Well, this is the sermon that I WOULD have delivered this morning, if I hadn't been too sick to barely stand up :o(
And now, back to bed for me....
~Tracy
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Sermon for Oct. 8, 2006
Genesis 2:18-24 Link to text of this passage (NRSV)
Mark 10:2-9 Link to text of this passage (NRSV)
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord our Redeemer.
The Old Testament reading and the Gospel for this morning are some of the most well-known passages in the Christian scriptures. Even many people who do not attend church regularly are probably familiar with these passages, having heard them recited numerous times at weddings in the Christian tradition: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh." (Genesis 2:24)
Some parts of these passages, like the closing line from Mark, are even integrated directly into the wedding service -- after pronouncing a couple husband and wife, the priest or minister often says, "Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." (Mark 10:9)
For centuries, these passages have informed Christians' understandings of the sacredness of marriage. In the Book of Genesis, we read about the origins of marriage and human companionship in the very order of creation, as a part of God's original design for human relationships. And in the Gospels, we see Jesus affirming faithful and lasting marriage as in line with God's intentions for the human experience.
However, these same passages that affirm the goodness of deep and intimate human companionship have been used, in the past and still today, to justify human relationships that are NOT good or life-giving.
The Genesis 2 passage we read today has been used to justify views of women as inferior to men. And though the lectionary for today cuts off the passage from Mark after the "let no one separate" line, in verses 10 and 11 Jesus goes on to elaborate: "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery." (Mark 10:10-11) Verses like these have been misused in encouraging women (and men) to remain in abusive marriages rather than get a divorce.
Given this history of what I would call the "theologically abuse" interpretation of these scriptures, it is no wonder that some Christians prefer to stay away from them. I will be traveling to Louisville, Ky. next weekend for my college roommate's wedding. On Saturday, she will be marrying a recently-ordained Methodist minister. When they were choosing scripture passages for their ceremony, my friend wanted to use this passage from Genesis 2, but her fiancé refused, saying it was too patriarchal.
How many of you have heard someone say that since the scripture tells us that woman was created to be a "helper" to man, that a woman's role is to wait on her husband hand and foot? Or that since woman was created second, and since she was created FROM the man, that she is therefore inferior to him?
Much of the interpretation about a woman's proper 'role' or 'place' in the scheme of creation as illustrated in Genesis 2 centers on the words used to describe what exactly God is creating for the man when he creates the woman. One of the things I learned in my Hebrew class in college is that sometimes the translation of just ONE or TWO words can make a huge difference in the meaning of a passage. My Hebrew professor used to tell us that his goal in teaching us biblical Hebrew was to get us to a point where we were no longer "slaves to the translation." Having access to the Bible in its original language frees us from the biases inherent in any English approximation of the meaning of the Hebrew words. This is one of those instances. Now, I promise I won't be this tedious every time I preach, but bear with me here on a little word study, because it has such important ramifications for how this passage is used and understood.
In the original Genesis text, written in Hebrew, the phrase used to describe the woman is 'ezer kenegdo. To give you an idea of the variety of ways this phrase can be translated, let's look at several different translations of this phrase:
Our lectionary uses the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, which translates that phrase as "a helper as his partner."
King James Version (KJV): "a help meet for him."
New International Version (NIV): "a helper suitable for him."
Contemporary English Version: "a suitable partner for him."
Holman Christian Standard Bible: "a helper who is like him."
Obviously, "a suitable partner for him" has a much different connotation than "a help meet for him." Now, you might wonder, is the Contemporary English version translating the word as "partner" simply to be more "P.C." in the modern world, when text REALLY meant for a woman to be a "helper" to the man? If we look at the original meanings of the Hebrew words, it will help us to understand where these different translations are coming from.
'Ezer is the word often translated as "help" or "helper," but it does not mean a "helper" who is an inferior servant to another. In fact, the only other uses of 'ezer in the Old Testament are in describing the "help" that comes from God or military allies. In the psalms, we often hear things like, "The Lord is my help and my salvation." The Hebrew word for "help" in that context is the same as the word used to describe the woman in Genesis 2. The word 'ezer comes from a root that means to surround, protect, or defend; to "aid" or "help" as an army would "help" a city being sieged by an enemy. It connotes strength and power. The scripture is not referring to a "woman, go get my dinner" kind of "help" here! And isn't it interesting that a word elsewhere associated with God and military power is used to describe the how the woman will relate to the man, given our traditional ideas that a man is the one who "protects" or "defends" a woman?
The second word of the phrase used to describe the woman is kenegdo. This passage is the only place this word appears in the Bible, and its meaning is a bit less clear. It can be translated several different ways: opposite, against, corresponding to, face to face, matching, or counterpart to. As we saw earlier, the King James Version translates this phrase as "I will create a help meet for him." Although "help meet" (which later became "help MATE") has been used as a noun meaning a serving, submissive wife, in this context, "meet" actually describes the KIND of "help" God is going to create for the man.
Here's a case where knowledge of "Rite I" English is going to help you. When we begin the Eucharistic prayer and the priest says, "Let us give thanks to the Lord our God," in the Rite I liturgy, we all respond, "It is meet and right so to do." Do you know what "meet" means there? It means "suitable" or "appropriate" -- it is suitable or appropriate to give thanks to God. In this passage from Genesis, the translators of the King James Version were telling us -- in 16th century British English -- that in the creation of woman, God is creating a "SUITABLE or appropriate help" for the man. In fact, that's just what the New International Version (NIV) says: "I will make a helper suitable for him."
But other scholars say that "suitable" is not really the best translation of the original Hebrew word, kenegdo. Remember, that phrase literally means "face to face," "corresponding to," or "counterpart." As revisions were made in more recent translations, scholars translated the phrase "a helper as his partner" (NRSV) or "a helper who is like him" (Holman Christian Standard Bible), since the Hebrew word connotes a sense of corresponding or matching -- a sense of equality that is more accurately represented in English by our word "partner."
Since the word for help (ezer) was often used to describe the kind of help in which the giver of the help was greater than the one receiving it, as in God helping us, the use of kenegdo is a qualifier -- the woman is to be a help, but a help corresponding to the man, not a help greater than the man, as God helps people, but a human-to-human helper. This word establishes a sense of equality and sameness between the man and the woman -- they are on the same level, the same playing field. One is not higher than the other in the way that God is a higher help to us. Maybe with this understanding of the Hebrew words' meaning, my friend's fiancé might reconsider his labeling of this passage as "too patriarchal" for use in his wedding!
So when Jesus references this passage of scripture in his answer to the Pharisees' question on divorce, he is calling forth all these notions of the sacredness of the healthy and life-giving partnership between men and women that that the original Hebrew scriptures intended.
When Jesus goes on in verses 10 and 11 to say that anyone who divorces someone and marries someone else commits adultery, he is using strong language to drive home his point. This is another instance, just like the passage Father Bob preached on last week where Jesus said to cut off your hand if it causes you to stumble, where we must take this passage of scripture in the context of everything else we know about Jesus. Do you think Jesus would want a woman (or a man) to stay in a relationship that had become physically, emotionally or spiritually abusive? I don't think so! In making this strong statement against divorce, Jesus is not saying that divorce NEVER permissible -- in fact, he acknowledges that the law of Moses does allow for divorce, but he says that this provision was given to people because of their "hardness of heart." Obviously, people are not perfect, and sometimes our hearts ARE hardened and it is impossible for us to work things out with another person. Jesus acknowledges that fact. But this does not mean that this is what God WANTS human relationships to be. Jesus affirms that God's INTENTION for marriage is for "the two to become one" in a long-lasting, healthy and life-giving partnership, and he uses strong language to emphasize that this commitment should be taken seriously.
But the message in these scriptures reaches beyond just issues of marriage and divorce; it also speaks to the way all human beings are to relate to one another. My friend who is getting married next weekend said one of the main reasons she wanted to use the Genesis passage in her ceremony was because of its assertion that "it is not good for man (or any person) to be alone." She said she remembered back when she was a "lonely pre-teen" that it meant a lot to her when she heard someone interpret this passage, saying that "being alone was the first thing God ever condemned." God intends for us to live together in life-giving partnerships, whether marriage or friendships, and to be each other's ezer, each other's help -- each other's strength and power in times of trouble. We can live out the spirit of these scriptures in our relationships with others no matter what our marital status, remembering that God's intention for humanity is that we should live in life-giving community with one another.
Let's close with prayer.
Lord, we thank you for bringing us together in this community as partners in your service. Help us to be an ezer, a help and strength, to one another as we do the work you call us to do in the world, while always seeking also that help that comes only from you, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
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