Day 23-26 of Being Real in 2024

One thing about the gospel of Matthew--Jesus does not give us the option of middle ground.  For or against.  Follow Me or not. Well, I should say, the middle (murky, fuzzy, halfway, ambiguous, vague in terms of belief and commitment) option is there, but it's not one that He is interested in. 

The disciples say, "if we have to stay married except for adultery and fornication" (which apparently were not usually the reasons for divorce), If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry."

Of all the things they said, that has to be one of the most telling.  In other words, "Man, you mean I can't divorce a wife becasue she gets old or doesn't give me enough children or backtalks me?"

Jesus's answer blows me away. He talks about eunuchs. I am sure that made the disciples cringe. 

¹¹ But He said to them, “All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: ¹² For there are ^[a]eunuchs who were born thus from their mother’s womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it.”

We may want to explain this away, but I am not sure it needs explaining. Eunuchs is probably in the broadest sense men who cannot have sex, either from a congenital condition or physical attack, but also you can choose to not engage in sex (and marriage) because of the kingdom. (Women could fit into this as well, but His audience is clearly Jewish men who thought Moses was excusing their sinIt is interesting this is His response to "it's better not getting married" comment. What were they thinking? Some of them were married at the time--were they thinking "I thought with Jesus I could get out of a marriage if I wanted, but now He's saying no? I mean, He talked about putting Him before the family, right?"

I was listening to the Christianity Today podcast today, The Bulletin, and a discussion about polyamory and whether it could be in the church. If you don't know what polyamory means, well, it means spouses agreeing to cheat on each other, basically. Those who do it dress it up with pseudo-therapeutic language, but it's just.... well, you fill in the blank. 

One guest said that in churches where there are hundreds and thousands of people and little to no connection and therefore community or discipleship, yes, there could be and probably is. Perhaps, I think, there would be couples where one is closer to true faith and the other is a "none" but the "none" wants to try polyamory out and the "closer one" doesn't have an argument because.... we don't talk honestly about sex.* Even now. I say, Send the kids to children's church and be as gut-wrenchingly honest about these things as the early church was and had to be.  No need for false modesty and Victorianism any more.  

Although we do talk about women being submissive, and that can be a mixed message. Submissive in the right, not the wrong.