Selfish separation
This week is on Malachi 2:13-16:
These verses come after a section where God calls attention to the corruption of the priests and the worldliness of their religious practices. They had begun to incorporate some other religions into their services and had started to not take God seriously. A little of this, a little of that, and suddenly they didn't have much left of what they needed.
Completely missing the point in their religiosity, they double down on their religious displays. They have long prayer meetings. They make lots of noise. They've spent the weekend with the mistress and now they think all can be paid for with a cheap bouquet of liturgical flowers on the way in the door. But it doesn't work like that, and they are confused.
At this point the message splits off into two separate threads which overlay each other. With one set of words God is delivering two intertwined messages. In the one, he is talking about what appears to be an epidemic of selfish divorces, and in the other he is talking about idolatry.
In Malachi's days, people practiced polygamy. Or more accurately, the wealthier men practiced polygamy and the poorer men never married. A man would marry young, have some kids with his first wife, and when she started showing signs of age, or they "grew apart", he would take another wife, usually of the younger variety, if he could afford one. If he could afford ten, he'd take ten. If times got tight, the menopausal first wife would have been the first to be sent away to make room for another wife, or just to consolidate operating expenses. But the first wife was also the one who had invested the most, so it was a particularly rotten thing to do.
God hates divorce. Someone who won't honor the marriage covenant is unlikely to honor the divine covenant either. God says that nobody with even a small amount of the Spirit behaves like this. He calls it violence. And yet it's a pretty seductive trap to fall into. We see a shortcut to what we want and we take it.
He brings up Abraham as an example. He and his wife wanted a child but nothing was happening. Their vision and priorities began to shift. "Maybe God didn't mean specifically that Sarah would be the mother?" "Maybe it was no accident that a slave girl of childbearing age had been placed in Sarah's care?" They agreed on an "open marriage" and the rest is history. To this day, Israel is plagued by Abraham and Sarah's mistake. Disloyalty has a price. And yet even Abraham was tempted by this practice!
Marriage laws existed to protect both parties, so people who figured out how to exploit them for their own gain were also causing problems for themselves. Gaming a system that is designed to protect you is just stupid.
And that's basically what Israel was doing to their covenant with God by bringing in these other religious practices. God was like the wife of their youth. They had been together from the beginning. But after centuries, faced with the multicultural temptations of the neighboring cultures, they had decided that "the magic was gone." But they were bound by the covenant they had made with God, and he had been faithful all along, since the beginning!
In this context, when God brings up Abraham, he may mean Abraham's faithfulness to the promise of children by Sarah. He didn't divorce her or abandon her, and she never lost her preferential position in his family. Even his mistake with Hagar was pre-approved by Sarah. In the long term, Abraham was faithful to his covenant with God. Deviation didn't pay.
Nobody who has even a small amount of the Spirit runs after false religions. Better to listen to our conscience than to the worldly "wisdom" being thrown at us to lead us astray. God hates divorce. Separating from us would mean we would spend an eternity in hell. Nobody wants someone they love to suffer in separation forever.
It is the height of selfishness to send away your long term earthly companion to tend to your short term needs, whether that companion is human or divine. Is there anything we do that we feel we need to send God away to make room for? When time and money are tight, do we spend more on entertainment than we do on the things that God asks of us? We bend the rules until they break, but they were designed to protect us! Who are we really hurting?
God tells us to pay attention, listen to his spirit, and to be faithful. Don't turn your back on the God who has had your back from the beginning.
You also do this: You cover the altar of the Lord with tears as you weep and groan, because he no longer pays any attention to the offering nor accepts it favorably from you. Yet you ask, “Why?” The Lord is testifying against you on behalf of the wife you married when you were young, to whom you have become unfaithful even though she is your companion and wife by law. No one who has even a small portion of the Spirit in him does this. What did our ancestor do when seeking a child from God? Be attentive, then, to your own spirit, for one should not be disloyal to the wife he took in his youth. “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and the one who is guilty of violence,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. “Pay attention to your conscience, and do not be unfaithful.”
These verses come after a section where God calls attention to the corruption of the priests and the worldliness of their religious practices. They had begun to incorporate some other religions into their services and had started to not take God seriously. A little of this, a little of that, and suddenly they didn't have much left of what they needed.
Completely missing the point in their religiosity, they double down on their religious displays. They have long prayer meetings. They make lots of noise. They've spent the weekend with the mistress and now they think all can be paid for with a cheap bouquet of liturgical flowers on the way in the door. But it doesn't work like that, and they are confused.
At this point the message splits off into two separate threads which overlay each other. With one set of words God is delivering two intertwined messages. In the one, he is talking about what appears to be an epidemic of selfish divorces, and in the other he is talking about idolatry.
In Malachi's days, people practiced polygamy. Or more accurately, the wealthier men practiced polygamy and the poorer men never married. A man would marry young, have some kids with his first wife, and when she started showing signs of age, or they "grew apart", he would take another wife, usually of the younger variety, if he could afford one. If he could afford ten, he'd take ten. If times got tight, the menopausal first wife would have been the first to be sent away to make room for another wife, or just to consolidate operating expenses. But the first wife was also the one who had invested the most, so it was a particularly rotten thing to do.
God hates divorce. Someone who won't honor the marriage covenant is unlikely to honor the divine covenant either. God says that nobody with even a small amount of the Spirit behaves like this. He calls it violence. And yet it's a pretty seductive trap to fall into. We see a shortcut to what we want and we take it.
He brings up Abraham as an example. He and his wife wanted a child but nothing was happening. Their vision and priorities began to shift. "Maybe God didn't mean specifically that Sarah would be the mother?" "Maybe it was no accident that a slave girl of childbearing age had been placed in Sarah's care?" They agreed on an "open marriage" and the rest is history. To this day, Israel is plagued by Abraham and Sarah's mistake. Disloyalty has a price. And yet even Abraham was tempted by this practice!
Marriage laws existed to protect both parties, so people who figured out how to exploit them for their own gain were also causing problems for themselves. Gaming a system that is designed to protect you is just stupid.
And that's basically what Israel was doing to their covenant with God by bringing in these other religious practices. God was like the wife of their youth. They had been together from the beginning. But after centuries, faced with the multicultural temptations of the neighboring cultures, they had decided that "the magic was gone." But they were bound by the covenant they had made with God, and he had been faithful all along, since the beginning!
In this context, when God brings up Abraham, he may mean Abraham's faithfulness to the promise of children by Sarah. He didn't divorce her or abandon her, and she never lost her preferential position in his family. Even his mistake with Hagar was pre-approved by Sarah. In the long term, Abraham was faithful to his covenant with God. Deviation didn't pay.
Nobody who has even a small amount of the Spirit runs after false religions. Better to listen to our conscience than to the worldly "wisdom" being thrown at us to lead us astray. God hates divorce. Separating from us would mean we would spend an eternity in hell. Nobody wants someone they love to suffer in separation forever.
It is the height of selfishness to send away your long term earthly companion to tend to your short term needs, whether that companion is human or divine. Is there anything we do that we feel we need to send God away to make room for? When time and money are tight, do we spend more on entertainment than we do on the things that God asks of us? We bend the rules until they break, but they were designed to protect us! Who are we really hurting?
God tells us to pay attention, listen to his spirit, and to be faithful. Don't turn your back on the God who has had your back from the beginning.
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