In his 1973 book Whatever Became of Sin psychiatrist Karl Menninger notes that American presidents used to mention sin once in a while, but that none had done so since 1953. Thus at the time of publication the topic of sin had not been in presential language for 20 years. Picking up on this in 1988 United Methodist pastor Rev. Dr. Donald Strobe said, “The Republicans refer to the problems of “pride” and “self-righteousness.” The Democrats refer to “shortcomings.” But none use the grand old sweeping concept of sin anymore. Thus, it seems, we as a nation stopped sinning thirty-five years ago! And, speaking of politics: a poll on heaven and hell in the Des Moines Register awhile back found that only one Republican in 35 expects to end up in hell, whereas one Democrat in nine assumes he will. I am not sure what that means. It may mean that it does little good to preach hellfire and brimstone to a congregation that is filled with people who don’t believe there is a chance in hell that they will end up there!” (King's Treasury of Dynamic Humor. Seven World’s Press 1990, Pg. 193-4)
The word sin is certainly a word that does not get used in society anymore. Although perhaps it is used to by one political group to refer to the actions of a different group. It is a dirty word. We don’t like it. So we don’t use it. And as a society we’ve, in our consciousness, stopped sinning. But just because you chuck out a concept doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. And just because you’ve chucked it out doesn’t mean that it isn’t ultimately helpful either.
It has often been said that you cannot legislate morality. Indeed, you can try to codify moral principles into a legal system. While you have to have some sort of legal code so that there are solid boundaries, the legal code does not create morals. People will always find ways around them. You can make the legal code ever more complex so as to close all the loopholes, but people will ever find ways around them.
And then there is the other side of legislating morality. Any overly rigid moral code will inadvertently hurt innocent people. The letter of the law may even become a trap that an innocent person cannot escape. Many a novel has been written about innocent people becoming victims inescapably trapped in social and moral codes.
You cannot legislate morality. Lots of legal things are immoral. And lots of moral things may fall on the wrong side of the law.
Sin is a good concept to engage all of this. We may say that sin and morality are the same things. We would be right in seeing many overlaps. But they are not necessarily the same. Morals are about right and wrong conduct. Sin, in its most basic form, is about relationship with God. It is a deeper category than morality. Sin is going against God’s designs for creation and human society.
It is with this understanding that we turn to our gospel reading, which begins with Jesus being asked about divorce. Or perhaps I should say he’s being trapped by some Pharisees by using the concept of divorce. You’ll remember that according to the Old Testament law divorce was okay. Or, I should say it was okay for a man to divorce his wife. There was nothing giving a woman the right to divorce her husband. Grounds for divorce could be anything. Anything at all. Any failing or shortcoming the husband perceived from his wife was legitimate grounds. I’ve joked before that if the husband got home from work and his wife put a burnt meatloaf on the table for supper that could be grounds for divorce.
In Jesus’ day there was a debate over the legitimacy of divorce between the more conservative Shammaites and the more liberal Hillelites. Sort of like trying to trap someone into being either a Republican or a Democrat based on how they answer a moral question, so was the Pharisees question to Jesus to see which label they could apply to him. And just like today, if you can put a label onto someone you can impose all sorts of other categories onto that person as well.
Jesus is being asked a moral question that is a trap. Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? Jesus does not reply with a moral response. Jesus replies with a sin-based response. Jesus takes the issue back to relationship with God, God’s created order, and God’s designs for healthy human society. He says, “Have you not read that at the beginning the Creator 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’?”
This answer does carry moral implications, but you can see how Jesus frames it in terms of sin.
His opponents are not satisfied with this answer. They pull out scripture for their response, “Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?” Again, they are coming from a moral standpoint. They are asking about technicalities of right and wrong. They use the legal code to frame their question.
But Jesus refuses to be trapped into a moral argument. He once again responds from the point of view of sin, “It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”
Do you see how this is again a sin category based upon God’s designs for relationships? Jesus’ ongoing response confirms that, “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unchastity, and marries another commits adultery.” Now this can potentially open a whole new can of worms. That’s beyond the scope of this sermon. But again, we can see that he is rooting his thoughts in God’s designs for relationships and the fundamental breakdown of those relationships.
The relationships of a solid family were foundational to the early Christian church and the same is true today. Matthew’s text turns to that in a minute, but not before a somewhat bizarre aside from the disciples.
The disciples say in response to Jesus talking about God’s purposes in marriage, “If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.”
That response makes no sense whatsoever. Jesus just put broken marital relationships into the category of sin and not just morality. The disciples somehow think it’s a statement against marriage in general!?! It is bizarre to be sure. And if it is an historically accurate account then it leaves us puzzled. But within the storyline of Matthew it sets up the next scene with children. Jesus’ response to them is basically that those who get married to form families and those who remain single both serve purposes in God’s design. Pressure should not be applied either way.
That becomes a stepping stone that takes us to the meaning of this whole passage.
Children were brought to Jesus but the disciples turned them away. Jesus says, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” We know these words well and we love them. Let’s make sure we understand them in context. In contrast to both Jewish and pagan religious life, the Christian community encouraged participation by the whole family. There were pagan religions exclusively for men or women, but families did not participate together. Within Judaism the practices of first century synagogues are unclear. They definitely did allow for some participation of women, but not children. Boys under age twelve did not participate in worship. Girls and young women did not at all.
In the church the entire family was welcome. All had a place. All participated. Man, woman, or child… all were worthy and regarded as important. Children, with their almost total lack of status outside the church, were regarded as models of how the kingdom of God is to be received.
The church needs all people, for all are God’s children. The church also needs sin; or perhaps I should say it relies on the concepts of sin in order to make sense of the world. We build the community of the church on the foundational relationships God designed into creation, human society, and the way humans relate to creation. Ideally it is all one united community. Any and every break from it is a sin.
I think we would do well to not categorize the actions of politics, military, business, and society in general in terms of morality. That just leads to ever more divisions, ever more judgments, and ever more posturing for the moral high ground. When we see the plight of our world in terms of sin, I believe we are taking a step of seeing it how it should be. We recognize our own sinfulness. And we recognize ways that we can and should work to bring things into God’s designs.
It is unlikely that we will solve everything, or even perhaps much of anything at all, but we will be working in the right direction for God’s kingdom.
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