The Place of Hidden Grace

This passage from Mark strikes a sensitive nerve for most of us.  Jesus is talking about adultery and divorce, an experience that has likely touched almost every one of us here today, either first hand or through a friend or loved one. For many of us this is a sensitive and tender subject and just the mention of it may bring to the surface, heartfelt feelings of pain and pathos. 

At a first and cursory reading, Jesus’ words seem to be rigid and unmovable. They come off as judgmental and seem to offer little appreciation of the unique circumstances of people. Tragically that is exactly the way some have used these words, to pronounce judgment upon others.  Some seem to put these particular words of Jesus into a special category where adultery and divorce are held up as either unforgivable sins, or at the top of a hierarchical list of worst sins.

What I want to put before you today is something entirely different from that approach. I don’t believe that is in the least what these words of Jesus are about.  In fact, I believe these words have been grossly misunderstood and tragically misused. 

One of the things you will hear from me ad nausea if you ever attend one of my Bible studies, and I hope you will, is “context, context, context!”  You can make the Bible say just about anything you want it to say if you lift verses and passages out of context.  It takes little skill to lift verses out of context, shape them into a club and beat people up with them.  To begin to understand this passage we must gain insight into the context, beginning with the definition of adultery at the time of Jesus. 

In the Old Testament and in the Greek/Roman worlds, adultery specifically referred to a married or engaged woman being sexually unfaithful to her husband or fiancée.  In other words adultery was defined in terms of the woman’s unfaithfulness, not the man’s.  By definition, only the woman could commit adultery.   So, the first thing Jesus does is level the playing field.  Adultery was no longer defined merely in terms of the woman’s behavior, but now also according to the man’s behavior.  Jesus’ words took a big step towards eliminating the injustice of the old practice and elevated dramatically the status of women in the early Christian community, leveling the playing field and making it much harder for a man to write a certificate of divorce against his wife.

We also must look at who asked Jesus the original question, and in what spirit was it asked.  It was the Pharisees who asked Jesus, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”  Whenever the Pharisees came to Jesus, it was usually for one of two reasons: either they were looking for a pat on the back for something they were already doing, or they were testing him, hoping to catch him saying something they could hold against him.

I believe the spirit of their question could be paraphrased something like this, “Jesus, just what can I get away with and still feel justified by the law of Moses?”  Their question has numerous contemporary parallels.  Especially in the political realm, how often do we hear someone insisting on their innocence in terms of the technicalities of the law?  “I did nothing technically illegal!” we hear someone insist.  Perhaps, but it still may have been a poor choice, unethical or even immoral.

Jesus’ answer was clever.  He answered with a question, “What did Moses command you?”  Jesus question was merely the last unspoken, implied part of the Pharisees’ question, “Jesus, is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Moses says it is!” In other words, “Tell us Jesus, what can we get away with?”

But then Jesus did what he so often did.  He upped the ante!  Remember in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus defined adultery as lust of the heart and defined murder as anger towards another?  That’s what I call upping the ante!  He does a similar thing here. Every time Jesus upped the ante, what he essentially did was make it impossible to continue living by the law. He set the standards so high they became out of reach. 

Jesus reminded them that Moses’ command (that a man could write a certificate of divorce against his wife) was really a law of accommodation.  Moses only made that command, said Jesus, because the Israelites had such a lousy attitude about marriage in the first place. (“hardness of heart,” Jesus called it)  Moses’ command was unfortunately shaped by the character of those for whom it was written. In so many words, Jesus was saying it was a lousy law.   Jesus upped the ante and pushed the law right back into their self-righteous faces. They had to be getting frustrated with him!

Jesus then shifts gears completely and transforms the entire conversation from law to grace.  In so many words Jesus is saying to them and us (if we’re listening), “OK, if you want to build your marriage (and other relationships) upon law and technicalities then go right ahead. But know your marriage will have little intimacy, little joy, little forgiveness, and be devoid of grace.” 

Then Jesus quotes fragments of Genesis 1 & 2, “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… no longer two but one…”

Jesus shifts the entire conversation from basing a marriage upon laws and technicalities, to God’s original intent for marriage that it be held together not by law, but by God’s blessing; by grace and mutual love; the right kind of love: God’s love, sacrificial love, selfless love – the kind of love that flows from the cross of Jesus Christ; the kind of love that builds intimacy and trust!

When I counsel couples before marriage I insist that they write their own marriage vows.  We talk about the difference between promises of love and promises of law.  I read recently of a couple who signed a prenuptial agreement that if either one of them gained more than 15 pounds the other could see it as grounds for divorce.  That’s an extreme example of a marriage based on law and technicality - not love and grace.  Often it is more subtle.

Law and technicality cannot make a joyful, fulfilling marriage.  It simply doesn’t have that power or that capacity.  The only thing that can truly empower a marriage is love, grace, forgiveness and the blessing of God. 

But what do these words of Jesus have to say in the face of a break up of a marriage and the deep wounds and emotional pain left in the wake. I am always amazed that when people want to use a passage to beat up either someone else or even themselves how quickly they forget about the cross.

There’s the story in the Gospel of John when Jesus encountered the woman who had been caught in the act of adultery that the Pharisees had dragged before him.  Do you remember what he said?  To the Pharisees he said, "…the one among you who has never sinned, cast the first stone." No stones were thrown that day and they all left!  To the woman he said, "Where are your accusers; is there no one left to condemn you? Neither do I!"  I believe that woman left, more empowered and more healed than she had ever been before.  What a story.  The Pharisees came to Jesus filled with self-righteousness, dripping with the demands of the law – they left convicted; the woman left forgiven and set free.  Ironic!

In a dramatic and almost confrontational way this passage, and others like it, press us to consider just how we are going to live.  If you choose to live by the law and technicality, and measure everybody else by the technicalities of the law, then know that you too will be measured by the law, the ante of which Jesus has upped to the unattainable.

If you probe this passage deep enough and far enough, a new landscape will emerge and come into view behind it: a landscape littered with the guilt of holy laws broken, shattered dreams, wounded spirits inflicted from the unfaithfulness and betrayal of others, expectations not met, goals left unfulfilled, failures incurred, grief of loss and profound regret of things done and left undone. 

But then rising up from the ashes of it all stands a cross; and you walk up to the foot of the cross and you fall on our knees before it and you weep!  You weep grievously that it was your sins that put him there, but you also weep for joy when you hear the words he speaks to you, “Father, forgive him/her.”

You realize you have entered the world of God’s unfathomable grace and love. It’s a reality that lives just out of view; just behind the curtain every human failing to keep God’s holy and righteous law: the foot of the cross where forgiveness rules; and death explodes into new life and new possibilities; where sins are washed away by his blood; where despair is transformed into hope; where sadness is turned into joy; where darkness is turned into blazing light; where fractured lives are put back together; where grace cascades upon you and the haunting voice of the law finally comes to an end!