answer. In fact, from the Pharisees’ point of view, there was no right answer at all. It was a kind of trick question, a trap, designed to make Jesus come out badly no matter how He answered.
 
Let me explain. The right to divorce a woman “for every and any reason” was a major part of the Jewish culture at that time. Why was that? Well, there were a couple reasons. One reason was that the super-famous and super-revered Rabbi Hillel had taught this very thing – he gave as an example, simply burning a meal one time was enough to divorce a woman if a husband wanted to do so. Hillel had died about a generation before Jesus began His ministry, but nobody had forgotten Hillel. Indeed, his teaching on this topic had helped make him become extremely popular. There was a competing Rabbi school at the time of Hillel who taught the opposite (the “house of Shammai”), but, in large part because of this, they were not popular at all. And now we are getting to the most important reason the right to divorce a woman “for every and any reason” had taken hold – it was because it was exactly what the people with “itching ears” wanted to hear – well, to be more specific, it was exactly what the men wanted to hear.
 
Divorce, back then, like now, was destructive to families and to society. Divorce was very damaging to children. And divorce was also extremely damaging to women. Even today, a single mother is far more likely to suffer from poverty than a woman who remains married. But back then, it was even worse. Divorced women were at the bottom end of the honor-shame spectrum, and so they suffered not only financially, but socially. And the very idea that a man could divorce a woman “for every and any reason” caused women to be considered more like property than people. A man could threaten divorce to make his wife do anything he wanted. He could treat her terribly, and if she complained, he could threaten to divorce her. It was a terrible situation for women, and it extremely far from God’s original plan for marriage or for women.
 
But I think there was something else also going on in the Pharisees’ question. I think they were hoping that Jesus would answer in such a way that He would generate the wrath of Herod, much like John the Baptist had done earlier. If you recall, John the Baptist told Herod that his relationship with his brother’s wife was adulterous, and as a result, John the Baptist was arrested – and while in prison, he was eventually beheaded. I think the Pharisees hoped that Jesus’ answer would lead to Him suffering a similar fate.
 
So you can see that this question would not just be a test but also a temptation. If you wanted to save your own skin, if you wanted to still be popular, you would be tempted to tell the people what they wanted to hear – that yes, a man can divorce his wife for any reason. From the Pharisees’ perspective, then, they saw this as a no-win situation for Jesus. He could either be shown a hypocrite, or He could make Himself unpopular and possibly even get Himself arrested.
 
I need to make one more point. What did the Pharisees think about this question? I think they absolutely knew that there was no Biblical support for “divorce for any reason.” But they did not care. In fact, they were the ones who had been similarly tempted by the question, and they had failed the temptation. They were like Herod who later said “What is truth?” They loved to portray themselves as super devout and religious, but deep down there was no “there” there. They did not actually love God. They were supposed to be teachers, but they did not care what the people did as long as they held the Pharisees in honor and respect. So what happened?
 
Haven’t you read,” He replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” – Matthew 19:4-6
 
Jesus argues against divorce, certainly against divorce for trivial reasons, here. The “let no one separate” would certainly include the husband!
 
What Jesus is describing here from Genesis is in fact a deep mystery. Clearly, I and my wife Mmi are still two people, not one. She is currently in a different room of the house! And yet, from God’s perspective, upon marriage a man and a woman become a kind of two-in-one. And even in our day-to-day language, we acknowledge this. We call them a couple, singular. And Jesus acknowledges that marriage is not meant to be just a decision between two people, but instead a covenant before God, blessed by God, and even “joined” by God. And so divorce, especially a divorce for trivial reasons, is an affront against the One who joined them, an offense against God Himself.
 
Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” – Matthew 19:7
 
“Aha,” think the Pharisees, we have Jesus trapped by His own words! By going so far as He has in condemning divorce, now He contradicts Scripture! Again, did the Pharisees actually care about the answer to the question? I do not think so. All they cared about was defeating Jesus in this verbal contest in which to the victor went the spoils of honor.
 
Now, did in fact Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away? Let’s look at the passage in question, from Deut. 24.
 
If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, and if after she leaves his house she becomes the wife of another man, and her second husband dislikes her and writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house, or if he dies, then her first husband, who divorced her, is not allowed to marry her again after she has been defiled. – Deuteronomy 24:1-4
 
Let’s start discussing this by exploring the phrase “something indecent about her.” What does this mean? Well, it is not completely clear, but the Hebrew does not imply it is over a triviality, but over something literally indecent. Now the Mosaic Law explained that the penalty for actual adultery was death, so this was not that, but probably something less. You can imagine that people living under the Mosaic Law avoided outright adultery because of the penalty. But they might indulge in something less. I think that is what is being described here.
 
Note that this passage states that a man writes his wife a certificate of divorce, and she remarries but then the second man divorces her. That’s just the “story,” the setup, for the command. It, in itself, is not a command at all. What is the command? That the first man cannot marry her again. That is the only command in this passage.
 
Note that this command restricts the husband and actually discourages men from having a callous attitude towards divorce. Divorce was final. It was serious. It was the opposite of what the people of the culture at the time of Christ had come to think. It was far from the object of some joke, like saying you divorced your wife because she burnt your dinner. Marriage was supposed to be a holy consecration of two people before God. To undo such a thing was deadly serious.
 
Now recall: What did the Pharisees say? “Why did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Well, did Moses even command that? No! Far from it! Perhaps I have been using the wrong analogy for the Pharisees. They are not like social media mavens, not “content creators” after all; they are more like Internet trolls!
 
Now let’s look at how Jesus responded:
 
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” – Matthew 19:8-9
 
So here Jesus flatly denounces the teaching of Rabbi Hillel, and of any who would continue to promote his views. And Jesus’ answer makes perfect sense of the Deuteronomy passage. Moses “permitted” divorce, he did not “promote” it and he certainly did not “command” it. Jesus’ view of marriage – and, importantly, of women – was far from that of those who followed Hillel. Women were far from property. Marriage was far from any other transaction, far from just a “purchase.” Jesus’ teaching here protected women and raised up their “value” immeasurably. By limiting divorce in this way, Jesus limited the power of men to abuse women through the threat of divorce and abandonment.
 
Let’s go on with the passage:
 
The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.” – Matthew 19:10
 
My reaction to this – from the disciples – is wow! Is it really so terrible that you cannot divorce your wife because of a burnt dinner? I think it just shows how fully the degraded culture of that time had affected people, even the disciples of Christ. And I think it serves as a stark reminder that we need to always be careful, always be vigilant, against letting our culture likewise distort our understanding away from the truths of Scripture.
 
Now, just like with email, we cannot read from this passage the emotion of whoever among the disciples said this. But it is very possible that this was meant as a kind of joke. It’s not terribly funny, but this kind of humor was used in other writings of that time. If it was meant as a joke, the backdrop or “anchor” against the statement is the unspoken idea that of course it is great to marry. And in the culture of that time this was true. It was generally expected that everyone would marry. To not marry was seen as dishonorable and strange.
 
So how does Jesus respond? Does He correct the disciples by pointing out what an amazing blessing marriage can be? Or does He laugh and say, “Good one!” Let’s see:
 
Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” – Matthew 19:11-12
 
I find this an amazing response, filled with wisdom and compassion, and perhaps more countercultural than anything that has been said so far. Eunuchs were the universal object of ridicule at that time (and indeed, at almost all times). And in addition to showing compassion and understanding to eunuchs, Jesus counters the omnipresent cultural assumption that if you do not get married there must be something wrong with you and elevates it in a shocking way. He says that some choose to live “like eunuchs” (that is, remain single) “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.” Paul later says much the same thing – see I Corinthians 7. Indeed, all of I Corinthians 7 expands on the ideas of this chapter, including the topic of divorce. To go into this entire chapter would require far more time than we have remaining, but I encourage you to read it keeping Matthew 19 in mind as you do.
 
Before moving on to the last few verses of today’s passage, I want to say a few more words about divorce and remarriage. In particular, I want to deal with the question that invariably comes up when this passage is discussed: Is marital infidelity truly the only permitted reason for divorce and remarriage?
 
I believe the answer is no – that divorce and remarriage is a far more complicated and nuanced topic than Jesus was addressing in this passage. Jesus’ context for His answer is important. He is speaking to Jews prior to the birth of the church, prior to His going to the cross to die for our sin. He is describing the true and correct interpretation of the Mosaic Law. He is not dealing with questions such as marriages between believers and unbelievers, for example, a topic that Paul deals with briefly in I Corinthians 7.
 
It is thus not true that Paul contradicts Jesus (of course this cannot be the case, as Scripture never contradicts Scripture). But things have changed in the church age, of which we are a part. We are not under Mosaic Law. We are under the Gospel of grace. There are overlaps between these two descriptions of how to live, but they are not the same.
 
Nevertheless, divorce is an extremely serious action that should be avoided when possible. But there are times that this is not possible. Situations in this category might include cases where a spouse is physically or sexually abusive to their spouse or children, and cases where a spouse is so negligent at providing for his family that they are unable to survive without leaving. These are by no means the only such cases. Divorce is always tragic, but sometimes it is necessary to prevent even greater tragedy.
 
Remarriage is likewise a serious decision. I think it is important to distinguish between those who are believers contemplating remarriage and those who have already remarried. With precious few exceptions, we should receive those who have remarried with love and acceptance and support and uphold current marriages. Far more important than a believer’s marital status is that we lift them up and treat them as brothers and sisters in the Lord, which they are.
 
And I should not have to bring this up, but in everything I am saying I am talking about marriage between one man and one woman, as no other kind of relationship is described as a marriage or is described as suitable for marriage in Scripture.
 
Let’s briefly look at our last few verses from today’s passage:
 
Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” When He had placed His hands on them, He went on from there. – Matthew 19:13-15
 
I think these few verses are a very fitting way to end today, given that we started with a poem for children of all ages. Jesus’ message to His disciples was not just that children should be treated with honor despite the fact that they are, well, childish, rambunctious, noisy, and have short attention spans. It was also a lesson for us – that children of all ages, with their own shortcomings, including you and me, would do well to remember that maturity, honor, and so on, are not the currency of the kingdom of heaven, in contrast to our own culture; instead, the kingdom of heaven is open to all who have faith, humility, and hearts open to love.