SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2024 | AFTER PENTECOST - Proper 22 (B)

Textual notes

Genesis

Bible is obviously not a science book - it doesn’t have to clash with our scientific knowledge about the origins of species. This passage is rather an example of meaning making of the ancient mind, of trying to understand how things came about and how God fits in it all. If we were to follow science, then Eve would be the first one and THEN Adam from her rib - embryos begin as female.

Enhanced Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon אִשָּׁה

אִשָּׁה

Issa - not just a wife, but a female in general…iss and issa

Hebrews

Mark Good morning,

Today we have a text that some of you may dread - it may have been used against you or your life choices before. Or perhaps it was exemplified as a cautionary tale. Divorce has been a scarecrow in the Christian tradition for quite some time and still very much is.

You know me, I wouldn’t begin in such a way if I didn’t have a BUT. First of all, I refuse to think of the Bible as some book of law to throw at people - it is one of my core beliefs that it is the Holy Spirit’s job to tug on heart strings and tickle the conscience of others, not mine. I am to preach the Good News in all its complexity and context it requires.

Secondly, divorce is such a complex issue that one cannot just say “don’t do it or else” and be done with it. In the past, those that found it easy to say were clergy who cannot marry or men in position of power that could always work around it like bending the rules or beheading the spouse.

And thirdly, a careful exposition of the text will show that there is more to it than the eye of the male moralist see. In a patriarchal society, divorce is a threat to the status quo - as an oversimplification with cultural variations, a female passes from being the property of a father, brother, or an uncle to being the property of a husband, so a divorce, especially one initiated by the woman where possible, is seen as an unwelcome disruption of this order. When I studied Islamic law, we touched on the family law, where it states that the man can tell their spouse “أنتِ طالق (Anti tāliq)” - you are divorced to initiate it. There is a better way of doing it, which involves a period of possible reconciliation and also waiting period to see if the woman is pregnant, but the man also has the option to skip all that and pronounce the formula three times in a row. The woman has options for divorce, but none that would be so easy - generally, she needs to seek consent and financially compensate the husband.

But of course, that is all relatively new development, well after the time of Jesus and has its source in the overall attitude in the Levant, the cradle of many religions. In the Mosaic law, a man is allowed to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce a woman. The emphasis is on the man’s activity. Hillel the Elder, a Babylonian Jew and a Jerusalem leader that died 10 CE, reformed the Jewish divorce law to be in line with the Greek one and allowed men to divorce women for “any matter.” Before then, the Graeco-Roman and Jewish law were at odds - in the Greek tradition, the expectation was that the marriage would more likely than not end in divorce, whereas in the Jewish Aramaic tradition, the expectation was that the marriage would end in death of one of the partners. In the Greek marriage, the woman can demand the dowry back that her family paid the groom to care for her and just leave and in the Jewish tradition, the main financial gift is a gift from the groom and a divorce was possible only if threefold marriage obligations according to Exodus 21:10-11

Exodus 21:10–11 NRSV

If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish the food, clothing, or marital rights of the first wife. And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out without debt, without payment of money.

are not met - In theory only men could write a divorce certificate, and women had to demand a certificate through a rabbinic court, but in practice women may have taken the law into their own hands and asked a scribe or a male guardian to write it out. The guilty party would receive the dowry.

Of course, that changed, when Hillel allowed men to divorce women for “any matter” and that deepened the gender imbalance that God did not intend. And then came Jesus and mixed things up as he usually does - it seems like he liked the equality of the Greek law and the religious basis of the Jewish law, but did not like the open-ended easy divorce in the Greek law and the heavily patriarchal bias of the Jewish law. The burden and responsibility of marriage is on both parties equally based on God’s law. It ’s not supposed to be easy to divorce for anyone as marriage should be taken seriously!

The particulars of his teaching get a bit fuzzy as the inclusion of certain verses differs between different surviving manuscripts of Mark -some traditions exclude the presence of Pharisees (v. 2) and thus Jesus teaches unprompted about marriage and divorce and other sources do not include the passage about the woman initiating the divorce and marrying again (v. 12).

And of course, our current understanding of marriage has shifted as well - it is no longer just between a man and a woman and we celebrate the different cultural expressions of marriage and understand that sometimes a divorce is the best course of action and can reduce a lot of harm and suffering. Nobody should be trapped in a marriage that is not supposed to continue any longer - my parents are divorced and it makes sense to me - they are two very different people from when they first met and somewhere along the way, they stopped working through that until there was a point of no return.

And here comes the good news - all that can be at the same time true while acknowledging this passage - marriage is supposed to be taken seriously and entered in good faith and for the right reasons and a divorce is messy and impactful process. But as I mentioned before, I do not believe that the Bible is meant to be a book of laws to be thrown at people, proverbially and literally. It is an ancient document containing the Spirit-inspired writings about often even more ancient people, nay, pretty much prehistoric people as in the times they lived, nobody was really writing histories, and what they did and said and how they interacted with God. The essence of it all, if taken seriously and in context, is still true, but it requires a careful discernment. No, divorcees are not supposed to be placed outside of God’s church and/or grace and no, people are not disobeying God’s design by not getting married the right way. Through Jesus’ incarnation, we have the assurance that God understands that our lives down here on Earth are complicated and all we can do is to do our best, at the same time sinners and saints. And our marital status is simply just one of many expressions of our diversity and the potential to both bless and harm. Amen.