Matthew 5:31-32

Introduction

I’m sure you have noticed how casual many things have gotten. Dress has gotten more casual, interactions have gotten more casual, food has gotten more casual. We have relaxed our means of interacting. When you go to the doctors office you don’t call them dr much anymore, or it’s dr. Craig or something like that. If you’ve been around for awhile you know that I’m not very formal, I’ve contributed to the casualization as well.

But there are still some areas that remain much more formal. There are still some areas that are not casual, that are not come as you are. Where you have to dress, up. Or the parties involved dress up. Where maybe you have to take certain steps to get to the places, either travel, or getting a new dress or so on. In any cases, even in our casual culture, there are some areas that remain formal.

That still remain with a sense of ceremony. Ceremony is an event that is surrounded by ritual and pomp in order to reflect a very specific message, depending on the ceremony,

Some of you watched King Charles coronation. That is high ceremony. Or any of the other British examples in the monarchy. They still have a high sense of ceremony. One cannot just do as they please, there is a real sense of cheoreography in it.

The funerals you have been to have ceremony and ritual to them

The weddings you have been to have ceremony and ritual to them.

Why? Even though we have become so casual, why is it that we still have these ceremonies? Because there is an unavoidable reality that we cannot shake. There are still some things that are very very important. We may be able to make some things casual, but we still agree, collectively, there are some things that are of incredible importance. So much so that we will get dressed up and walk through hoops to experience or witness these events.

We have to remember that some things are still incredibly important. And the church has to go back to remembering what it is that we find most important. That is the work of the sermon on the mount. It shows us what leads to flourishing in Christ. What, not just a life is, but what a good life looks like.

So in order to understand that we have to go back to those things that Christ called important. And for this morning He calls marriage important.

This morning we are going to look at marriage and divorce. Again we are in the part of the SOTM where we are pretty granular. Jesus shows us how to deal with anger, how to deal with justice and oaths and judgement, lustful intent and other areas.

Marriage and divorce are reflections of the flourishing life to different degrees. And we need to explore what that means for us.

So we are going to look at what marriage does

And then what divorce does

And in both cases we will be led to the same conclusion, we are in desperate need of grace in our lives.

And as the SOTM is apt to remind us, we are in constant need of grace and it is truly found in one place in one person. Jesus offers us grace for marriages and grace in divorce. But let’s look at both in turn.

You may be here this morning and be married.

You may be here this morning and be divorced

You may be here this morning and have experienced both.

You may be here this morning and have not experienced any of them

Ultimately we will be reminded that marriage is a reflection of how Christ deals with us and that we are to pay close attention to how God cares for us and also marriage or not, how we care for each other.

The call this morning is to remind ourselves as the church how Christ views marriage and to remind ourselves as well just how important it is.

What does marriage do?

First let’s look at what marriage is. Now we could spend months on this topic. But because Jesus is dealing with divorce we are going to only look at a couple of thoughts. First let’s look at the place where we first see the institution of marriage initiated

Genesis 2:19–25 ESV

Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

This is a great overview of the God of the universe sanctioning this relationship. That man and woman were created, and in marriage were told to go and hold fast and become one flesh. That they are called to create an entirely new relationship that did not exist before. Not that two people are consumed into one but that in that relationship there is new committment and possibility and dynamics that could not have existed otherwise.

Marriage is a union created by God to represent commitment and the expression of love toward another person. It is intended to be an image of God’s relationship with humanity. When you wake up in the morning and you are married, your marriage is a reflection, an analogy of, Christ’s relationship with the church.

Let’s look at Ephesians 5:25–30 “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.”

This is a direct line between how we act in marriage and how Christ treats the church. That is why, for the Christian, marriage matters.

That is why, for the Christian, we are not called to treat it lightly or glibly.

And for the Christian, and we can point to people in this very church who have upheld this incredible gift. There are people in this church who have been married for almost twice as long as I’ve been alive and that is a testimony and witness to the faithfulness of Christ. They reflect Christ and His church and they reflect the high ordering of relationships.

something is of the highest order, we end up, caring for it with high regard. We took care of it. We look after it. We protect it. We cherish it. Anything that we care, for you. Take greater care to protect it, and uphold it.

Marriage is a vow and a committment. It is a picture of Christ and His church. It is a high order of what relationships can look like.

But we are all aware that not everything works the way it should. So we have to talk about divorce for a bit.

At the outset let me begin by saying this.

One, as Christians we have to listen to what Jesus is saying

Two, I know there are some people here who have gone through divorce. I will be generalizing here and while I am not picking on any one thing, we can agree that in the vast vast majority of cases, divorce is not the most agreeable option.

even Jesus gives us the exception clause. In cases of marital at faithfulness. This would I would say, include any kind of abuse.

But that doesn’t mean that there is not grace for divorce, that there is not mercy or reconciliation. In fact, Jesus’ primary concern in divorce is the fact that it removes the option for reconciliation if remarriage is involved.

As we go through this and move toward the end of the message we will see that the call is needed no matter the relational situation we are in. We need grace to sustain and grace to change.

Matthew 5:31–32 ““It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

There is not a lot of wiggle room in this passage. Again, in the ANE, an individual male could do almost anything he wanted, adultery and onward, without much legal ramifications. And Jesus states that there is allowance for divorce in the law, but not in the way most people are thinking.

He says if you divorce, with the exception for infidelity (and I would include here any kind of relational infidelity or abuse is all part of this same field) makes her commit adultery if she remarries.

We have grown to take sexuality and the relationship that is supposed to frame that, marriage, way too glibly. We have made it too easy to act out our lust in real time in real life. We have made it too easy to dehumanize someone else.
And Jesus points not only to heart and action but habit.

We stop paying attention to all the foundational institutions in society. We walk away from marriages, we walk away from commitments.

No Fault Divorce

In 1969 California signed the very first no fault divorce law. While well intended, aiming to keep false accusations down, the bill was enacted to remove any reason for having to divorce. You now did not need any reason to do so, you could just walk out of the marriage. Other states followed suit and it became a part of our American culture.

Divorces skyrocketed the following year. And years to follow. Not only due to this law. There were also cultural issues at play, economic issues at play that increased divorce, but still this bill became a large crack in the fault line.

Now legislation cannot maintain moral boundaries. If you have a difficult marriage, regardless of legislation, you will look for a way out. However, this became permissive.

If you want to know where our culture began cracking, it was around this very issue. Once you begin messing with relational institutions, things will likely not end up like you want them. We like to point to the last 10 or 20 years and ask what happen. I would say much of what has happened began with this bill. Now the generation of children that came out of that prefer cohabitation instead of marriage, they prefer not getting married at all. Because they have seen what was modeled and what was modeled is severely lacking.

We see the danger in play in our culture. And Jesus gave a good heads up in our dealings with it.

The reason divorce matters is because marriage matters. We have approached things far too glibly and we are paying the prices for it.

Divorce, even when appropriated, under biblical conditions, is a fracturing activity. It breaks relationships, to creates instability. It is difficult for anyone going through it. And it deserves attention because we want to support and walk with the difficulty of people having to deal with it. We also want, as a church, to help to avoid it. That is not possible in all cases, but there is grace if there is divorce.

Divorce makes the topic of marriage all the more difficult because Christ says if you divorce a woman, Jesus is talking to guys here, and she gets remarried. She commits adultery. Is there the offer of grace to move forward from there? Yes. Does that eliminate the consequences and difficulty of dealing with divorce and remarriage? No. Does it sustain us? Yes.

What do we do from here?

We may find ourselves in a lifelong marriage. Or a lifelong remarriage. Or in a divorce. Or none of the above.

We have to recognize that human relationships are both worth pursuing and are very difficult. thos is our witness to the world relationships are of ultimate importance and they are very difficutl

There is a reason that Jesus is showing us what life looks like, it is the form that we are all considered to follow and to live by.

But when we don’t, we are called to conform back to Christ’s standards. And His standards are good and we are given grace to live them out.

To do that, because we live in lives that concern each other, we have to pay attention to how we are paying attention to the other. Whether it is the other we are married to, or are friends with, or are divorced from.

I am going to be borrowing from your friend and mine, Augustine,

We must never despair of anyone ever.

To live in grace, to act on grace we have to live this out. No matter who the other is.

But no matter who the other is, we are called to not despair of them, and are called to be patient, trusting that God is working things out in His time.

Patience is required in marriage

And Patience is how Christ deals with us

No matter what it is we have gone through, Christ doesnt despair of us.

2 Peter 3:8–9 ESV

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Our work as the church is to call important what Christ calls important. Marriage, and from that relationships, are of high importance. In order to do well in our marriage, to live reconciled lives, it will be needed to not despair of anyone ever. And when we can’t uphold that, turn to Christ who can.