Faithfulness

Day 8

Faithfulness

 

God’s original plan for His creation was always faithfulness. His faithfulness mirrored by ours…  like diamond-reflected-light splashing around everywhere.

But we, all of us on this earth right here and now, comprehend daily that this world is not the one He created for us. We are not the human beings He created us to be. Not fully. Not yet.

In 2021, the average divorce rate in the United Kingdom was 42%* and Family breakdown has been estimated to cost the UK taxpayer £51 billion per year due to the knock on effects such as effects on health, housing support, legal aid and lost work hours’*

In the United States close to 50 percent of all marriages will end in divorce or separation (41 percent of all first marriages, 60 percent of second marriages and 73 percent of all third marriages end in divorce).*

And though in the US people with no religion are less likely to marry and more likely to divorce than individuals with religious beliefs, the religion with the highest divorced population is Evangelical Protestant Christianity. Evangelical Protestant Christians divorce at a higher rate than any other religious group and more than double the percentage rate of Hindus.*

God is still unwavering in His faithfulness to His good intention for Humankind, as spelled out here with His high standard for human faithfulness. But we are still on this journey of becoming, or rather re-becoming who we are: Human beings alive in our God-given breath, reflecting the image of God within us, like diamond-reflected-light splashing around everywhere.

So in this post-fall world, where the knowledge of good and the knowledge of evil are mixed together, where our experience of life is mixed with so much pain and brokenness, when God incarnate says ‘Faithfulness is the way’– it can feel like we’ll just have to take His word for it, because for many we know and love, this can feel like an impossibility.

Jesus’ command about divorce and His call to absolute faithfulness is the only command in the Sermon on the Mount that He doesn’t have the third part of the triad structure included. He begins with the first of the two parts, ‘It has been said, “Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.” followed by the second “But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.’ (Matthew 5:31-32). But it appears that the transforming initiative is not present. Jesus draws a line under faithfulness in marriage but doesn’t in the same breath describe how to get there as He has done in so many of the other commands in this Mountainside Sermon.

However, this passage is clearly sandwiched between His teaching against lust which leads to adultery, and His teaching on maintaining a deep commitment to integrity and the keeping of our promises. And Jesus’ words hold water.

It is interesting that in one recent study* they found that 60% of couples revealed adultery as the reason their marriage ended* and 75% of couples cite a simple ‘lack of commitment’ as the cause of their marriage failure.

Though Jesus ‘transforming initiative’ may have been less immediately explicit in this passage on divorce, what we mean by our words is spelled out most clearly in our actions: What we do.

Let’s look over Jesus’ shoulder as He related to the woman at the well in the Gospel of John (chapter 4).

This woman Jesus met at this well this day was both divorced and unfaithful and in all likelihood an outcast in her community because of this. She had had five husbands, and was with a sixth (John 4:18).

And yet rather than admonishing her for marital unfaithfulness Jesus drew her towards Him with conversation and care. He didn’t allow her to hide the truth about her situation though,

” He told her, ‘Go, call your husband and come back.’

 ‘I have no husband,’ she replied.

Jesus said to her, ‘You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.’ John 4:16-18

But though Jesus encouraged her to be transparent with her brokenness, her experience of the transaction was that she felt so deeply seen and valued by Jesus that…

“Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done. Could this be the Messiah?” John 4:28-29 

She returns to the town from which she was an outcast, to tell them about Jesus.

We never discover what happened with her marital relationships. All we know is that she believed Jesus and drew others to Him.

In Jesus, the truths of the Kingdom are always framed by the values of the Kingdom- justice, truth, mercy, grace and lovingkindness.

The heart of God holding both justice and mercy and lovingkindness together in one rhythmic beat, pulses in the heart of His Son, as He lives the words spoken of Him in John…

‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.’

John 1:14

Judgement never draws people to grow. Only love does. The imperatives in the Sermon on The Mount are the treasured truths describing what goodness looks like and the life Jesus calls His people to live. But we live these only in and by His releasing and empowering grace and love.

One of the charges Jesus laid at the feet of the Pharisees was that they followed the letter of the Law but not the spirit of it.

‘While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’

On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill. But go and learn what this means: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’

Matthew 9:10-13

Generosity and loving concern is the spirit of all of Jesus’ interactions with Human beings (even the strict ones) and is the spirit with which Christ breathes out these commands in His Sermon on this mountainside this day.

If we point with harsh and judging tones to any of the imperatives in the Sermon on the Mount we undermine the message of it entirely. We need to view all of them through the Lens of God’s own heart… a heart that beats with justice, mercy and lovingkindness.

But as Jesus has already said, He has come to fulfil the law, not to give us permission to ignore it. But then that’s the point- it is He who fulfils it in us. Apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5).

God doesn’t teach against divorce because He is un-empathetic or unaware of our human struggles in relationships. He teaches faithfulness because He Himself is deeply faithful to who He created us to be. In the beginning.

In Matthew chapter 19 Jesus reveals this clearly…

‘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. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.’

Matthew 19:3-8

Here Jesus points past the law of Moses back to God’s true and first intentions for humankind. He points to the reality of the garden- before the fall, our reality with Him. And in so doing He reveals His intention, God’s deep intention for the whole of humankind: Complete restoration.

God is not satisfied with this patch-up existence we all live in today. Not because He’s mean, but because He loves us. He will be content only when His full and loving best intentions are realised for humankind- the plans He had for us from the beginning.

Jesus knows that He can now retell the story of who we the human race truly are and command us to live that way for one reason and one reason only: He intends (through the redemptive work of His cross, and the restorative life of His Holy Spirit) to recreate this new-creation life story in us.

God’s original plan for His creation was always faithfulness. His faithfulness mirrored by ours… Human beings alive in our God-given breath, reflecting the image of God within us, like diamond-reflected light splashing around everywhere.

Jesus’ call to true faithfulness is always administered by Him through God’s heart of mercy and loving-kindness.

His faithfulness fuelling true faithfulness in us. 

 

How Jesus modelled relating to a Divorced Person…

 

 

 

Journaling the Journey 

God is a faithful God and He calls us to faithfulness in all our human relationships.

Adultery and divorce don’t usually happen in a vacuum. Faithfulness in small ways leads to faithfulness in larger ones.

In what other ways (besides adultery and divorce) is it possible to be unfaithful to your primary relationships?

Name some small acts of faithfulness to your primary relationships that have a strengthening  impact on their experience of your relationship with them.

 

Today’s Mountainside photograph is taken from Sugarloaf Mountain in Wales, UK.

 

References

¹ *’How Many Marriages end in Divorce in the UK?’ Harbour Family Law, http://www.harbourfamilylaw.co.uk/how-many-marriages-end-in-divorce-in-the-uk

² *’UK Divorce Statistics 2023, Divorce solicitors, Crisp & Co, take a look at the newly released ONS divorce statistics, breaking down the key data    http://www.crispandco.com/site/divorce-statistics

³ *DIVORCE STATISTICS: OVER 115 STUDIES, FACTS AND RATES FOR 2024, http://www.wflawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts

⁴ *Pew Research. The link between a college education and a lasting marriage

⁵ *“It may be stating the obvious point out that if people knew how to control their bodily lusts on the one hand (verses 27-30) and were committed to complete integrity and truth telling the other (verses 33-37), there would be fewer, if any divorces. Divorce normally happens when lust and lies have been allowed to grow up like weeds and choke the fragile and beautiful plant of marriage.’ NT Wright, ’Matthew For Everyone’, SPCK

⁶ *National Library of Medicine. List of Major Reasons for Divorce by Individuals and Couples Who Participated in PREP