As we all know, sexual ethics is a much debated topic; and just when we thought we had said all that needed to be said and had heard all we wanted to hear on the topic, we are confronted with these texts, the first on the creation of woman, or perhaps better, on the completion of humanity with the creation of men and women; and the second, in order to make the point in Genesis even sharper, Jesus’ hard saying about divorce. Anyone charged with preaching on these texts is presented with a dilemma: do I tackle the texts, or do I talk about fly fishing? Since I know next to nothing about fly fishing, I probably should say something about the texts; and since I am not called to give instruction about fly fishing, I better stick to what I am called to do. In this case, given the heated debate that still has not cooled down, that won’t be easy, but then no promise was ever given that Scriptural interpretation and proclamation of God’s word would be.

When I was in seminary, I took a course on the interpretation of Scripture for proclamation. How does one interpret Scripture so as to say what Scripture says to our own time, place and situation in life? That task is difficult, because one must not make assumptions or second-guess the text. One must check his/her preconceived notions and ideologies and clever opinions at the door, before one is even ready to read the text. As the class went about the task of interpretation and presented its findings—the course was team-taught by a couple of renown theologians, who were widely respected interpreters of Scripture in their own right—the question that was posed to a typical student after a presentation of his/her best work was: “Well, Mr/Ms Smith, this is all well and good, but now tell us, what does the text actually say? Before you came up with your brilliant analysis, did you bother to read the text!?”

What does Genesis say? “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone.’” Claus Westermann, in his highly-respected multivolume commentary on Genesis, first published in German in the ‘70’s, offers a close reading of the text. He observes that up to this point in the story there is a certain underlying tension. In his words: “Man is not yet the creature that God planned; there is something that is still ‘not good,’ namely that the man is alone…To meet this lack, God makes a new decision…; ‘I will make him a helper fit for him (or: corresponding to him).’ The details of this decision are told in two acts: the creation of the animals does not really meet the lack, but creation of the woman does. So the goal of the creation of human beings is achieved. Humankind is now man and woman as the creator named it.” Westerman, a little later in his commentary, comes back to the question of the being-alone of the man, and what being alone in the Bible signifies. He writes: “The creator considers the being-alone quite negatively: it is not good. Ecclesiastes says the same…When the prophet Jeremiah is bidden to remain alone [in chapter 16], this is meant to be a sign that God’s judgment upon his people is near. God can bid one to be alone in such extreme and circumscribed situations; but this in itself remains a negative way to the full life which is founded in community. All human community is centered around the community of man and woman.” The Bible confirms and grounds in God’s act of creation what every society knows, that marriage-and-family is the basic building block and the source of all human community. Furthermore, according to the commentator, with the creation of woman, “the creation of humankind achieves the goal intended by God; his work has now succeeded.” Thus only as humankind here reaches its intended completion with the creation of the man and the woman can the two together be said to be “one flesh.”

Moreover, if one compares this text with what is said in Genesis 1 where God said, “Let us make humankind in our own image,” two things stand out: that humankind is given dominion over everything that lives on earth, that humans are to be stewards of what God has created; and secondly, that being created in the image of God is fulfilled in the completion of humankind as male and female (“So God created humankind in his image, in the image of Gfod he created them; male and female he created them.”).

Jesus sharpens and heightens the importance of this relationship with what here in Mark’s gospel is presented as a strict prohibition of divorce. Jesus goes beyond what Moses had decreed when Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal to divorce his wife. This was necessary, Jesus says, “because of your hardness of heart,” i.e., because of sin. Jesus is calling his disciples to a higher standard beyond sin. They are to exemplify the new creation that has come about in Christ. That is the meaning of the conclusion of the passage: “whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” The disciples are to exemplify the new humanity where the possibility and necessity of divorce no longer will exist, and God’s intention for his creation of humanity will have reached its ultimate conclusion as a fitting example of God’s love for his creation.

The case against divorce up to this point seems pretty airtight. But what happens when we compare Jesus’ words in Mark with his words in Matthew? Luther was opposed to divorce, but he also had questions about it. Hear what Luther had to say in his Babylonian Captivity of the Church: “As to divorce, it is still a question whether it is allowable. For my part I so greatly detest divorce that I should prefer bigamy to it; but whether it is allowable, I do not venture to decide. Christ himself…says in Matt. 5: ‘Every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress…[etc]’…Christ then, permits divorce, but only on the ground of unchastity.” Luther then questions why there should be a ban on the remarriage of divorced persons. He says, “I wish that this subject were fully discussed and made clear and decided, so that counsel might be given…” And what do we do with those who have deserted their spouse? Are those who are deserted, though they have committed no fault, compelled to remain unmarried? Luther says, “This matter troubles and distresses me, for there are daily cases, whether by the special malice of Satan or because of our neglect of the Word of God.” Paul had counseled that a believing spouse may separate from the unbelieving spouse. But, Luther asks, what if the believing spouse, a believer in name only Luther adds, should desert his/her spouse? In both cases, and not just in the one case according to Luther, the deserted spouse should be allowed to remarry. Given that there had been no resolution of these important matters, Luther concludes the section on marriage, “Therefore I hang up my lyre on this matter until a better man confers with me about it.”

A couple of observations and comments: What is noteworthy is that, on the one hand, Scripture is pretty clear that the basic complementarity and relationship of men and women is of the very structure of the created order; hence, the proscription of divorce. In the NT that relationship is also of the new order that is being brought into being through Christ; hence, the seeminly harsh saying of Jesus in Mark’s gospel. And yet, the world has not yet been brought to its fulfillment. Sin still abounds. Structures and relationships do not always conform even to biblical expextations. The permissibility of divorce, also found in Scipture, indeed in the very words of Jesus, which in Matthew’s gospel may be granted under certain specified circumstances, acknowledges this reality.

Luther is visacerally opposed to divorce, and yet can grant that certain circumstances require more discussion about a range of possible solutions and a certain degree of flexibility in practice to meet very real pastoral needs and human suffering.

It is not good for the man to be alone. There exists a tension, not between what is given and what needs to be changed—it would be too easy and wrong to put it that way, for what is given by the creator is what will be fulfilled in Christ—but there is a tension between the command, gift, and intention of God for human community, an intention inherent in the completion of humanity in the creation of the man and the woman for each other, an intention that will suceed in the love of Christ; and on the other hand, the sinful, imperfect, and the often simply incongruous and inexplainable human situations that only God can reconcile and perfect. It must be our fervent hope that the living Christ will indeed soon reconcile and perfect us all with his love, as we struggle together to remain faithful to his will and word.

-Amen-