We remember that Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth." and "You are the light of the world."

What we tend to not focus on as much is Jesus’ "But I say" statements. There He teaches us about the law, anger, lust, divorce, vows, retaliation, loving your enemies, and more.

Why is that?

Is it because we want the joy of being called ‘Children of God’, but we don’t want the responsibility of being a ‘Child of God?’ Is it because we are afraid that we might not like what we hear? Or, that we might not agree with what Jesus is telling us?

This morning’s text deals with divorce.

Divorce, is considered by some as an appalling social evil. It is advocated by some as a necessary step for self fulfillment. Divorce is seen as one of the major causes of the problems in society.

Divorce has been handled differently through the generations. Families tried to hide the fact that there was a divorce in the family. Parents disowned children, saying, ‘they brought disgrace on the family.’ A divorcee was the talk of the town. At times being treated as though she had some horrible disease. For some reason it was always the woman who carried the majority of the shame

Today’s attitude is common place, because divorce is common place. Statistics indicate that the national average is that one out of three marriages will end in divorce. In some areas pf the country, it is one out of two. Divorce doesn’t seem to carry the stigma that it once had.

I suppose this is both good news and bad.

The good news would be that married couples will no longer stay together for the children’s sake. They are less apt to remain in a marriage where there is abuse, violence, infidelity, or where their worth as a person is completely disregarded.

The bad news is that people are getting divorces because it’s easier to get a divorce, rather than work at saving a marriage. Today you can obtain a no fault divorce, which means you don’t have to have a reason for gettng a divorce. You can get one simply because you want one.

This was the attitude which was prevalent when Jesus spoke about divorce. The marriage bond was in great peril of total destruction. In no other period of time, including the present, was the world in a greater danger of witnessing the break up of marriage and the collapse of the family.

While the Jews had a high ideal of marriage. The Greeks had almost a complete disregard for marriage. Militarily the Romans may have conquered the Greeks. In a moral and social sense Greece conquered Rome. Where once marriage and family was held as divine, now divorce was as common as marriage.

Jesus was seeing the same thing happen within the Jews.

Marriage was once viewed as a sacred duty which every man was bound to undertake. No man could abstain from marriage, unless to devote his life to the study of the the Torah, the Law. To refuse to marry for some other reason, was to forsake God’s command ‘to be fruitful and mulitply.’

The Jewish abhorred divorce because God said through the prophet Malachi, " hate divorce." Yet they were given permission to divorce through Moses, as set forth in Deuteronomy, "When a man has taken a wife and married her, and it comes to pass that she finds no favor in his sight, because he had found some uncleanness in her, let him write a bill of divorcement and send her out of his house."

The tragedy was that practice fell far short of the ideal. This in part because in the eyes of the law a woman was a thing. She was a possession of her husband without any legal rights. A woman could not divorce her husband, yet the husband could divorce his wife.

There were also two schools of thought. One school defined some uncleanness as meaning unchastity and nothing but unchastity.

The other school defined uncleanness in the widest possible way. They said that it meant if she spoiled his supper, if she went in public with her head uncovered, if she spoke disrespectfully of her husband’s parents.

They also interpreted the phrase, "finds no favor" to mean that a man might divorce his wife if he found a woman whom he considered to be more attractive than his wife.

The two schools of thought be as they were, you can guess which school of thought was more popular. It was in this context that Jesus said, "But I say to you anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

Christianity had come into a the world where the idea of chastity for men was not common. He was seeking reform. He was seeking to deal with a situation in which the structure of the family was collapsing, and in which national morals were becoming even more immoral.

Christianity had come:

Into a Greek society where men kept their wives completely and absolutely secluded in a compulsory purity, while they themselves found their real pleasure and their real life in relationship outside marriage;

Into a society where the process of divorce was very simple. The husband would simply write her a bill of divorcement. Basically, it read your are dismissed as my wife.

Jesus was calling His followers to embrace the truth that permanent marriage was God’s intention. Sinful human nature made divorce inevtiable. When speaking of divorce Jesus did not intend to cast undue guilt on the person or cause them ridicule from society. It was not his intent for a divorced person to be singled out. Jesus is attacking an attitude which abuses the marriage covenant. His intent was to elevate the status of woman, who were viewed as a possession, which could be disposed of by the whim and wishes of the husband.

Jesus was emphasizing the dignity and worth of women. Jesus was calling men to a higher regard for marriage. Jesus was calling couples to recognize the God given purpose of marriage.

Apparently we haven’t made much progress since Jesus day. Divorce is just as harmful and destructive today as in Jesus day. God intended marriage to be a lifetime commitment. Divorce is not the cause for society’s problem. Divorce is a symptom of a society which has turned away from God. I found it interesting in the statistic about divorce that the the odds greatly decreased among couples who worshipped together AND who took time for daily prayer and reading of scripture. Those odds were one out forty and the second groups of people were one out of four hundred.

Unfaithfulness does not necessitate divorce. Divorce is permissable for reasons of unfaithfulness, it doesn’t mean it should be automatic. There are options, such as forgive, reconcile, restore. Look for reason to restore, not an excuse to leave it.

People use marriage and divorce to satisfy their lustful desires, to marry someone else. Divorce should be used for an unchaste sexual immoral life style, NOT a confessed and repented act of adultery. Divorce is caused by loss of moral integrity, selfishness, and constant promotion of the sensual.

Amen

Reverend Richard Hayes Weyer

Our thanks to the CCM MIDI MeGa SiTe by NSO for the Hymn
"Let There Be Peace On Earth"