Hello and welcome to Thursday’s podcast, I’m Bryony and this week we’ve been exploring together what Jesus’ power looks like in the world. We’ve seen the power of faith, the power of position and the power of forgiveness, three radical life transforming areas that Jesus speaks into. Today we are going to look at the power of restoration.

REFLECTION:

Now right up the top I want to say that today’s passage is a hard, much debated one in the church. But more than that it’s a passage which is deeply personal for some. Today we are going to be hearing Jesus’ word on divorce. Let’s acknowledge straight away that I am not going to unpack this completely in 8 minutes, I’m not going to go into the pastoral ins and outs of divorce. So if this is a difficult topic for you then please do reach out to a church leader or someone you love, maybe even read this passage together and ask God to speak. What I want to do is look at what this passage tells us about Jesus and his values, and I hope to leave us going into our day with renewed hope and vision.

Ok so would you allow me to share a little history lesson? I want to rewind 100 years to before Jesus was born, there were two celebrity rabbi’s, they were the sages of the times. They were popular, people loved to hear them speak, they were the quotable stars of their day. One was called Hillel and the other Shimmai. Hillel believed in keeping to the spirit of the law, he had quite a wide reading of the Torah and Shammai liked to keep to the letter of the law. Their two ‘houses’ of thought were famous and remain so to this day. They were the super stars of their day and the theology they taught was heavily influencing Jewish practices in Jesus’ day.

It seemed though that many Jewish Rabbi’s by the time Jesus enters the scene had sided with Hillel. And even today his teachings are still used, the phrase ‘If not now, when’ is one of his most famous utterances and was even accidentally quoted by Ivanka Trump who thought it was an Emma Watson quote, I mean that story alone is wonderful!

So you have these two houses, these two powerful influential leaders and the community start discussing what you can divorce a women for. It’s worth remembering that the woman had no say here, she couldn’t call for divorce, a woman had no legal authority and the witness of a woman wasn’t even considered to be worth using in a court of law. A quote from religious writings from that time said ‘he should talk not much with womankind, he brings evil upon himself’. Yep, women were definitely not respected as members of society!

Shimmai says you can only divorce a woman if she has committed adultery, he sticks to the letter of the law. But Hillel says you can divorce a woman for all reasons even, and I quote, if ‘she burns the bread’. Hillel was saying that if anything displeases you about your wife, divorce her, and this was a dominant belief and practice in the world which Jesus was born into.

Let’s read today’s passage –

BIBLE READING: Matthew 19:1-15

When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?’

‘Haven’t you read,’ he replied, ‘that at the beginning the Creator “made them male and female,” and said, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh”? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’

‘Why then,’ they asked, ‘did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?’

Jesus replied, ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard.