Glynn Cardy 12th Feb 2023
Some verses in the Bible are a little difficult to ignore. Even if we don’t believe them, even if we think they are hyperbole, even if we would prefer to have them deleted, they still bug us, annoy us. So, before you consign yourself to ‘the hell of fire’, or pluck out your eye or cut off your hand, let me say a couple of things about this text today on murder and adultery.
The Jesus presented in Matthew’s Gospel is a faithful Jew who has not come to do away with the law. And as you and every Sunday School scholar might remember murder and adultery are numbers six and seven in the big Ten Commandments (allegedly given to Moses on Mt Sinai).
And as you and every person who has studied law and ethics might know there can be a lot of wriggle room around what constitutes murder and what constitutes adultery. Culture and context are huge when it comes to interpretation. A hard and fast literalist in Moses’ day, a hard and fast literalist in Jesus’ day, and a hard and fast literalist in the present-day enclave of Christian fundamentalist America, would have very different understandings of what is allowed and what is not. For example, I saw recently an American T-shirt with Jesus shooting Charles Darwin, and the caption below: “Evolve that!” Jesus an ideological murderer? Really?!
One way of treating laws and regulations is to create a strict definition (as legal systems endeavour to do) of the wrongdoing and then think everything that is not forbidden is allowable. So, beating and knifing someone to death is forbidden but general nastiness and bullying isn’t. Or, in the context of Jesus’ day, having multiple wives and treating them terribly (and at the same time using prostitutes) is okay, but having sexual relations with a woman who belongs to another man isn’t.
What this passage from the Sermon on the Mount is trying to say is that the strict definitions, created and controlled by context and culture, might be okay as far as they go, but if you want to create community wellbeing or, in the case of the emergent Jesus groups in the mid and late 1st century, a new understanding of family whereby we are different from yet interdependent and connected to each other, then we need to examine what leads to murder and what leads to adultery.
And while the writer of this text identifies anger as the cause of murder, and lust the cause of adultery, we and most psychotherapists today would want to go a little bit further and ask what causes anger and what causes lust, and are these causes universal in each and every case of murder or divorce? For example, in today’s context, not many of us would say lust is the primary cause of divorce! There can be multiple reasons for divorce, not all of which be labelled as the fault of either one of the parties concerned.
The important point I take from this Matthean passage is the importance of asking ‘Why?’ Not just ‘Why did that person commit murder?’, but ‘What gave rise to the murder?’ ‘Was it anger?’ And ‘What then gave rise to the anger?’ And ‘Was the anger understandable (let’s say, a response to violence), even if it set in train a murderous outcome?
The purpose of such questioning though is not, like in a legal system, to determine motive and therefore determine what punishment and redress is appropriate, but in order to find what is needed for the healing of the offender, the healing of the victim’s family and friends, and the healing of the whole community. A murder sends destructive shock waves through families and communities. Despite what some movies propagate no one wins when it comes to murder. Death is not a solution, though it can be a relief.
What the text points us to, after the question (and prerequisite) of ‘Why?’, is the question of ‘What is needed in order for there to be reconciliation?’. And the answer to that, as restorative justice facilitators know, is not a simple blaming, or admitting blame, or consigning someone to ‘the hell of fire’. Healing can be complex – recognising the inheritance of dysfunctional family systems and/or mental ill-health, and the systematic entrapment of poverty, prejudice, abuse, and other factors. To name these things is not to duck personal responsibility, but when healing is the goal it is best to recognize and try to address all the contributing factors.
And in case you’re wondering, cutting off an arm or plucking out an eye doesn’t solve anything, and indeed creates more problems and pain.
Let’s talk adultery and lust. These words come preloaded with judgemental presumptions, and thus today are best used sparingly, if at all.
In the biblical times we are firmly in the male privileged world called patriarchy. Wives were part of a man’s property portfolio. They cost men money and they were investments. They were investments for their breeding ability and, importantly, the alliances with their family of origin. A man with many wives (and in earlier days with concubines) was a wealthy man.
So, a wise man looked after his investments, provided for and took care of them. And, from some biblical stories, we get glimpses of what might have been genuine affection between some men and some of their wives or concubines. But don’t for minute imagine there was mutuality in these relationships.
A foolish man, on the other hand, was not content with the wives he had, and maybe could not afford a new one, and was not content with satiating his desire to possess with his wife(s) or prostitutes. So, he instigated an affair with another man’s wife or daughter (daughters belonged to fathers).
It is telling that such a foolish man was King David, so revered in the legends of Israel. Don’t for a minute imagine, as some songs and male mythmaking suggest, that his relationship with Bathsheba was a love affair or that Bathsheba seduced him. She belonged to another man (Uriah), and David wanted to possess her. This is not mutual love. This is male dysfunction and power playing. And the Bible doesn’t call this lust, it calls it greed. Not content with the property and resources one has but wanting more, and what the Jones’ (or Uriah’s) have.
I think it is important to say two things about v 32 which literally reads as a prohibition on divorce.
Firstly, in the patriarchal context of 1st century Palestine this alludes to a debate amongst rabbis about the grounds of divorce. One side wanted to let men divorce their wives for pretty much any reason. So, if you burn the chops you’re out. And out meant shamed, and with no security. The other side, which Jesus was on, wanted to make it harder for men to divorce their wives, thus giving more security for the women. Note: women did not and could not divorce men.
Secondly, this verse is important in the contemporary struggle of churches to support and celebrate same-gender relationships. For while here the historical Jesus literally condemns divorce, nearly all the churches of the Protestant world have now ruled in their laws and statutes to disagree with Jesus. ‘Jesus’, they said, ‘spoke into a context. His context is not our context. We instead believe that our response to marriage breakdown and divorce should be primarily led by compassion, seeking healing and restoration for all those involved. Leave any judging to God.’
So, and this is why its important regarding justice and hope for Queer communities today, verses in the Bible, at some times and in some places, can be ignored. Should be ignored. Said to be wrong even. Or as the author of the 4th Gospel might say, ‘the spirit is leading us into all truth’ (meaning all truth is not contained in the Bible).
This morning I also want to make a comment about the early verses in this chapter about salt and light. These are being used as positive metaphors – telling Jesus followers to be ‘salt of the earth’ and ‘light to the world’.
The role of salt in cooking, particularly in ancient times, was to draw out the flavour, enhancing it. Too much salt makes one vomit. Similarly with light, which is less something you want to see directly, and more something by which you see all other things.
So, both metaphors do not encourage those who are salt and light to change or compel everyone to be like them. Rather salt works for the benefit of the whole meal in all its variegated wonder. Light works for the benefit of all in the room to see each other more clearly. The role of Jesus groups similarly is to help make society better for everyone – drawing out the good, seeing each other – rather than take over society.
As Stanley Hauerwas (an American theologian of the evangelical left) in his meditation on salt says, “Although there may be no particular virtue in the church being small and insignificant (as the world measures size and significance), the church ought to have the honesty to admit that we don’t seem to do too well when we are the dominant majority or when we are invited to have lunch with the President at the White house.” Further Hauerwas says, “We Christians have never handled success very well. We seem to be at our best as salt, as a struggling congregation in low-social economic neighbourhood, rather than as some (great and important cathedral adorning the avenues of power).”
When we then take these salt and light metaphors and apply them to the legal and ethical questions around the commandments concerning murder and adultery, maybe the author is encouraging us not to take the powerful roles of judges or other decision-makers who might ascribe guilt or innocence, or penance or punishment. But rather to bring to these places of pain, heartache, and fracture the salt and light of empathy (to all parties), compassion, and the need for communal and community restoration and healing.
And the question and challenge we are left with is: How will we be such salt and light – such restorative love and healing (grounded in compassion) – in our time and place, with the legal, ethical, theological, and political issues and suffering around us? Or to abridge the words of the Franciscan Richard Rohr: “Our job is to be a shining truth, a savoury salt, to live open and exposed on the hilltop for others to see, to offer “flavour” to this fractured and troubled world.” Or job is not to solve the world’s problems, or create new improved legal or political systems. Our job is to live the way of love and healing, which might then bring forth new ways of thinking and hope for all.
The Ways of Love and Healing
Glynn Cardy 12th Feb 2023
Some verses in the Bible are a little difficult to ignore. Even if we don’t believe them, even if we think they are hyperbole, even if we would prefer to have them deleted, they still bug us, annoy us. So, before you consign yourself to ‘the hell of fire’, or pluck out your eye or cut off your hand, let me say a couple of things about this text today on murder and adultery.
The Jesus presented in Matthew’s Gospel is a faithful Jew who has not come to do away with the law. And as you and every Sunday School scholar might remember murder and adultery are numbers six and seven in the big Ten Commandments (allegedly given to Moses on Mt Sinai).
And as you and every person who has studied law and ethics might know there can be a lot of wriggle room around what constitutes murder and what constitutes adultery. Culture and context are huge when it comes to interpretation. A hard and fast literalist in Moses’ day, a hard and fast literalist in Jesus’ day, and a hard and fast literalist in the present-day enclave of Christian fundamentalist America, would have very different understandings of what is allowed and what is not. For example, I saw recently an American T-shirt with Jesus shooting Charles Darwin, and the caption below: “Evolve that!” Jesus an ideological murderer? Really?!
One way of treating laws and regulations is to create a strict definition (as legal systems endeavour to do) of the wrongdoing and then think everything that is not forbidden is allowable. So, beating and knifing someone to death is forbidden but general nastiness and bullying isn’t. Or, in the context of Jesus’ day, having multiple wives and treating them terribly (and at the same time using prostitutes) is okay, but having sexual relations with a woman who belongs to another man isn’t.
What this passage from the Sermon on the Mount is trying to say is that the strict definitions, created and controlled by context and culture, might be okay as far as they go, but if you want to create community wellbeing or, in the case of the emergent Jesus groups in the mid and late 1st century, a new understanding of family whereby we are different from yet interdependent and connected to each other, then we need to examine what leads to murder and what leads to adultery.
And while the writer of this text identifies anger as the cause of murder, and lust the cause of adultery, we and most psychotherapists today would want to go a little bit further and ask what causes anger and what causes lust, and are these causes universal in each and every case of murder or divorce? For example, in today’s context, not many of us would say lust is the primary cause of divorce! There can be multiple reasons for divorce, not all of which be labelled as the fault of either one of the parties concerned.
The important point I take from this Matthean passage is the importance of asking ‘Why?’ Not just ‘Why did that person commit murder?’, but ‘What gave rise to the murder?’ ‘Was it anger?’ And ‘What then gave rise to the anger?’ And ‘Was the anger understandable (let’s say, a response to violence), even if it set in train a murderous outcome?
The purpose of such questioning though is not, like in a legal system, to determine motive and therefore determine what punishment and redress is appropriate, but in order to find what is needed for the healing of the offender, the healing of the victim’s family and friends, and the healing of the whole community. A murder sends destructive shock waves through families and communities. Despite what some movies propagate no one wins when it comes to murder. Death is not a solution, though it can be a relief.
What the text points us to, after the question (and prerequisite) of ‘Why?’, is the question of ‘What is needed in order for there to be reconciliation?’. And the answer to that, as restorative justice facilitators know, is not a simple blaming, or admitting blame, or consigning someone to ‘the hell of fire’. Healing can be complex – recognising the inheritance of dysfunctional family systems and/or mental ill-health, and the systematic entrapment of poverty, prejudice, abuse, and other factors. To name these things is not to duck personal responsibility, but when healing is the goal it is best to recognize and try to address all the contributing factors.
And in case you’re wondering, cutting off an arm or plucking out an eye doesn’t solve anything, and indeed creates more problems and pain.
Let’s talk adultery and lust. These words come preloaded with judgemental presumptions, and thus today are best used sparingly, if at all.
In the biblical times we are firmly in the male privileged world called patriarchy. Wives were part of a man’s property portfolio. They cost men money and they were investments. They were investments for their breeding ability and, importantly, the alliances with their family of origin. A man with many wives (and in earlier days with concubines) was a wealthy man.
So, a wise man looked after his investments, provided for and took care of them. And, from some biblical stories, we get glimpses of what might have been genuine affection between some men and some of their wives or concubines. But don’t for minute imagine there was mutuality in these relationships.
A foolish man, on the other hand, was not content with the wives he had, and maybe could not afford a new one, and was not content with satiating his desire to possess with his wife(s) or prostitutes. So, he instigated an affair with another man’s wife or daughter (daughters belonged to fathers).
It is telling that such a foolish man was King David, so revered in the legends of Israel. Don’t for a minute imagine, as some songs and male mythmaking suggest, that his relationship with Bathsheba was a love affair or that Bathsheba seduced him. She belonged to another man (Uriah), and David wanted to possess her. This is not mutual love. This is male dysfunction and power playing. And the Bible doesn’t call this lust, it calls it greed. Not content with the property and resources one has but wanting more, and what the Jones’ (or Uriah’s) have.
I think it is important to say two things about v 32 which literally reads as a prohibition on divorce.
Firstly, in the patriarchal context of 1st century Palestine this alludes to a debate amongst rabbis about the grounds of divorce. One side wanted to let men divorce their wives for pretty much any reason. So, if you burn the chops you’re out. And out meant shamed, and with no security. The other side, which Jesus was on, wanted to make it harder for men to divorce their wives, thus giving more security for the women. Note: women did not and could not divorce men.
Secondly, this verse is important in the contemporary struggle of churches to support and celebrate same-gender relationships. For while here the historical Jesus literally condemns divorce, nearly all the churches of the Protestant world have now ruled in their laws and statutes to disagree with Jesus. ‘Jesus’, they said, ‘spoke into a context. His context is not our context. We instead believe that our response to marriage breakdown and divorce should be primarily led by compassion, seeking healing and restoration for all those involved. Leave any judging to God.’
So, and this is why its important regarding justice and hope for Queer communities today, verses in the Bible, at some times and in some places, can be ignored. Should be ignored. Said to be wrong even. Or as the author of the 4th Gospel might say, ‘the spirit is leading us into all truth’ (meaning all truth is not contained in the Bible).
This morning I also want to make a comment about the early verses in this chapter about salt and light. These are being used as positive metaphors – telling Jesus followers to be ‘salt of the earth’ and ‘light to the world’.
The role of salt in cooking, particularly in ancient times, was to draw out the flavour, enhancing it. Too much salt makes one vomit. Similarly with light, which is less something you want to see directly, and more something by which you see all other things.
So, both metaphors do not encourage those who are salt and light to change or compel everyone to be like them. Rather salt works for the benefit of the whole meal in all its variegated wonder. Light works for the benefit of all in the room to see each other more clearly. The role of Jesus groups similarly is to help make society better for everyone – drawing out the good, seeing each other – rather than take over society.
As Stanley Hauerwas (an American theologian of the evangelical left) in his meditation on salt says, “Although there may be no particular virtue in the church being small and insignificant (as the world measures size and significance), the church ought to have the honesty to admit that we don’t seem to do too well when we are the dominant majority or when we are invited to have lunch with the President at the White house.” Further Hauerwas says, “We Christians have never handled success very well. We seem to be at our best as salt, as a struggling congregation in low-social economic neighbourhood, rather than as some (great and important cathedral adorning the avenues of power).”
When we then take these salt and light metaphors and apply them to the legal and ethical questions around the commandments concerning murder and adultery, maybe the author is encouraging us not to take the powerful roles of judges or other decision-makers who might ascribe guilt or innocence, or penance or punishment. But rather to bring to these places of pain, heartache, and fracture the salt and light of empathy (to all parties), compassion, and the need for communal and community restoration and healing.
And the question and challenge we are left with is: How will we be such salt and light – such restorative love and healing (grounded in compassion) – in our time and place, with the legal, ethical, theological, and political issues and suffering around us? Or to abridge the words of the Franciscan Richard Rohr: “Our job is to be a shining truth, a savoury salt, to live open and exposed on the hilltop for others to see, to offer “flavour” to this fractured and troubled world.” Or job is not to solve the world’s problems, or create new improved legal or political systems. Our job is to live the way of love and healing, which might then bring forth new ways of thinking and hope for all.
