Year B — Proper 22

The Rev. Gerald W. Keucher

When Fr. Walsted and I went to Christ Church on Staten Island, there was a community theatre group that used a lot of the space. As the parish started to revive, we needed more of the parish house space during the week.

For years we were involved in complicated negotiations with the theatre company, and there were lots of unpleasant meetings with hostility, accusations and recriminations on both sides. Everybody was pointing to little clauses in the lease and accusing the other side of a failure to abide by the agreement. The theatre was so unbending and aggressive in its demands to use all the space all the time for next to nothing that finally the agreement was terminated, the theatre left and never found any other rehearsal or performance space, and it disbanded.

I have been in other acrimonious meetings when the parties seem intent on pointing fingers at technical failures to live up to contracts and agreements. A husband and wife talking to me said things like, "He agreed to take the garbage out, but I had to do it twice last month." Or "We had worked out a schedule for who would watch the baby, but she was two hours late last week, and she refuses to make up the time."

We've all probably been in conversations and meetings like that. Tenant and landlord disputes, next-door neighbors arguing over the boundary line, labor negotiations, and all kinds of things. In all these situations there are legal agreements with disputes over whether both sides are keeping the technicalities of the contracts.

In another meeting that I've only read about, but whose hostility I can feel in the words of the story, the Pharisees ask Jesus, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" And then they sit back and hope He'll squirm.

In all these disputes and emotional meetings that I've described, including the Pharisees' confrontation with Jesus, there is a common problem. If we look at how Jesus responded to the Pharisees, we might get a clue.

The Pharisees ask, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" Jesus says, "Yeah, as you know, there's a provision in the law for divorce, but that's for those times when people for one reason or another fail to live out what God intended.

"God intended for people to establish a relationship where two people become one flesh. God's intention is revealed in the creation story, where, even though Adam is surrounded by the glories of the whole creation, he is still alone until he can be in a relationship with another human being.

"God's intention, God's plan, God's purpose is for people to be in equal, healthy relationships of mutual self-giving."

The permission to divorce is added in order to address those situations where, because of the hardness of our hearts, we do not want what God intends, and so the relationship fails. The common problem in all the situations I've mentioned, according to Jesus, is our hardness of heart.

Now what is hardness of heart? Don't we all want the good things that God intends? Didn't the theatre want the long-term success of its organization? Don't husbands and wives want happy marriages with their partners? Didn't the Pharisees want to understand better God's purposes?

Well, not exactly, or maybe not at all. The theatre refused to compromise or to soften its demands in any way, even though that led directly to their immediate dissolution.

Husbands and wives often want things that are at odds with what will create successful marriages—maybe one wants to dominate, or one wants security, or perhaps both parties would prefer to be right than to build a marriage.

Very often, in all kinds of relationships, like the Pharisees, we want to feel justified rather than listen to God's purpose.

We must simply get it out of our heads that God's law is a bunch of rules. God's law is not rules. What we call God's law is really God's intentions for us. We do not live in accordance with God's law when we follow rules in order to justify ourselves in our own eyes and feel better than others. We live in accordance with God's law when we want for ourselves and for others the same good things that God wants for us all, and so we live as God intends.

Laws, meaning rules, as we normally understand the word, are what we come up with to address those times and situations where we fail to live according to God's intention because we want something different from what God intends. Laws are the way we try to protect ourselves against the misdirected intentions of ourselves or of others.

Take contractors, for instance. If you've ever had work done on your house or apartment, you know what I mean. The basic intentions of the transaction are clear. I want the work done well in a specified time; the contractor wants a just return on his labor. We write up contracts for the work to be done and the payments to be made in order to protect both sides from a contractor or a customer who wants something different from the basic intentions of the deal — like a contractor who wants to cut corners, or a customer who doesn't want to pay what was agreed.

We have rules and contracts because sometimes our hearts are hard and we want the wrong things. But we all really know — both from experience and deep in our hearts — that legal contracts are no substitute for people who want to do the right things. A book full of rules cannot make up for bad intentions. Our misdirected intentions — our hardness of heart — cause acrimony and broken relationships.

The point in every important relationship is not to learn the rules. "Is it lawful?" is always the wrong question. The point is not to find out if we are justified in doing what we want to do. The point is to open our eyes to what God's intention is, and then to examine our own desires to see where they deviate from God's intentions.

This is not the scary, judgmental kind of confrontation that we may have felt from the Church in the past. God's revelation of His intention for us and our discovery of how our desires deviate from God's intention come to us as we are enfolded in the arms of the One Who suffered for us and knows what it's like to be human. With Him we can face the truth about ourselves.

And that truth is not scary or full of angry judgment, although it might make us uncomfortable. The truth is simple: God created us in love and wants only good things for us. The things that we want for ourselves that are not in accordance with God's intentions cannot make us fulfilled. It is far better to name those things and let them go. Trying to hold on to them will bring us only grief and sorrow.

"Is it lawful?" and "What should I do?" are almost always misdirected questions. They are always misdirected for adults and most times for children as well. These questions must be redirected, the way Jesus tried to redirect the Pharisees' question, the way those awful meetings needed to be redirected, the way couples often need to be redirected, the way parishes must sometimes be redirected.

When we ask, "Is it lawful?" or "What should I do?" someone needs to ask us instead, "Well, what do you intend to accomplish by this course of action? And is that what you really want to have happen?" Questions like these will help us discover our real intentions and will allow us to see where our intentions fall short of the good things God wants for us.

In my observation and experience, the very act of seeing the discrepancy often gives us the will to let go of our misdirected intentions and to begin to want what God wants.

And then we can get a fresh start. That's the good news. Yes, yes, if the relationship is poisoned, or the parties do not want to mend it, yes, you can divorce. Yes, we can void the contract. Sure, we can renegotiate. But before we try again, let's look at what we really wanted. Let's see where the discrepancies were between God's good intentions and the devices and desires of our own hearts — hearts that have become hardened against such a self-examination.

And then, when we have softer hearts — hearts that really want to build lasting relationships, hearts that want to reconcile conflicts, hearts that want to share God's love — we won't need laws to browbeat us to do those good things. We will do them because we want to, and therefore, we will do them gladly.