Ordinary Days #16: Divorce

You shall not side with the majority

   so as to pervert justice. (Exodus 23:2) 

The Disciples of Jesus complained about Jesus’ teaching on divorce: “If those are the terms of marriage, we’re stuck” (Mt 19:10). It remains true to this day. It’s a minority point of view. It may go back to the minority report of “Jonathan son of Asahel and Jahzeiah son of Tikvah who opposed this, and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levites who supported them” (Ezra 10:15). The “this” that they opposed was the religious zeal of the majority insisting on mass divorce of all those married to a foreign women. After the zealous majority had their way; the book of Ezra ends with these words: “And so all those who had married foreign women, sent them away with their children.”

Jonathan and Jahzeiah, along with a few priests who supported them, didn’t feel right about the whole thing. There was something unjust about it. Does Torah teach that one must divorce his wife if she is a foreigner? Was it really what God desirers? Torah tells how “Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married (for he had indeed married a Cushite woman)” (Nu 12:1). The parenthetical lets us know that it was really true. Zipporah was a foreign woman. To the surprise of the pious; God sides, in a big way, with Moses and Zipporah.

Maybe Jonathan and Jahzeiah retold the story of Ruth and how it is that David’s great-grandma was a Moabites. Perhaps that is why the prophet Malachi, a contemporary of Ezra, blurts out “God hates divorce.” Centuries later, the Apostle Paul will follow along the same lines as the minority: “If any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him.  For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy” (1Cor 7:12-14). Christ and the Apostles, and thus the church, side with the minority report. Paul reasons the holiness of the believer is not threated; but rather, overcomes whatever unholiness the unbeliever may bring—“your children are holy.” Isn’t that something?

I shouldn’t dismiss the Apostle’s next few verses: "But if one separates..." Divorce happens. But it must never be for pious reasons. Divorce is always tragic. God hates it.

 

Ordinary Days #15: Jesus and the Law

“Is it lawful…” (Matthew 19:3)

Jesus seemed to always get in trouble with the law; or, with lawyerly types. Here’s a complicated example (Mt 19:3-9):

Some Pharisees came to Jesus, and to test him they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?" Jesus answered, "Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, '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." The Pharisees said to him, "Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?" Jesus responded. "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."

It is a lawyerly argument concerning one of Moses’ supposals: “Suppose a man enters into marriage with a woman, but she does not please him because he finds something indecent about her, and so he writes her a certificate of divorce, puts it in her hand, and sends her out of his house” (Dt 24:1). What does “something indecent” mean? The Pharisees figured it meant most anything that offended her husband, such as going outdoors with her hair down. If a Pharisee had gone through several such divorces, you had to figure he was a very righteous man since these serial wives failed to live up to his righteous standards. 

Jesus puts an end to the pretense. They had figured out a legal way to commit adultery while claiming to be righteous. Jesus does some lawyerly work himself. They called it a “command”—they were simply following God’s command. Jesus points out that it says nothing about a “command;” but rather a supposal—something Moses allowed “because you were so hard-hearted.” Then Jesus puts Moses’ supposal into the big Torah story: “From the beginning…” Jesus adds what preachers say, after the kiss, at every wedding ceremony: “Those whom God has joined together, let no one separate.” We got it from Jesus.

Ordinary Days #14: Torah

Tell them what happened

   at the Mountain. (Deuteronomy 4:11)

Deuteronomy tells the story of what happened just “beyond the Jordon when Moses undertook to expound the law” (Dt 1:5) to the next generation and for all generations to come. How are we to teach the Ten Commandments to our children and our children’s children?

According to Moses, we are not supposed to go one, two, three up to ten. In fact, the Bible never gives us our one, two, threes. It leaves the numbering up to us. So before we get to the numbering, Moses instructs those entering the Promise Land to (Dt 4:9-13)…

Make sure you tell your children and your children's children, how you once stood before the Lord your God at The Mountain. …And how you approached and stood at the foot of the mountain while the mountain was blazing up to the very heavens, shrouded in dark clouds. Tell them how the Lord spoke to you out of the fire. You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice. And then tell them how God declared to you his covenant, which he charged you to observe, that is, the Ten Commandments; and how he wrote them on two stone tablets.

There is more, another 40 verses or so before we get to the Ten Commandments. We have to tell about how God loves us and how he has called us to himself to be his people. Then we can talk about the stone tablets engraved on the Mountain by the finger of God.

Law is not Law, Torah is not Torah, without the story of how God called into being the heavens and the earth; and, how he called to himself Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And, how, as Moses would have us tell it: “We went down into Egypt few in number, and there became a great nation, mighty and populous. When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; and he brought us into this place” (Dt 26:5-9). God’s merciful salvation precedes Sinai.

Israel, like all humans, will prove a fickle and contentious covenant partner. But though “we are faithless, God remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself” (2Tm 2:13). Eventually, God himself will become man “born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children” (Ga 4:4-5). Israel’s Messiah becomes God’s true covenant partner bringing salvation to all who gather at another mountain—Mount Calvary.

 

Ordinary Days #13: Worthy of a song

I will sing

   of your word. (Psalm 119:172)

Our word “alphabet” comes from the first two letters of the Hebrew alphabet: alef & bet—see how that works? Our alphabet today comes to us from ancient Hebrew and Aramaic people. Maybe that’s why the Hebrew Bible likes to play with its alphabet: Psalms 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 119, 145; plus, the whole book of Lamentations and the famous ode to a capable woman that concludes the book of Proverbs. The final stanza of our acrostic Psalm praising Torah from alef to tav (from a to z) eight times over, invites us to sing a line or two.

I’ve taught Psalm 119 as a technical achievement with its eight times over alphabetic acrostic and how each eight verse stanza manages to include eight different synonyms for Torah. I didn’t say it out loud, but I’ve thought this technical achievement overshadowed its content turning it into something mechanical, even tedious. However, reading the Psalm over and over these last few mornings, I see the Psalmist as something more than a gifted language technician. Within this technical achievement the Psalmist remains a Psalmist, expressing sorrow and affliction (laments); and, praying for God’s deliverance: “Though I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek me out…” (vs 176—last verse).

In the end, the Psalmist asks us to sing of God’s promises (vs 172). I noticed no one has put the Psalm to a tune like “The Deer of the Dawn” (Ps 9), or “The Doe of the Morning” (Ps 22), or “Lilies” (Pss 45 & 69), or “Lilies of the Covenant” (Pss 60 & 80), or “A Dove on Distant Oaks” (Ps 56). I don’t suppose there is one tune that could contain all 176 verses. It would take a cantata; or maybe, an opera. But, I do recall a tune we used to sing from Psalm 119: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (vs 105). Somehow, we always knew we were singing about Jesus, “the Light of the world” (Jn 8:12). The Light that shines even in our darkest days.

Ordinary Days #12: Law concerning Endemic Disease

Thy commandment

   is exceedingly broad. (Psalm 119:96)

The commands and statutes, ordinance and decrees, expand to cover things like communicable disease—something like covid: “When someone has a swelling or a blister or a shiny spot on the skin that might signal a serious disease, bring him to the priest. The priest will examine the sore… and if it is serious and infectious… the priest will quarantine the person for seven days” (Lev 13:2-4). Further priestly instructions are given for different kinds of diseases requiring various forms of quarantine. That is the sort of thing you find in the book of Leviticus. It is a handbook for the priesthood—the Levites.

Jesus honored such priestly statutes concerning communicable diseases. When he touched and healed a leprous man; Jesus said to him, “Go and show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them" (Mk 1:40-45).

Ordinary Days #11: Law concerning the Oppressed.

 May your ordinances

   bring help. (Psalm 119:175)

The Ten Words spoken from the mountain and preserved in the Ark of the Covenant, require ordinary everyday laws covering the “But ifs…;” like, “But if someone steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, the thief shall pay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep. The thief shall make restitution” (Ex 22:1). It is assumed God’s people will fall short of the Ten Commandments written on stone tablets. They will need ordinary laws and decrees, statutes and ordinances, for ordinary life.

One of those ordinances concerns how they treat the oppressed: “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. You shall not abuse any widow or orphan. If you do abuse them, when they cry out to me, I will surely heed their cry” (Ex 22:21-23),

That must be why James tells us “to care for orphans and widows in their distress” (Ja 1:27), It was the first task of the church requiring the office of deacons to care for the widows and to make sure the Greek cultured widows were being cared for just as well as the Hebrew speaking widows “because the Greek-speaking widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food” (Ac 6). Seven deacons where chosen to make sure both cultures within the church—Hebrew and Greek, were treated equally.

 

Ordinary Days #10: Civil Law

Your decrees

   are my delight. (Psalm 119:24)

One of God’s decrees is that each tribe (maybe we could say city, county or state) “shall appoint judges and officials in all our towns …and they shall render just decisions. You must not distort justice; you must not show partiality; and you must not accept bribes, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. Justice, and only justice, you shall pursue, so that you may live and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you” (Dt 16:18-20).

That’s pretty close to the motto engraved on the west façade of our Supreme Court building: “Equal Justice Under Law.” Even God’s chosen people living in God’s Promised Land, require “judges and officials in all their towns.” It’s God’s idea; it is his decree for our good. Maybe that’s why the Apostle encourages us to “be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God” (Ro 13:1).

 

Ordinary Days #9: Ordinary Laws.

Open my eyes, that I may behold,

   wondrous things out of Thy Torah. (Psalm 119:18)

One does not naturally behold the beauty of Torah. It requires help from the Lord. Psalm 119 praises God’s Law (torah) every which way and in all its forms: precepts, statutes, ordinances, etc. The Psalmist believes, with the help of the Lord, we can see the wonders of even these ordinary “precepts and statutes”. Maybe it is because Sarah and Anna are visiting the Supreme Court today that I’m prompted to ponder with the Psalmist “wondrous things out of Thy Law.”

After the giving of  the Ten Commandants given on the mountain, when Moses went up and the rescued people of God stood below at the foot of the mountain and heard God’s Ten Words—words to be written in stone and housed in the Ark of the Covenant; there follows all sorts of ordinary laws. The Ten written on stone tablets will always need some “But ifs.” We might call these ordinary, everyday, getting along laws.

For example, one of the ten, “Thou shalt not murder” (Ex 20:13); is followed in the next chapter with: “But if one murders with intent—if it is premeditated murder, then the murderer is to be killed; but if, there was no intent to kill, something of an accident, then the guilty party is not to be executed, but rather he is free to flee to a place of refuge”—something like Cain. Or again, what if one gets in a fight with another, and the other is wounded but not killed, what then? Well, “then the one who caused the injury must pay for the loss of time and provide for his complete recovery” (Ex 21:18-19). I’m not sure God got tangled up in all these ordinary laws. They are not placed in the Ark of the Covenant like the stone tablets. Luther suggests Moses and God worked them out along the way. These are laws for people who mess-up, like us. They are meant to keep a fallen community together—to keep us civilized.

These ordinary laws extend to those different from us, even our enemies: “When you come upon your enemy's ox or donkey going astray, you shall bring it back. When you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden and you would hold back from setting it free, you must help to set it free” (Ex 23:4-5). Maybe something like this was on Jesus’ mind when he tells us to “love our enemies.”

Ordinary Days #8: The Supreme Court.

I have put my hope

   in your laws. (Psalm 119:43)

Psalm 119 came to mind as I heard of our Supreme Court’s decision to protect the religious liberty of Catholic Social Services. The surprise was that it was a nine to zero decision—unanimous. Our often divided court was undivided in its interpretation and judgment of the first amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” That’s the deal. No state church like England or Germany—the kind of religious tyranny from which our forbearers fled. Instead, the state puts into law the promise of religious freedom to worship as we choose.

Some years ago, when Sam and Liz Walker led us on our first Washington D.C. pilgrimage, we lingered in the Supreme Court Building. There was much to see. I was taken by its simple and elegant beauty. This little temple of the Constitution sits in the shadow of the capital—that mammoth, maybe even pretentious, building that houses our legislature. The Supreme Court's diminutive dignity reminded me how the Holy Spirit tends to be the shy member of the Trinity; yet, without God the Spirit, God wouldn’t be God. 

So it is with our three branches of our government. Without this little guardian and interpreter of our Constitution, America wouldn’t be America.

Ordinary Days #7: Journey Worthwhile

A Holy Kiss! (Romans 16:16)

The “holy kiss” made the struggles of flight all worthwhile:

 

Ordinary Days #6: Airport Mayhem

 When you were young…

   you could go wherever you wish;

But when you grow old…

   someone else will take you. (John 21:18)

We’re back from our flights to Denver and back. The “and back” part turned into one of those airport nightmares—a five hour delay, getting us home somewhere around 2:00am. Rachel got us to the Denver airport and Jen and Sarah picked us up at OAK somewhere around 1:30am.

It is this getting to the airport; or, more precisely, getting us to the proper gate, that changed both in our going and coming. In our going, our pilot friend offered not only to drop us off at the curb, but to help us through the mayhem and get us to our gate. At first we insisted that would not be necessary, but the closer we got to airport pandemonium; our “No thank you, that’s very gracious of you.” turned to “Yes please, that’s wonderful.” On the flight back, Rachel parked in “short term parking” and saw us through to the TSA and waved good-by, not knowing of the mayhem that awaited us on the other side—that’s the five hour delay part of the journey.

When I awoke this morning at the usual hour (makes no difference what time I get to bed, the getting up remains fixed), I thought of Jesus telling Peter about when he gets old “someone else will take you.” We needed someone else to take us and see us through.

 

Ordinary Days #5: For our college bound granddaughter.

We fly away. (Psalm 90:10)

It’s not the big “fly away” that awaits us; but, even the little “fly away” provided by Southwest Airlines, is something of a wonder. We fly to Denver in the morning. I’m a bundle of nerves. One does not fly for the fun of it. We fly because there’s something special at the other end. In this case, it’s a celebration for our granddaughter who just graduated from High School and is on her way to Baylor University—what a smart, bright, believing wonder of a young woman. She’s worth flying away for.

It was said of Solomon the Wise that, “He composed three thousand proverbs, and his songs numbered a thousand and five. He would speak of trees, from the cedar that is in the Lebanon to the hyssop that grows in the wall; he would speak of animals, and birds, and reptiles, and fish.” And that, “People came from all the nations to hear the wisdom of Solomon; they came from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom” (1K 4:31-34). 

That’s why she is off to Baylor—to learn the arts and sciences. Like Solomon’s first university that teaches Israel’s great poetry and songs (the arts); and studies the wonders of the natural world like “the cedars of Lebanon…” (botany and physics), and all sorts of “animals…” (biology, even entomology as in “Go to the ant and study her ways” Pr 6); and learns some of those 3,000 proverbs (psychology, philosophy and sociology). Because God created all things, all things are worthy of our study—it has to do with making one wise.

Ordinary Days #4: For my sister…

Happy are those who are blameless,

   …seeking God with all their heart (Psalm 119:&1&2)

I have wandered away.

   …seek me out, O Lord. (Psalm 119:176)

The longest Psalm ends with the Psalmist, who started out so sure of himself, wandering away; and now, at the end, praying that God will stick with him and seek him out “like a lost sheep.” One hundred and seventy six verses in praise of Torah, ending up with a plea for something more—for grace.

The Psalm is a technical marvel—an alphabetical acrostic eight times over. That’s how we get to 176 verses: 22 letters times 8 poetic lines for each letter from alef to tav, like our “A” to “Z” (no vowels in Hebrew so take out our five vowels from our 27 and you get 22) comes out to 176—a marvel. 

There are other technical achievements, like how the eight lines of poetry manage to use eight synonyms for God’s Torah: laws, decrees, precepts, statues, commandments, ordinances, word and promise. Yet, in the end, the greatest marvel is that God, out of his freedom—his love and his grace, seeks out those who have gone astray.