Are you still reading Morning Meditations this week? I fully understand if you are thinking, “No
thanks, Wes. I’m watching adorable cat
videos”. Afterall, we would rather see
Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount as good advice for someone else,
than a gospel medicine we need to take to heal our wounded, broken souls. But since we are still slowly trying to
trudge with the holy messiness of this Sermon, let’s turn to the next two
verses:
31 “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a
certificate of divorce.’ 32 But I say to you that
anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, causes
her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Take a deep breath.
Pray with me: Too often, O God, we have taken Your
wisdom and buried Your love with our human bias. We have used Your words of liberation as a
way to keep people in bondage. I pray
especially for my sisters in faith who have been told to stay in abusive
relationships because of these two verses.
I pray for people who have left the church because pastors have quoted
these words as justification for pouring salt in heartbroken, honest
woundedness. I pray for the ways we
idealize marriage like it is supposed to be some Hollywood movie rather than
the messy, human-size relationships that take our heart, souls, minds, and whole
lives to explore. For those who ache
because of these verses, I pray for Your love to be felt in real ways. For those who are angry, help me hear the
hurt with open heart. For those who have
left the church behind because of these verses, I ask for forgiveness and
openness. God of healing, hope, and love
let my words be inspired and infused by You.
Amen.
I don’t know why Jesus said what he said above. I mean I could tell you about the two Jewish
traditions/interpretations in Jesus’ day ~ one that was more conservative on
divorce and one that was very lenient (saying that if a wife burnt her
husband’s bread, he could divorce her). But
information doesn’t automatically lead to transformation. Whatever emotions these two verses stir up,
whatever is in the cobwebbed corners of your shy soul is part of your
experience and needs expression. I cannot
resolve or reconcile the hurt you absorbed from church in the past. I can’t rewind time. I know that in twenty plus years of ministry,
never has a couple come to me before a divorce.
I could again point out that the onus and obligation is on the male
here, but sometimes the brokenness (like Humpty Dumpty) is too much. I feel grief for the damage done to couples
who are struggling in relationship. I
grieve those who will never come to church because of these two verses. I pray that God’s grace and love might help
us as a church, as a people, start to find ways to both shine a light on
the harm and start to discuss what the sexual ethics are in these days. May the light of God’s love surround and
sustain and saturate all our human-size lives.
Amen.