Divorce Just Ain’t What It Used To Be
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If you’d like to listen to this week’s article in podcast version click on the image below:
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Mark:
Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”
“What did Moses command you?” he replied.
They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”
“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘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.”
When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”
People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them. (Mark 10:2-16)
So many of us read this week’s passage with cultural presuppositions that we don’t even realize we have. Let’s unpack them.
The Jewish law being debated in our reading this week comes from Deuteronomy 24:1-4:
“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.”
The first thing that jumps out at me is the word “indecent.” Indecency has always been a charge used against women throughout history and rarely leveled against men. But this law was not written with the same cultural assumptions about marriage that we practice today. Abraham, Israel, Judah, David, Solomon, and others had multiple wives. Polygamy was perfectly acceptable in their culture. Read Deuteronomy 24 again in the context of polygamy rather than monogamy and see if you don’t begin to see how problematic the passage is. “Displeases?” What does that mean?
The culture when this law was written was predominantly heterosexist and deeply patriarchal. Only men could have multiple wives; there was no egalitarian practice here. And only men could divorce their wives. Under this law, a woman could be divorced by her husband for any reason. Women under this law were vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and they had precious little recourse.
So deeply ingrained was this patriarchal way of practicing divorce that even the otherwise economic justice minded prophet Jeremiah describes Israel’s God as also participating a patriarchal form of divorce (see Jeremiah 3:8).
After the Jewish people began returning from Babylonian exile, monogamy began gaining prominence over polygamy in Jewish society (see Monogamy, Jewish Encyclopedia).
Monogamy later became further reinforced within Jewish culture through both Greek and Roman occupation. Both cultures socially enforced martial monogamy. The Romans defined marital monogamy as policy (sexual monogamy was a separate, personal matter).
While divorce was only permitted for husbands in Jewish society, in Roman law, divorce was more egalitarian. That is, a woman could divorce her husband just as readily as a man could divorce his wife. In telling Salome’s story, Josephus contrasts the Roman and the Jewish practices of divorce:
“But some time afterward, when Salome happened to quarrel with Costobarus, she sent him a bill of divorce and dissolved her marriage with him, though this was not according to the Jewish laws; for with us it is lawful for a husband to do so; but a wife; if she departs from her husband, cannot of herself be married to another, unless her former husband put her away. However, Salome chose to follow not the law of her country, but the law of her authority [Roman], and so renounced her wedlock;” (Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, Delmarva Publications, Kindle Edition, Location 18908)
Josephus also gives us some insight into how a man divorced his wife in his own society and the time in which our reading this week is set:
“He that desires to be divorced from his wife for any cause whatsoever, (and many such causes happen among men,) let him in writing give assurance that he will never use her as his wife any more; for by this means she may be at liberty to marry another husband, although before this bill of divorce be given, she is not to be permitted so to do: but if she be misused by him also, or if, when he is dead, her first husband would marry her again, it shall not be lawful for her to return to him.” (Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, Delmarva Publications, Kindle Edition. Location 5363)
Within Jesus’ society, the Pharisees hotly debated the subject of divorce. Pharisees of the School of Hillel believed that a man could divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever. Within in that patriarchal culture, the economic results of a woman being divorced could be devastating. A woman who could be divorced for any reason would be in a very fragile position socially, politically, and economically. The Pharisees of the School of Shammai strongly opposed the School of Hillel’s view of divorce, however, and stated that a husband could only divorce his wife if there had been infidelity.
Within the context of this debate among the Pharisees, we read our passage this week. Mark’s Jesus takes a hard stance against divorce as practiced in his society. I believe that Mark’s Jesus demonstrates a profound-for-his-time concern with the well-being of women, their survival, and their welfare. Jesus opposes divorce as practiced at that time with his people’s own origin stories (Genesis 1 and 2). And that was the only form of divorce that existed in Jewish society then. The form of divorce we practice today was night-and-day different from the form practiced in Jesus’ time.
We should also note that Mark was written for a more cosmopolitan Jesus-following community made up of both Jews and Gentiles thanks to the evangelistic efforts of Paul and others like him. So although Jesus takes a strong stance against divorce for the protection of women, Mark’s Jesus also applies the same prohibitions to women and men, since in the larger Roman society women could divorce just as men could. Compare this to Matthew’s Jesus on the subject of divorce. Matthew was written primarily for a Jewish Jesus-following community, and it does not account for women divorcing men because wives did not divorce men in that community. Also, in Matthew, Jesus sides with the Shammai Pharisees by stating divorce should not be practiced but was permitted if the woman had been unfaithful:
“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 5:31)
So what are we to make of all of this today?
It is foolish at best and dangerous at worst to build a modern practice of marriage and divorce on any of this. We can use it to inform our decisions, but we can’t use it as the basis for our decisions. Our context is different today. Let me explain.
In our time, not all divorce looks like the kind of divorce being practiced in Jesus’ day and to which the Jesus of Mark’s gospel was so opposed. Divorce that is only concerned with the well being of men in a patriarchal culture should be opposed. But what do we now do in matters of abuse where there has been no sexual infidelity? Or with marriages where both partners come to a mutual, consent that a mistake has been made and they they are better as friends than as marriage partners?
I was raised by a single mother who was married multiple times, sometimes to abusive, narcissistic men. Should my mother have waited for her husband to have a sexual encounter outside of their marriage before she divorced him? In one situation, waiting might have gotten her killed. I take the principle of Jesus’ concern for the wellbeing of women in Mark’s gospel and concern for my mother’s well being as encouraging women in her position to leave rather than suffer violence. This is what I mean by allowing the story to inform us in our practice of marriage and divorce.
Our practice of marriage and divorce in our culture today should be based on the ethics and values of the golden rule, the well being of all parties involved, whether abuse is taking place, and an egalitarian concern for justice for everyone. This is the spirit of the gospels’ teachings. People matter above institutions. Institutions were made for people not people for institutions. Even the institution of marriage.
Justice and that which was life-giving were Jesus’ concerns in Mark. And that which is just and life-giving should be our concern today, too. Marriage and divorce are two sides of the same coin. We are not infallible. And when marriage becomes death-dealing, divorce as a life-giving option should be among the choices available to those seeking to turn things around. Whether people believe that they can work on and change their marriage or that their marriage should be undone, that is strictly up to them. It is not our place to shame or look down on them. It’s our job to life-givingly support them during such difficult choices. People who have been divorced or are going through divorce don’t need our judgement. They need our encouragement and our care.
Discussion Group Questions
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s Podcast episode with your discussion group.
2. How does the cultural context help you understand the gospels’ teachings on divorce more appropriately for our context today? Discuss with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
I want to say a special thank you to all of our supporters out there. And if you would like to join them in supporting Renewed Heart Ministries’ work you can do so by going to renewedheartministries.com and clicking donate.
My latest book Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political and Economic Teachings of the Gospels is available now on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and also on Audible in audio book format.
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Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
New Episode of “Just Talking” Now Online!
Season 2, Episode 30: Mark 10.2-16. Lectionary B, Proper 22
Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend in the context of love, inclusion, and social justice. Our hope is that our talking will be “just” talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week we’ll be inspired to do more than just talking.
If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out at:
New Episode of The Social Jesus Podcast
A podcast where we talk about the intersection of faith and social justice and what a first century, prophet of the poor from Galilee might have to offer us today in our work of love, compassion and justice.
This week:
Season 1 Episode 25: Divorce Just Ain’t What It Used To Be
Mark 10:2-16
“Our practice of marriage and divorce in our culture today should be based on the ethics and values of the golden rule, the well being of all parties involved, whether abuse is taking place, and an egalitarian concern for justice for everyone. This is the spirit of the gospels’ teachings. People matter above institutions. Institutions were made for people not people for institutions. Even the institution of marriage.
Justice and that which was life-giving were Jesus’ concerns in Mark. And that which is just and life-giving should be our concern today, too. Marriage and divorce are two sides of the same coin. We are not infallible. And when marriage becomes death-dealing, divorce as a life-giving option should be among the choices available to those seeking to turn things around. Whether people believe that they can work on and change their marriage or that their marriage should be undone, that is strictly up to them. It is not our place to shame or look down on them. It’s our job to life-givingly support them during such difficult choices. People who have been divorced or are going through divorce don’t need our judgement. They need our encouragement and our care.”
Available on all major podcast carriers and at:
https://the-social-jesus-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/divorce-just-aint-what-it-used-to-be
Now Available on Audible!
Finding Jesus: A Fundamentalist Preacher Discovers the Socio-Political & Economic Teachings of the Gospels.
by Herb Montgomery, Narrated by Jeff Moon
Available now on Audible!
After two successful decades of preaching a gospel of love within the Christian faith tradition Herb felt like something was missing. He went back to the gospels and began reading them through the interpretive lenses of various marginalized communities and what he found radically changed his life forever. The teachings of the Jesus in the gospel stories express a profound concern for justice, compassion, and the well-being of those in marginalized communities. This book navigates the intersections between faith and societal justice, and presents a compelling argument for a more socially compassionate and just expression of Christianity. Herb’s findings in his latest book are shared in the hopes that it will dramatically impact how you practice your Christianity, too.
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Rewriting the Sermon on the Mount
Herb Montgomery | February 10, 2023
To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.
All of this reveals the concerns and struggles of the Jesus community at this time. It reveals traits and practices they felt were intrinsically destructive. We have our own struggles to face today, personally and socially. The Sermon on the Mount was written to 1st Century Jesus-followers living in the wake of the temple’s destruction who were trying to find their new place in the world. If this sermon were to be rewritten today, what can you imagine it might include now?
Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.
“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.
“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.
“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” (Matthew 5:21-33)
Our reading this week gives us a window into the life and concerns of the early Jesus community. The fact that Matthew’s author includes these words of instruction in his version of Jesus’ sermon tells us something about the audience this gospel was written for. All of these instructions were written to apply to that community.
A few things are interesting here. Matthew was written after Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, so Jesus’ instruction about sacrificing in the Temple suggests this was part of an older tradition in the community.
His words about settling out of court also indicate how unreliable court rulings could have been. Courts in that time could be merciless or even corrupt, so getting justice from those courts was not something one could always count on. (Consider the parable of the unjust judge in Luke 18.)
This collection of instructions also prohibits lust. This kind of prohibition was common in the Hebrew tradition and so it’s no surprise Jesus drew from his own heritage:
“Do not lust in your heart after her beauty
or let her captivate you with her eyes.” (Proverbs 6:25)
It’s also helpful to read Jesus’ warnings of “Gehenna” through the lens of the Jewish prophetic justice tradition rather than the much later Christian lens of a punitive afterlife in hell. I’ve written at length about this in the appendix of my book Finding Jesus.
Gehenna, the valley of the son of Hinnom, was a literal place in the history of the Jews:
“Then the boundary goes up by the valley of the son of Hinnom (Gehenna) at the southern slope of the Jebusites (that is, Jerusalem); and the boundary goes up to the top of the mountain that lies over against the valley of the son of Hinnom, on the west, at the northern end of the valley of Rephaim.” (Joshua 15:8)
This place became home to Judah’s terrible history of participating in child sacrifice:
“And [Ahaz, King of Judah] made offerings in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and made his sons pass through fire, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom the LORD drove out before the people of Israel.” (2 Chronicles 28:3)
“He made his son pass through fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom, practiced soothsaying and augury and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and with wizards. He did much evil in the sight of the LORD, provoking him to anger.” (2 Chronicles 33:6)
Gehenna was the cultic location where children were offered to the god Molech. At some point it also came to be referred to as Topheth, a word thought to signify the hearth where a child was placed. The Hebrew term has parallels in both Ugaritic and Aramaic that mean “furnace, fireplace.” Scholars believe that Topheth was at the edge of the valley of the son of Hinnom, southwest of Jerusalem. An 8th Century BC Phoenician inscription describes sacrifices that ancient peoples made to Molech before battle.
But the history of the place does not end there.
It next resurfaces with the prophet Jeremiah:
“And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter: for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room.” (Jeremiah 7:31–32)
Jeremiah is saying to his people that Babylon is coming, and will bring such devastation on Jerusalem that the valley of the son of Hinnom (Gehenna) will become a burying place that will overflow with corpses, and not those of sacrificed children but corpses of adults who, according to Jeremiah, followed after the kinds of gods that required such nightmarish atrocities.
At this stage, notice that Jeremiah is warning not of a postmortem experience, but of a distinctly this-life, this-world experience that could rightly be termed “hell” but that points to the literal destruction of their nation by a Gentile kingdom—Babylon.
“And go out to the valley of the son of Hinnom(the valley of the son of Hinnom Gehenna) at the entry of the Potsherd Gate, and proclaim there the words that I tell you. You shall say: Hear the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: I am going to bring such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, and gone on building the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, which I did not command or decree, nor did it enter my mind. Therefore the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when this place shall no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of slaughter.” (Jeremiah 19:2–6)
For Jeremiah, Gehenna had an end. It was not the equivalent of being eternally forsaken by God. Gehenna, in Jeremiah’s thinking, was temporary and held a restorative hope rather than a retributive one.
“The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when the city shall be rebuilt for the LORD from the tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. And the measuring line shall go out farther, straight to the hill Gareb, and shall then turn to Goah. The whole valley of the dead bodies and the ashes (Gehenna), and all the fields as far as the Wadi Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be sacred to the LORD. It shall never again be uprooted or overthrown.” (Jeremiah 31:38:40)
“See, I am going to gather them from all the lands to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation; I will bring them back to this place, and I will settle them in safety. They shall be my people, and I will be their God. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for all time, for their own good and the good of their children after them. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me.” (Jeremiah 32:37)
“For thus says the LORD: Only when Babylon’s seventy years are completed will I visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart. I will let you find me, says the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, says the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.” (Jeremiah 29:10-14)
I share all of this to say that though some sectors of Christianity have threatened individuals with hell for their behavior or identity, many of the Jewish cultures of Jesus’ day would not have done so. The threat in Jesus’ day would have been much more like those made by the prophets: certain behaviors could be connected with the threats of foreign invasion, destruction, and oppression by non-Jewish empires like what Jesus’ community was experiencing from Rome when Matthew’s gospel was written. The message was: If the covenant community continues do such and such, this and thus will happen.
Lastly, these threats betray an ableist set of values that prioritizes the “whole” body over the disabled body. I’ve written before of how the gospels’ ablest language needs to be addressed so this week, let me just say we can do better.
From instructing his disciples on lust, Jesus then progresses to teaching on divorce. Matthew’s version varies from others’, revealing that some in the early Jesus community must have created an exception to the ban on divorce for cases of infidelity. It is helpful for us to remember in our context today that, in many cultures of that time, women could not divorce their husbands. Only men could divorce their wives. And they could divorce them for a multitude of reasons, some trivial. To divorce one woman simply because you were lusting after another would make her a victim of adultery: her husband’s adultery. Economically, socially, and politically how men practiced divorce in Jesus’ day was unjust for women.
Again, all of this reveals the concerns and struggles of the Jesus community at this time. It reveals traits and practices they felt were intrinsically destructive. We have our own struggles to face today, personally and socially. The Sermon on the Mount was written to 1st Century Jesus-followers living in the wake of the temple’s destruction who were trying to find their new place in the world. If this sermon were to be rewritten today, what can you imagine it might include now?
One thing I think would remain is Jesus’ regard for the concrete harms people were suffering in the here and now. We, too, should be concerned with injustice, oppression, and violence however and wherever they are manifested.
Jesus’ sermon was life-giving for its original audience in their cultural context. What can a life-giving, culturally relevant Sermon on the Mount look like for us today?
HeartGroup Application
1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.
2. What are concerns you would include if the sermon on the mount were written, today? Share with your group.
3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?
Thanks for checking in with us, today.
You can find Renewed Heart Ministries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. If you haven’t done so already, please follow us on your chosen social media platforms for our daily posts. Also, if you enjoy listening to the Jesus for Everyone podcast, please like and subscribe to the JFE podcast through the podcast platform you use and consider taking some time to give us a review. This helps others find our podcast as well.
And if you’d like to reach out to us through email, you can reach us at info@renewedheartministries.com.
My new book, Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels is now available at renewedheartministries.com
Right where you are, keep living in love, choosing compassion, taking action, and working toward justice.
I love each of you dearly,
I’ll see you next week.
Now Available at Renewed Heart Ministries!
It’s here! Herb’s new book Finding Jesus: A story of a fundamentalist preacher who unexpectedly discovered the social, political, and economic teachings of the Gospels, is available at renewedheartministries.com, just in time for the holidays!
Here is just a taste of what people are saying:
“Herb has spent the last decade reading scripture closely. He also reads the world around us, thinks carefully with theologians and sociologists, and wonders how the most meaningful stories of his faith can inspire us to live with more heart, attention, and care for others in our time. For those who’ve ever felt alone in the process of applying the wisdom of Jesus to the world in which we live, Herb offers signposts for the journey and the reminder that this is not a journey we take alone. Read Finding Jesus with others, and be transformed together.” Dr. Keisha Mckenzie, Auburn Theological Seminary
“In Finding Jesus, Herb Montgomery unleashes the revolutionary Jesus and his kin-dom manifesto from the shackles of the domesticated religion of empire. Within these pages we discover that rather than being a fire insurance policy to keep good boys and girls out of hell, Jesus often becomes the fiery enemy of good boys and girls who refuse to bring economic justice to the poor, quality healthcare to the underserved, and equal employment to people of color or same-sex orientation. Because what the biblical narratives of Jesus reveal is that any future human society—heavenly or otherwise—will only be as good as the one that we’re making right here and now. There is no future tranquil city with streets of gold when there is suffering on the asphalt right outside our front door today. Finding Jesus invites us to pray ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ on our feet as we follow our this liberator into the magnificent struggle of bringing the love and justice of God to all—right here, right now.”—Todd Leonard, pastor of Glendale City Church, Glendale CA.
“Herb Montgomery’s teachings have been deeply influential to me. This book shares the story of how he came to view the teachings of Jesus through the lens of nonviolence, liberation for all, and a call to a shared table. It’s an important read, especially for those of us who come from backgrounds where the myth of redemptive violence and individual (rather than collective) salvation was the focus.” – Daneen Akers, author of Holy Troublemakers & Unconventional Saints and co-director/producer of Seventh-Gay Adventists: A Film about Faith, Identity & Belonging
“So often Christians think about Jesus through the lens of Paul’s theology and don’t focus on the actual person and teachings of Jesus. This book is different. Here you find a challenging present-day application of Jesus’ teachings about the Kingdom of God and the Gospel. Rediscover why this Rabbi incited fear in the hearts of religious and political leaders two millennia ago. Herb’s book calls forth a moral vision based on the principles of Jesus’ vision of liberation. Finding Jesus helps us see that these teachings are just as disruptive today as they were when Jesus first articulated them.” Alicia Johnston, author of The Bible & LGBTQ Adventists.
“Herb Montgomery is a pastor for pastors, a teacher for teachers and a scholar for scholars. Part memoir and part theological reflection, Finding Jesus is a helpful and hope-filled guide to a deeper understanding of who Jesus is and who he can be. Herb’s tone is accessible and welcoming, while also challenging and fresh. This book is helpful for anyone who wants a new and fresh perspective on following Jesus.”— Traci Smith, author of Faithful Families
Get your copy today at renewedheartministries.com
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Divorce Leading to Adultery
by Herb Montgomery
“Christians taking Jesus’ saying on divorce at face value have forced women to stay in untold situations of abuse. I want to argue this week that in the context of the 1st Century’s economic realities for women in Roman and Jewish patriarchal society, and in the context of the debate between the Pharisaical schools of Shammai and Hillel on divorce, Jesus’s saying about divorce did not judge women but was instead concerned with social justice for them.”
Featured Text:
“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another‚ commits adultery, and the one who marries a divorcée commits adultery.” (Q 16:18)
Companion Texts:
Matthew 5:32: “But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
Luke 16:18: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
Christians taking Jesus’ saying on divorce at face value have forced women to stay in untold situations of abuse. I want to argue this week that in the context of the 1st Century’s economic realities for women in Roman and Jewish patriarchal society, and in the context of the debate between the Pharisaical schools of Shammai and Hillel on divorce, Jesus’s saying about divorce did not judge women but was instead concerned with social justice for them.
Let’s unpack that a bit.
First, within at least Jewish society at the time of Jesus, divorce was the prerogative of the man. The laws were patriarchal:
Deuteronomy 22:13-18: “If a man takes a wife and, after sleeping with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,’ then the young woman’s father and mother shall bring to the town elders at the gate proof that she was a virgin. Her father will say to the elders, ‘I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her. Now he has slandered her and said, “I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.” But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.’ Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, and the elders shall take the man and punish him. They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver and give them to the young woman’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.”
This passage is disturbing for multiple reasons, but this week I’d like to focus on the fact that reparation for the unjust slander in the text would be paid “to the young woman’s father.” There is no reparation to the woman in that case and she would also have to remain married to her offender.
Another disturbing example is found a few verses further on in Deuteronomy 22:
Deuteronomy 22:23-24: “If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.”
Blaming the victim because “she didn’t scream for help” is sick. This law blames rape victims for their own rape. But also notice that the man is punished because he violated “another man’s wife.” The crime is against the other man, not against the woman who is simply “another man’s wife.”
The last deeply disturbing example to consider is just a few more verses even further:
Deuteronomy 22:28-29: “If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.”
This is sick on multiple levels, too! The victim of rape must marry her rapist, and without the option of divorce? Again the financial penalty is one that must be paid to the woman’s “father.”
Jesus’s saying must be interpreted in light of a culture where a women had few rights. She could not send her husband away with a certificate of divorce; only men were allowed to do that.
Also, the Torah’s criteria for divorce was problematic.
Deuteronomy 24:1-4: “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.”
Notice that within the Torah, the only prerequisite for divorce was if the woman “displeased” her husband in any way. Deuteronomy was at the heart of the debate between the Pharisaical schools of Shammai and Hillel. Hillel focused on the “displeasing” portion of this text and stated that a man could send his wife away, giving her a certificate of divorce, for any reason if he was “displeased” with her. Shammai, on the other hand, focused on the word “indecent” and said the permissible reason for a man to send his wife away was if she had committed an indecent act of infidelity, such as adultery. Notice that language. “Only if she” did. His adultery was not addressed because until Hellenistic influence, only men could issue a certificate of divorce. So you have two arguing factions. One said a man could divorce a woman for any reason he chose. And the other sought to limit the justification for divorce only to adultery.
Jesus and Hillel had so much in common in their teachings. Yes, Jesus and Hillel differed on the prozbul. Jesus called for the year of Jubilee where all debts would be forgiven and accumulated wealth redistributed to the poor. But in most every other area, Jesus interpreted the Torah in much the same way as Hillel. In the case of divorce, however, Jesus rejected the school of Hillel and sided either in the gospel of Matthew with Shammai, or in the gospel of Mark, a more stringent rejection of divorce than even Shammai (and Moses as well for that matter) would have been comfortable with.
Let’s look at each.
In Matthew, Jesus states that divorce in the Torah was a concession or an accommodation to male “hard-heartedness” within patriarchal marriages. Reasons could include something as minor as “finding something objectionable or unpleasing” about one’s wife (see Deuteronomy 24:1). In Matthew, Jesus goes beyond Torah and limits the reasons for a husband to divorce his wife to only infidelity.
Matthew 19:8-9: “He said to them, ‘It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.’”
In Mark, we find a Jesus that is even more strident than in Matthew. There is no justification of divorce here, and even the reason of “infidelity” in Matthew is left out. “Whoever divorces his wife,” period.
Mark 10:5-10: “But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” In the house, the disciples ask Jesus again about this matter. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.*”[*Mark was written for a gentile audience, and within Roman culture women could divorce men as is seen here. In first-century Judaism it remained that only men could serve a certificate of divorce to a woman.]
I would argue that in each of these examples we see a Jesus who is living within the boundaries of his own Roman and Jewish patriarchal social order and marriage. His concern, within those constraints, is justice for women in a culture that disadvantages women, making women dependent on fathers and husbands for survival, with very few exceptions. In more egalitarian marriages, the principle would be the same: distributive justice for all parties involved.
I come from a long history of divorce on both my mother’s and my father’s sides of the family. I am the son of both my mother’s and father’s second marriages. My mother would go on to be married a total of four times and my father, three. I grew up with my mother living despite a physically and emotionally abusive situation, afraid to leave because there had been no case of marital infidelity on her or husband’s part. I see this as a gross misunderstanding of the cultural context of Jesus’ words. In Jesus’ culture, where Jesus speaks of divorce, we see a double standard where men didn’t commit adultery against their wives, but only against the husbands of the married women they may have had sex with. If woman was unmarried, the man paid a penalty to the father of the woman (cf. Deuteronomy 22:29), but it was not labeled as adultery, even if the man himself was married. This was a culture whose adultery laws were written when men were permitted to have multiple wives, as long as the rights of fathers in those wives’s lives were “respected.”
Jesus words in the gospels regarding divorce should not be shallowly interpreted and lifted out of their context to promote injustice and abuse toward women today. This would be to contradict the spirit of justice for women originally within those words.
Nor should they be used today to support patriarchal marriage as an ideal for human society. Speaking of Jesus’ words in the Temple debates (see Mark 12:24-27) where he unequivocally denounces patriarchal marriage as having a place in the world transformed, made just, safe and compassionate for all, Elizabeth Schüssel Fiorenza writes in In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins:
“[Jesus is not claiming] that sexual differentiation and sexuality do not exist in the ‘world’ of God, but that ‘patriarchal marriage is no more,’ because its function in maintaining and continuing patriarchal economic and religious structures is no longer necessary . . . [Mark 12:26-27] replies directly to the question of the continuation of the patriarchal family: in the burning bush God is revealed to Moses as the God of promise given to the patriarchs and their posterity. The ‘house’ of Israel is not guaranteed in and through patriarchal marriage structures, but through the promise and faithfulness of Israel’s powerful, life-giving God. While the God of the patriarchal systems and its securities is the ‘God of the dead,’ the God of Israel is the ‘God of the living.’ In God’s world women and men no longer relate to each other in terms of patriarchal dominance and dependence, but as persons who live in the presence of the living God . . . The Sadducees have ‘erred much’ in assuming that the structures of patriarchy are unquestionably a dimension of God’s world as well. So, too, all subsequent Christians have erred in maintaining oppressive patriarchal structures.” (pp. 144-145)
Today, I hear Jesus’ words this week calling us to prioritize the vulnerable within our societies. Whether that vulnerability is rooted in discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, gender identity, class, education, sexuality, ability, age, culture, language, and/or religion, we are called to put people and their well-being first, even if that means we going against traditional and popular interpretations of our sacred texts. This week’s saying speaks of women being more than disposable objects, easily discarded in consumer-style patriarchal marriages. People couldn’t simply discard or trade wives based on legal loopholes in the Torah without acknowledging the damage done to the women involved. In Spirit, it calls us to reject seeing anyone as a disposable means to our own pleasure and gratification. People matter.
“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another‚ commits adultery, and the one who marries a divorcée commits adultery.” (Q 16:18)
HeartGroup Application
Our saying this week has been used to harm spouses in abusive marriages.
- How have you witnessed our saying this week used to keep people in abusive relationships?
- Does seeing this week’s saying through the lens of a call for social justice toward women in a patriarchal society make a difference for you?
- Discuss as a group which other sectors of society are presently being objectified, used for another sector’s benefit, or scapegoated in the name of community integrity and unity? Brainstorm things your group can do to make a change.
People matter. They aren’t disposable. They aren’t means to another person’s ends. We are worthy of more than being cogs in other people’s machinery.
Thanks for checking in with us this week.
Where you are, keep living in love. Keep engaging the work of survival, resistance, liberation, reparation, and transformation. Change is possible. The moral arc of the universe can bend toward justice if we choose to bend it that way.
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I’ll see you next week.
Part 3 of 3 – Jesus and the Living Water
Jesus and the Living Water
Part 3 of 3
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” (John 4:16)
Stop, and consider.
A woman comes for water every day in the middle of the day, instead of the early morning when she would be with the rest of the women in her town.
Why?
In a society where women found their place beneath men, some women found themselves lower still. This woman was held in lower esteem than even her female peers. Why? This woman had a story.
She had been married five times. Try to consider this not from the perspective our gender-egalitarian culture today but from the patriarchal social constructs of her time. Remember that marriage then was in some regards similar to marriage today, but within first-century Judaism, the social construction of marriage was significantly different. Women belonged to their husbands as little more than property. This was most apparent in divorce. Women could not divorce a man, but men, in this male-dominated hierarchical construction of marriage, could divorce a woman, under the Torah for any reason they so choose. Granted, a woman could not be passed back and forth between husbands, but her present husband could pass her to another if for any reason he deemed her no longer desirable (for faults as simple as burning the food or being less desirable than younger options).
This woman whom we find this day at the well had been sent away by five men. She had been told five times, “You are not desirable. You are not wanted.” We are not told what her present arrangement was, but suffice it to say, she was with a man now simply so that she could have some type of existence in that culture that required her to be connected to a man.
Jesus does not hold her responsible for any of this. There is no “go and sin no more” talk between then. There is no “love the sinner hate the sin” mantra that Christians today are so famous for touting. There is simply the understanding that this woman has been the victim of a marriage institution gone completely wrong. Yes, it was monogamous, but it was no more than serial monogamy. The kind of marriage this woman had experienced only served to objectify, dehumanized, and degrade women to a status lower than men.
Next, we encounter Jesus’ offer to her of “living water.”
What Jesus offers this woman would answer her heart’s desperate cry to love and be loved: a water that would so satisfy her basic, inmost needs that it would not only fill the deep void insider her but overflow into a beautiful force toward others, flowing from her as a source of healing for others.
However, there was a catch. When she responds favorably and asks Jesus for this water, He cannot simply give it to her. No, the water Jesus offers this woman can be only experienced within the context of complete honesty and authenticity. She must come to a place where she is herself, regardless of what the other Torah–observing women might say. If she is going to truly experience what Jesus extends to her, she must be given a safe space with Him to be who and what she is, no longer hiding, even if that means facing her past of begin repeatedly told, time after time, there was something wrong with her.
Jesus draws her into this safe space.
“Go get your husband.”
The woman scrambles. ‘My husband?’ she thinks. ‘There’s something different about this man in front of me, yes, but the last thing I want this strange Jewish man to know is how many times I have been rejected, labeled as unwanted, sent away by one man after another. I know what I’ll say.’
“I have no husband,” she says.
Jesus, with a look that subtly tells her that she can trust Him, says, “I know. I know you’ve been married five times, and the man you’re with now is just keeping you around.”
There is something different that she sees in this man’s eyes.
She changes the subject, though. Jesus will bring it back around.
What is Jesus saying to this woman?
The same thing He is saying right now to you, too.
“My love is not blind. I know everything about you there is to know. My love is not diminished by this knowledge. I love you AND I already know everything there is to know about you. Honestly, I knew you before you even did—even the things you are still in denial about. I know everything there is to know about you, and My offer to you is still on the table.”
We do not need water that will leave us thirsty (conditional love). We need the living water for which we were made. We must not settle for less. We must have the water that satisfies the deepest human thirst. We need Jesus’ living water of unconditional love, a love in which we are simultaneously fully known and fully embraced, loved and accepted. A love that knows all there is to know about us and loves us all the more still.
Who are you reading this right now? What are you hiding? What are you not being honest about, not with others but with yourself and possibly with God? Would you like this living water, too? Then it is time to enter the dangerous honesty of this radically inclusive Kingdom Jesus came to bring. Whatever you are hiding, He won’t turn away from it, and He won’t turn you away, either. You might feel like you have to come to the well at midday to protect yourself from others’ opinions, but you don’t have to with Jesus. As a matter of fact, He is already at the well right now, waiting for you to arrive.
In the past two decades, I have met many people who have come to a place where they can be honest with God about who they are. Some I find to be still hiding. Others are very much on this journey of deep introspection. All these stages are okay. What Jesus would have us all know, first and foremost is that, regardless of who we are, we don’t have to hide from Him. His love is unconditional. He already knows, even before you do, and His offer is still on the table. His hand still extends to you a cup. Are you thirsty for this water? Come. Drink. You will never be the same again.
The lady at the well did not fit in well with the religiously valued, normative social constructs of her day, either. Look at how Jesus relates to her. If you hear nothing else, hear Jesus’ words to you right now:
“My dear daughter, my dear son, I already know everything about you there is to know. And I’m still here. I won’t abandon you. I love you. I’ve come to extend to you, too, the invitation to a world where worship on ‘this mountain’ or ‘that mountain’ is irrelevant. I’m offering you a way into a radically different world, with a river of living, wet, soul-thirst-satisfying, radically inclusive love, not just for you but also, through you, to all those around you who were made for this kind of water, too.”
Do you have the courage to be honest with Jesus?
The first step is to believe that Jesus really does give us space to be honest without the fear of losing Him. The next step is to believe what Jesus said to Philip: “If you have seen Me, you’ve also seen God” (cf. John 14:7–10).
HeartGroup Application
1. This week, I want you to spend some time in contemplation with Jesus. What might you be hiding? Consider if there remains in you a door to that most private room of your heart that you have kept locked.
2. Invite Jesus into this, whatever it is. Watch what He does next. Journal what He shows you.
3. In the context of Jesus’ encounter with the woman at Jacob’s well, share what Jesus shows you with your HeartGroup this upcoming week.
Keep living in this love. Allow it to also flow out to others around you until the only world that remains is a world where Christ’s love reigns.
I love you guys.
See you next week.
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